Let not a widow be taken into the number
That is, of widows, to be maintained by the church; though some
choose to understand these words of the number of such who were
made deaconesses, and had the care of the poor widows of the
church committed to them; and so the Arabic version renders it,
"if a widow be chosen a deaconess"; but the former sense is best,
for it appears from ( 1 Timothy
5:1 1 Timothy
5:6 ) that the apostle is still speaking of widows to be
relieved: now such were not to be taken under the church's care
for relief, under threescore years old: for under this age it
might be supposed they would marry, and so not be desolate, but
would have husbands to provide for them; or they might be capable
of labour, and so of taking care of themselves. The age of sixty
years was by the Jews F24 reckoned (hnqz) , "old age", but not under.
Having been the wife of one man;
that is, at one time; for second marriages are not hereby
condemned, for this would be to condemn what the apostle
elsewhere allows, ( Romans 7:2 Romans 7:3 ) . Nor is
the sense only, that she should be one who never had more
husbands than one at once; for this was not usual for women to
have more husbands than one, even where polygamy obtained, or
where men had more wives than one: this rather therefore is to be
understood of one who had never put away her husband, and married
another, which was sometimes done among the Jews; see ( Mark 10:12 ) , and this
being a scandalous practice, the apostle was willing to put a
mark of infamy upon it, and exclude such persons who had been
guilty of it from the number of widows relieved by the church.