1 Timothy 5:13
Ver. 13. And withal they learn to be idle,.... Being at ease, and without labour, living at the expense of the church: "wandering about from house to house"; having nothing else to do: such an one is what the Jews {z} call tybbwv hnmla, "the gadding widow"; who, as the gloss says,
"goes about and visits her neighbours continually; and these are they that corrupt the world.''
Of this sort of women must the Jews be understood, when they say {a}, it is one of the properties of them to be twynauwy "going out", or gadding abroad, as Dinah did; and that it is another to be twyrbd, "talkative", which agrees with what follows:
and not only idle, but tattlers also; full of talk, who have always some news to tell, or report to make of the affairs of this, or the other person, or family:
and busy bodies; in the matters of other persons, which do not concern them:
speaking things which they ought not; which either are not true, and, if they are, are not to be spoken of, and carried from place to place: this is a very great inconvenience, the apostle observes, arising from the admission of such young widows to be relieved and maintained at the church's charge.
{z} T. Bab. Sota, fol. 22. 1. {a} Bereshit Rabba, sect. 45. fol. 40. 3.