Matthew 10:14 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Whosoever shall not receive you— In Scripture, to receive one signifies to allow him the benefit of our company, to converse familiarly with him, and to do him good offices. See Luke 15:2. It signifies also to entertain one hospitably, being applied twice to Rahab's entertaining the spies, Hebrews 11:31.James 2:25. The Jews thought there was something of so peculiar a holiness in the land of Israel, that when they came home from any heathen country, they stopped at its borders, and wiped the dust of it from their shoes, that the sacred inheritance might not be polluted with it: nor would they permit herbs to be brought to them from their neighbours, lest they should bring any of the dust of their land upon them. So that the action here enjoined to the apostles of shaking off the dust was a lively intimation, that when the Jews had rejected the Gospel, they were no longer to be regarded as the people of God, but were on a level with heathens and idolaters.See Fleming's Christology, vol. 2: p. 160. Doddridge, and Calmet.