For some are already turned aside. — It was the backsliding of these “nameless” ones, probably, which had been the immediate occasion of these directions to Timothy. Although these unhappy sisters had worked such great mischief to the cause of Christ, still St. Paul, with his tender grace and love, forbore to mention any by name. They had undertaken a task too severe for them to carry out, and had miserably failed. He spares these poor erring sisters, but directs the chief pastor of the Church at Ephesus, how to guard against such fatal results for the future.
After Satan. — They had swerved from the narrow, thorny road of self-denial which they had chosen for themselves, and perhaps dreading, after their public profession, to form afresh any legal marriage ties, had followed that downward path of sensuality which surely leads to Satan.