Luke 21:1-4 - Exposition

The widow ' s mite. We find this little sketch only here and in St. Mark ( Mark 12:41-44 ). The Master was sitting—resting, probably, after the effort of the great denunciation of the scribes and Pharisees—in the covered colonnade of that part of the temple which was open to the Jewish women. Here was the treasury, with its thirteen boxes in the wall, for the reception of the alms of the people. These boxes were called shopheroth, or trumpets, because they were shaped like trumpets, swelling out beneath, and tapering upward into a narrow mouth, or opening, into which the alms were dropped. Some of these "trumpets" were marked with special inscriptions, denoting the destination of the offerings.