Mat 10:14-15 | Clarke | e4.org | Verse 14. Shake off the dust of your feet. ] The Jews considered themselves defiled by the dust of a heathen country, when was represented by the prophets as a polluted land , , when compared with the land of Israel, which was considered as a holy land , ; therefore, to shake the dust of any city of Israel from off one's clothes or feet was an emblematical action, signifying a renunciation of all farther connection with them, and placing them on a level with the cities of the Heathen . .

‏ Matthew 10:14-15

Verse 14. Shake off the dust of your feet.] The Jews considered themselves defiled by the dust of a heathen country, when was represented by the prophets as a polluted land, Am 7:17, when compared with the land of Israel, which was considered as a holy land, Eze 45:1; therefore, to shake the dust of any city of Israel from off one's clothes or feet was an emblematical action, signifying a renunciation of all farther connection with them, and placing them on a level with the cities of the Heathen. See Clarke on Am 9:7.

Verse 15. In the day of judgment] Or, punishment,-κρισεως. Perhaps not meaning the day of general judgment, nor the day of the destruction of the Jewish state by the Romans; but a day in which God should send punishment on that particular city, or on that person, for their crimes. So the day of judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah, was the time in which the Lord destroyed them by fire and brimstone, from the Lord out of heaven.

If men are thus treated for not receiving the preachers of the Gospel, what will it be to despise the Gospel itself-to decry it-to preach the contrary-to hinder the preaching of it-to abuse those who do preach it in its purity-or to render it fruitless by calumnies and lies! Their punishment, our Lord intimates, shall be greater than that inflicted on the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah!