And whoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when you depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet.
All Commentaries on Matthew 10:14 Go To Matthew 10
George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
Shake off the dust from your feet. It was common enough with the Jews, or at least with the preachers and prophets, to use some extraordinary outward actions, to make what they said more taken notice of by the people, as here the shaking off the dust from their feet was to denote to the obstinate unbelievers, that the very dust which their feet had contracted, in coming to preach to them the gospel, should hereafter rise in judgment against them. (Witham) By this, the apostles were to testify that they took nothing away with them belonging to these reprobate cities. They likewise showed the long and painful journeys they had undertaken for their salvation. (St. Chrysostom, hom. xxxiii.)
He orders them to do this, to show that they would have nothing in common with them, since they left them even their dust. Or it may be to shew, that the dust which they had gathered in their journey, would be a testimony against them in the day of judgment, because they had refused to receive them, as the Jews were accustomed to perform some remarkable action, for some great crime committed; thus, when they heard blasphemy, they tore their garments. (Menochius)
