Charles Ellicott Commentary 1 Peter 3:2

"beholding your chaste behavior [coupled] with fear." — 1 Peter 3:2 (ASV)

While they behold . . .—The same curious word as in 1 Peter 2:12, and the tense, which is poorly represented by “while they behold,” sets us at the moment of the triumph of the wife’s conduct, literally; having kept, or when they have kept an eye on your chaste conversation. The husband is jealously on the watch to see what his wife does who has embraced these foolish notions; at last he breaks down. Jesus must be the Messiah, or his wife could not have been so chaste!

The adjective “chaste” is here to be taken in a large sense; it is the same which enters into the verb translated “purify” in 1 Peter 1:22, and it is implied that the “fear” (i.e., of the husband; compare the Note on 1 Peter 2:18) has been an incentive to this sweet virtue; “your life so immaculate in fear,” or even almost “so timidly pure.” Leighton says, “It is a delicate, timorous grace, afraid of the least air, or shadow of anything that has but a resemblance of wronging it, in demeanor, speech, or clothing, as follows in 1 Peter 3:3–4.”