The Parable introduces to us a Judge in a city, and a widow. Except where a case was voluntarily submitted for arbitration rather than judgment, or judicial advice was sought of a sage, one man could not have formed a Jewish tribunal. Besides, his mode of speaking and acting is inconsistent with such a hypothesis. He must therefore have been one of the Judges, or municipal authorities, appointed by Herod or the Romans, perhaps a Jew, but not a Jewish Judge. Possibly, he may have been a police-magistrate, or one who had some function of that kind delegated to him. We know that, at least in Jerusalem, there were two stipendiary magistrates (Dayyaney Gezeroth [4660] whose duty it was to see to the observance of all police-regulations and the prevention of crime. Unlike the regular Judges, who attended only on certain days and hours, [4661] and were unpaid, these magistrates were, so to speak, always on duty, and hence unable to engage in any other occupation. It was probably for this reason that they were paid out of the Temple-Treasury, [4662] and received so large a salary as 225l., or, if needful, even more. [4663] On account of this, perhaps also for their unjust exactions, Jewish wit designated them, by a play on the words, as Dayyaney Gezeloth - Robber-Judges, instead of their real title of Dayyaney Gezeroth (Judges of Prohibitions, or else of Punishments). [4664] It may have been that there were such Jewish magistrates in other places also. Josephus speaks of local magistracies. [4665] [4666] At any rate there were in every locality police-officials, who watched over order and law. [4667] The Talmud speaks in very depreciatory terms of these village-Judges' (Dayyaney deMegista), in opposition to the town tribunals (Bey Davar), and accuses them of ignorance, arbitrariness, and covetousness, so that for a dish of meat they would pervert justice. [4668] Frequent instances are also mentioned of gross injustice and bribery in regard to the non-Jewish Judges in Palestine.
It is to such a Judge that the Parable refers - one who was consciously, openly, and avowedly [4669] inaccessible to the highest motive, the fear of God, and not even restrained by the lower consideration of regard for public opinion. It is an extreme case, intended to illustrate the exceeding unlikelihood of justice being done. For the same purpose, the party seeking justice at his hands is described as a poor, unprotected widow. But we must also bear in mind, in the interpretation of this Parable, that the Church, whom she represents, is also widowed in the absence of her Lord. To return - this widow came' to the Unjust Judge (the imperfect tense in the original indicating repeated, even continuous coming), with the urgent demand to be vindicated of her adversary, that is, that the Judge should make legal inquiry, and by a decision set her right as against him at whose hands she was suffering wrong. For reasons of his own he would not; and this continued for a while. At last, not from any higher principle, nor even from regard for public opinion - both of which, indeed, as he avowed to himself, had no weight with him - he complied with her request, as the text (literally translated) has it: Yet at any rate [4670] because this widow troubleth me, I will do justice for her, lest, in the end, coming she bruise me,' [4671] - do personal violence to me, attack me bodily. Then follows the grand inference from it: If the Judge of Unrighteousness' speak thus, shall not the Judge of all Righteousness - God - do judgment, vindicate [by His Coming to judgment and so setting right the wrong done to His Church] His Elect, which cry to Him day and night, although He suffer long on account of them' - delay His final interposition of judgment and mercy, and that, not as the Unjust Judge, but for their own sakes, in order that the number of the Elect may all be gathered in, and they fully prepared?