John Lightfoot on Matthew 10:10

[Nor scrip for your journey.] The Syriac version reads, No purse...

A proselyte is brought in thus speaking; "If an Israelite approaching to the holy things shall die, how much more a stranger, who comes with his staff and his pouch!"

[Nor two coats.] A single coat bespake a meaner condition; a double, a more plentiful. Hence is that counsel of the Baptist, Luke 3:11, "He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none." It is disputed by the Babylonian Talmudists, how far it is lawful to wash garments on the common days of a festival-week; and the conclusion is, "It is lawful for him that hath one coat only, to wash it."

[Neither shoes.] That shoes are here to be understood, and not sandals, appears from Mark 6:9: and that there was a difference between these, sufficiently appears from these very places. The contrary to which I read in Beza, not without wonder: "But then from this place (saith he), as also from Acts 12:8, it appears that the evangelists put no difference between shoes and sandals as Erasmus hath rightly observed."

Let the Jewish schools be heard in this matter: "The pulling off of the shoe [of the husband's brother, Deuteronomy 25:9] is right: and of the sandal if it hath a heel, is right; but if not, it is not right."

"R. Josi saith, I went to Nisibin, and I saw there a certain elder, and I said to him, 'Are you well acquainted with R. Judah Ben Betira?' And he answered, 'I am a money changer in my city; and he came to my table very often.' I said, 'Did you ever see him putting off the shoe? What did he put off, shoe or sandal?' He answered, 'O Rabbi, are there sandals among us?' Whence therefore, say I, did R. Meir say, They do not put off the shoe? Rabbi Ba, Rabh Judah say, in the name of Rabh, If Elias should come, and should say, 'They pull off the shoe of the husband's brother, let them hearken to him': if he should say, 'They pull off the sandal,' let them not hearken to him. And yet, for the most part, the custom is to pull off the sandal: and custom prevails against tradition." See more there, and in the Babylonian tract Jevamoth.

Shoes were of more delicate use; sandals were more ordinary, and more for service. A shoe was of softer leather, a sandal of harder, &c. There were sandals also, whose sole, or lower part, was of wood, the upper of leather; and these were fastened together by nails. There were some sandals also made of rushes, or of the bark of palm-trees, &c. Another difference also between shoes and sandals is illustrated by a notable story in the tract Schabbath, in the place just now cited: "In a certain time of persecution, when some were hidden in a cave, they said among themselves, 'He that will enter, let him enter; for he will look about him before he enters, that the enemies see him not: but let none go out; for perhaps the enemies will be near, whom he sees not when he goes out, and so all will be discovered.' One of them by chance put on his sandals the wrong way: for sandals were open both ways, so that one might put in his foot either before or behind: but he putting on his the wrong way, his footsteps, when he went out, seemed as if he went in, and so their hiding-place was discovered to the enemies," &c.

Money therefore in the girdle, and provision in the scrip, were forbidden the disciples by Christ; first, that they might not be careful for temporal things, but resign themselves wholly to the care of Christ; secondly, they ought to live of the gospel, which he hints in the last clause of this verse, "The workman is worthy of his hire."

That, therefore, which he had said before, "Freely ye have received, freely give," forbade them to preach the gospel for gain: but he forbade not to take food, clothing, and other necessaries for the preaching of the gospel.

Two coats and shoes are forbidden them, that they might not at all affect pride or worldly pomp, or to make themselves fine; but rather, that their habit and guise might bespeak the greatest humility.