1 Timothy 5:9 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

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.”