1 Timothy 5:9

5:9-16 Every one brought into any office in the church, should be free from just censure; and many are proper objects of charity, yet ought not to be employed in public services. Those who would find mercy when they are in distress, must show mercy when they are in prosperity; and those who show most readiness for every good work, are most likely to be faithful in whatever is trusted to them. Those who are idle, very seldom are only idle, they make mischief among neighbours, and sow discord among brethren. All believers are required to relieve those belonging to their families who are destitute, that the church may not be prevented from relieving such as are entirely destitute and friendless.

{9} Let not a widow be taken into the number under threescore years old, having been the wife of {b} one man, (9) The fourth rule: let none under sixty years old be taken into the number of widows, to serve the congregations or churches. And they must be those who are free from every reproach of immorality, and are well reported of, for their diligence, charity, and integrity. (b) That has only ever had one husband at a time.

1 Timothy 5:9-10 . Let not a widow be taken into the number — Καταλεγεσθω , taken upon the list of those who are to be maintained by the church, and to attend upon the sick poor, and teach the young; under threescore years old — It might, on many accounts, and for very obvious reasons, be proper that this office should be committed only to persons of an advanced age, and such as laid aside all thoughts of marrying again. Having been — Neither a harlot nor a concubine; but the wife of one man — At a time; or having chastely confined herself to one husband while in the married relation, and not divorced him and married another. See note on 1 Timothy 3:2 .

Well reported of for good works — Of different kinds; if she have brought up children — Religiously and virtuously, her own, or others who had been committed to her care; if, in her more prosperous days, she manifested a generous and hospitable disposition; and lodged Christian strangers — Who were at a loss for necessary accommodations on their journeys; if she have washed the saints’ feet — Has been ready to do the meanest offices for them; if she have relieved the afflicted — This, and some of the other good works mentioned by the apostle, being attended with great expense, the poor widows, who desired to be taken into the number, cannot be supposed to have performed them at their own charges. “I therefore suppose,” says Macknight, “the apostle is speaking of female deacons, who had been employed in the offices here mentioned at the common expense; consequently the meaning of the direction will be, that in choosing widows, Timothy was to prefer those who formerly had been employed by the church as deaconesses, and had discharged that office with faithfulness and propriety. For since these women had spent the prime of their life in the laborious offices of love mentioned by the apostle, without receiving any recompense but maintenance, it was highly reasonable, when grown old in that good service, to promote them to an honourable function, which required knowledge and experience rather than bodily strength, and which was rewarded with a liberal maintenance.”

Let not a widow be taken, into the number under threescore years old; what number he meaneth is very doubtful, whether he means the number of deaconesses, or the number of such as should receive alms from the church. Those who translate katalegesyw here chosen seem to favour the former. They say, that in the primitive church there being a want of hospials and public places for the reception of people deceased in their estates, &c., they chose some old widows to take care of the poorer sort of women when they were sick, and these also were themselves maintained by the church, and served the church in that charitable employment. Whether this number, or the more general number of widows relieved by the church, be meant, the caution of their age was very prudent: 1. Because younger widows could work for their living, and needed not to burden the church. 2. Because under those years they probably might marry again, and so become useless to the church. 3. Because after those years there could be no great fear of scandal from their wantonness and incontinency. Having been the wife of one man: this condition seems harder to be understood; for though in former times, amongst the Jews and pagans, men were allowed more wives than one at the same time, yet no laws ever allowed the woman liberty of more husbands. 2.

To understand it of women that had not been twice married, their first husbands being dead, seems hard, no law of God forbidding the second marriages of men and women successively. 3. Some therefore rather understand it of such widows as were become wives to second husbands, the first not being dead, but parted from them legally, either through their own fault, or through their voluntary desertion. This the apostle seems to forbid, to avoid reproach and scandal to the church.

1 Timothy 5:9 . Καταλεγέσθα ) let not a widow be taken into the number .— μὴ ἔλαττον ἐτῶν ἑξήκοντα ) The genitive here does not depend on the comparative, for in that case it would have been written ἔλαττων ,[40] but on ΧΉΡΑ ; ἜΛΑΤΤΟΝ (for ΚΑΤᾺ ἜΛΑΤΤΟΝ , as Lat. summum, minimum , for ad summum, ad minimum, at most, at least ) is used adverbially. So Plato, τάλαντα οὐκ ἔλαττον ἑκατόν ( at least a hundred talents; literally, a hundred talents—not less ).— ἐτῶν ἑξήκοντα , of sixty years ) The antithesis is in 1 Timothy 5:11 . Even virgins of this age might be reckoned among widows. But the apostle would by no means praise those who would thrust their younger daughters into monasteries, where they may remain from their youth up to their death.— ἑνὸς , of one ) i.e. who has been lawfully married, or has had one husband, or one and afterwards a second. [40] A widow having attained the age of sixty years—not less.—ED.

