Ye shall not afflict any widow, or fatherless child.
God’s care for the widow and fatherless
I. That widows and orphans have claims upon our regard.
1. They have claims upon our sympathy. Their stay, comfort, defence is gone. What state can be more sorrowful and helpless!
2. They have claims upon our protection and help. Our resources are only held in stewardship for God’s purposes, and to what better purpose could they be applied, both as regards its intrinsic merits and the Divine will concerning it.
II. That widows and orphans have special privileges.
1. God has legislated for them. Not in the dry and hard manner in which penal and ceremonial codes are obliged to be enacted, but in a way which throws them on the broad and better principles of humanity and love.
2. God stands in a peculiar relation to them (Psalms 68:5). In the absence of their natural guardians He takes them under His wing.
3. God is always ready to help them; to hear their cry (Exodus 22:23; Jeremiah 49:11).
III. That any oppression of the widow and fatherless will be rigorously punished (Exodus 22:24).
1. The oppressor is left to the righteous judgment of God, who will surely avenge His own (Luke 18:7).
2. The oppressor is left to the terrible retribution of a hard and cruel heart, which inflicts as much punishment on the subject as on the object.
3. The oppressor is left to the certain contempt and execration of his fellow-men.
Husbands and fathers, learn--
1. To provide for the wants of those whom you may leave behind to mourn your loss.
(1) Make diligent use of your time, and save all you can for them.
(2) Your life is uncertain, insure it.
(3) We don’t know what a day or an hour may bring forth, have all your affairs in order so as not to add perplexity to trouble already too heavy to be borne. It is “afflicting them,” not to do so (see 1 Timothy 5:8).
2. Then, having made a proper use of means, leave them with calm faith in the power and goodness of their “Father in heaven.”
3. Help the widow and the orphan, as your wife may be left a widow and your children fatherless. (J. W. Burn.)
Verse 25-27. Any of My people that is poor.
Judgment on an usurer
There was once in this church a poor widow, and she wanted £20 to begin a small shop. Having no friends, she came to me, her minister; and I happened to know a man--not of this church--who could advance the money to the poor widow. So we went to this man--the widow and I--and the man said he would be happy to help the widow. And he drew out a bill for £20, and the widow signed it, and I signed it too. Then he put the signed paper in his desk, and took out the money and gave it to the widow. But the widow, counting it, said, “Sir, there is only £15 here.” “It is all right,” said the man; “that is the interest I charge.” And as we had no redress, we came away. But the widow prospered. And she brought the £20 to me, and I took it myself to the office of the man who lent it, and I said to him, “Sir, there is the f20 from the widow.” And he said, “Here is the paper you signed; and if you know any other poor widow, I will be happy to help her in the same way.” I said to him, “You help the widow! Sir, you have robbed this widow, and you will be damned!” And, my friends, I kept my eye on that man. Before six months were over God smote him, and he died. (Wm. Anderson, D. D.)
Regard for the poor and needy
While General Grant was President of the United States, he was at one time the guest of Marshall Jewell, at Hartford, Conn. At a reception tendered him by the Governor, where all the prominent men of the State were gathered, a roughly-pencilled note, in a common envelope, signed by a woman, was handed him. It was put into his hands by a young politician, who thought it a good joke that “an old woman in tatters” should presume to intrude upon the President at such a time. “You need not bother about her; I sent her away--told her you were not here to be bored,” the young man said to Grant. The President’s answer much surprised the politician. “Where is this woman; where can I find her?” he inquired, hurrying from the room. The letter he held in his hand, written poorly in pencil, told a sorrowful story. It said in substance: “My son fought in your army, and he was killed by rebel bullets while fighting for you. Before he died he wrote me a letter which told how noble a man you were, and said you would look out for his mother. I am poor, and I haven’t had money or influence to get anybody interested in me to get a pension. Dear General, will you please help me for my dead boy’s sake?” Sadly the woman had turned away from the mansion, her last hope dead. A servant pointed her out to President Grant, walking slowly up the street. The old soldier overtook her quickly. She was weeping, and turned towards him a puzzled face as he stopped her and stood bareheaded in the moonlight beside her. The few words the great, kind man spoke turned her tears into laughter, her sorrow into joy. The pension before refused her came to her speedily, and her last days were spent in comfort. (Christian Age.)
Take care of the poor
“Take care of the poor, and the Lord will take care of you,” was the wise counsel of a bishop to a candidate for ordination.
The profit of helping the poor
The welfare of the lowest is bound up with that of the highest, so that the “injury done to the meanest subject is,” as Solon said, “an insult upon the whole constitution,” and a blow at the prosperity of all. Sir Robert Peel gave his daughter, on her birthday, a splendid riding-habit, and rode by her side for an airing in the park, his heart swelling with pride that be could call such a maiden daughter! At once, however, she fell sick of the most malignant type of typhus fever, and despite all medical skill and parental care died. A careful inquiry as to the source of the germs of the fatal disease revealed the fact that the poor seamstress, who had embroidered that robe in a wretched attic, had been compelled to use it to cover her husband when he shivered with the chills of the deadly fever. And from that garret of poverty the infection of death passed into the mansion of the Premier. Society has her own ways of avenging our neglect of her poorest and neediest children. In one bundle are we all bound up, for weal or woe. We give, though we do not always know it, to save ourselves, not alone to save others. Ignorance and idleness are handmaids of vice, as intelligence and industry are handmaids of virtue. God sees that no one is so much profited as ourselves by those gifts to His poor, which are corrective of self-indulgence, expansive of our noblest sympathies, educative of our highest nature, and which, while they help to lift humanity to a higher level, as surely lift ourselves with the rest. (Christian Age.)
Pious poverty
I have no legacy to leave my children but pious poverty, God’s blessing, and a father’s prayers. (R. Prideaux.)