1 Timothy 5:5 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Now she who is a widow indeed Deprived of all support from her relations and friends. The apostle seems to allude to the signification of the word χηρα, rendered widow, which comes from χηρος, orbus, desertus, a person destitute, forsaken: and desolate Μεμονωμενη, reduced to solitude, having neither children nor grand- children to relieve her; trusteth in God Having no one else to trust in; and continueth in supplications and prayers, &c. Devotes herself wholly to the service of God, spending a great part of her time by day and night in devotion. But she who liveth in pleasure Delicately, voluptuously, in elegant regular sensuality, though not in the use of any such pleasures as are unlawful in themselves. The original word σπαταλωσα, properly signifies, faring deliciously; is dead while she liveth Both in respect of God, whom she does not serve, and in respect of her fellow-creatures, whom she does not benefit. She is spiritually dead, dead to true piety and virtue. These things give in charge For they are things which concern Christians in all circumstances and relations of life, who are too ready to seek happiness in the pursuit of sensual pleasure; that they may be blameless The gender of the word here rendered blameless shows that the Ephesian brethren, not the widows, were the persons to whom Timothy was to give these things in charge. Probably either the deacons, or Timothy's hearers in general, were intended. Indeed, in so luxurious a city as Ephesus, widows could not be the only persons who were in danger of failing into such sensualities as the apostle had been warning them against.