9. Translate, "As a widow (that is, of the ecclesiastical order of widowhood; a kind of female presbytery), let none be enrolled (in the catalogue) who is less than sixty years old." These were not deaconesses, who were chosen at a younger age (forty was the age fixed at the Council of Chalcedon), and who had virgins (in a later age called widows) as well as widows among them, but a band of widows set apart, though not yet formally and finally, to the service of God and the Church. Traces of such a class appear in Ac 9:41. Dorcas herself was such a one. As it was expedient (see on [2478]1Ti 3:2; Tit 1:6) that the presbyter or bishop should have been but once married, so also in her case. There is a transition here to a new subject. The reference here cannot be, as in 1Ti 5:3, to providing Church sustenance for them. For the restriction to widows above sixty would then be needless and harsh, since many widows might be in need of help at a much earlier age; as also the rule that the widow must not have been twice married, especially since he himself, below (1Ti 5:14) enjoins the younger widows to marry again; as also that she must have brought up children. Moreover, 1Ti 5:10 presupposes some competence, at least in past times, and so poor widows would be excluded, the very class requiring charity. Also, 1Ti 5:11 would then be senseless, for then their remarrying would be a benefit, not an injury, to the Church, as relieving it of the burden of their sustenance.

Tertullian [On the Veiling of Virgins, 9], Hermas [Shepherd, 1.2], and Chrysostom [Homily, 31], mention such an order of ecclesiastical widowhood, each one not less than sixty years old, and resembling the presbyters in the respect paid to them, and in some of their duties; they ministered with sympathizing counsel to other widows and to orphans, a ministry to which their own experimental knowledge of the feelings and sufferings of the bereaved adapted them, and had a general supervision of their sex. Age was doubtless a requisite in presbyters, as it is here stated to have been in presbyteresses, with a view to their influence on the younger persons of their sex They were supported by the Church, but not the only widows so supported (1Ti 5:3, 4). wife of one man—in order not to throw a stumbling-block in the way of Jews and heathen, who regarded with disfavor second marriages (see on [2479]1Ti 3:2; Tit 1:6). This is the force of "blameless," giving no offense, even in matters indifferent.

Verse 9. - Let none be enrolled as a widow for let not a widow be taken into the number , A.V. Let none be enrolled , etc. The proper translation seems certainly to be (Ellicott, Alford, Huther, etc.), let a woman be enrolled as a widow not under sixty years old ; i.e. χήρα a is the predicate, not the subject. It follows that the word "widow" here is used in a slightly different sense from that in the preceding verses, viz. in the technical sense of one belonging to the order of widows , of which it appears from the word καταλεγέσθω there was a regular roll kept in the Church. We do not know enough of the Church institutions of the apostolic age to enable us to say positively what their status or their functions were, but doubtless they were the germ from which the later development (of which see Bingham, bk. 7. 1 Timothy 4 .) took its rise. We may gather, however, from the passage before us that their lives were specially consecrated to the service of God and the Church; that they were expected to be instant and con-slant in prayer, and to devote themselves to works of charity; that the apostle did not approve of their marrying again after their having embraced this life of widowhood, and therefore would have none enrolled under sixty years of age; and generally that, once on the roll, they would continue there for their life.

Enrolled ( καταλεγέσθω ); only here in the New Testament or (in this sense) in the LXX.; but it is the regular classical word for enrolling, enlisting, soldiers, etc. Hence our word "catalogue." In like manner, in the times of the Empress Helena, the virgins of the Church are described as ἀναγεγραμμένας ἐν τῷ τῆς ἐκκλησίας κανόνι (Socr., 1:17), "registered in the Church's register," or list of virgins. Under three score years old. A similar rule was laid down in several early canons, which forbade the veiling of virgins before the age of forty . This care to prevent women from being entangled by vows or engagements which they had not well considered, or of which they did not know the full force, is in striking contrast with the system which allows young girls to make irrevocable vows. The participle γεγονυῖα , "being," belongs to this clause (not as in the A.V. to the following one), as Alford clearly shows, and as the R.V. also indicates, by putting having been in italics; though it does not translate γεγονυῖα in this clause, unless possibly the word "old" is considered as representing γεγονυῖα . It should be , Let none be enrolled as widows , being under sixty years of age . The wife of one man ; see above, 1 Timothy 3:2 , the similar phrase, "the husband of one wife" (which likewise stands without any participle), and the note there. To which may be added that it is hardly conceivable that St.