Albert Barnes Commentary Hebrews 13:3

"Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; them that are illtreated, as being yourselves also in the body." — Hebrews 13:3 (ASV)

Remember them that are in bonds. This refers to all who are bound: whether prisoners of war, captives in dungeons, those detained in custody for trial, those imprisoned for the sake of righteousness, or those held in slavery. The word used here includes all instances where bonds, shackles, or chains were ever used. Perhaps there is an immediate allusion to their fellow Christians who were suffering imprisonment on account of their religion, of whom there were doubtless many at that time. However, the principle applies to every case of those who are imprisoned or oppressed. The word remember implies more than merely thinking of them (Ecclesiastes 12:1). It means that we are to remember them with appropriate sympathy, or as we would wish others to remember us if we were in their circumstances. That is, we are:

1. To feel deep compassion for them;
2. To remember them in our prayers;
3. To remember them, as far as practicable, with aid for their relief.

Christianity teaches us to sympathize with all the oppressed, the suffering, and the sad. There are more people in this class than we commonly suppose, and they have stronger claims on our sympathy than we commonly realize.

In this land, there are not far from ten thousand people confined in prison: the father separated from his children, the husband from his wife, the brother from his sister, and all cut off from the living world. Their food is coarse, their beds are hard, and the ties that bound them to the living world are rudely snapped apart.

Many of them are in solitary dungeons; all of them are sad and melancholy. True, they are there for crime, but they are human beings—they are our brothers. They still have the feelings of our common humanity, and many of them feel their separation from wife, children, and home as keenly as we would.

That God who has mercifully made our lot different from theirs has commanded us to sympathize with them—and we should sympathize all the more when we remember that, but for His restraining grace, we might have been in the same condition.

In this land of "liberty," there are also nearly three million people held in the hard bondage of slavery.

Among them are fathers, mothers, children, brothers, and sisters. They are held as property, liable to be sold, having no right to the proceeds of their own labor, and exposed to the danger of having the tenderest ties severed at the will of their master. They are shut out from the privilege of reading the Word of God, fed coarse food, live in wretched hovels, and are often subjected to painful lashings at the whim of a passionate driver.

Wives and daughters are made victims of degrading sensuality, without the power of resistance or redress. The security of home is unknown, and they are dependent on the will of another man whether they may worship their Creator. We should remember them and sympathize with them as if they were our fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, or sons and daughters.

Though of a different color, the same blood flows in their veins as in ours (Acts 17:26); they are bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. By nature, they have the same right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" that we and our children have. To deprive them of that right is as unjust as it would be to deprive us and our children of it.

They have a claim on our sympathy, for they are our brethren. They need it, for they are poor and helpless. They should have it, for the same God who has kept us from that hard lot has commanded us to remember them. This kind remembrance of them should be shown in every practicable way.

By prayer, by plans contemplating their freedom, by efforts to send them the gospel, by spreading the principles of liberty and human rights, and by using our influence to arouse public awareness on their behalf, we should endeavor to relieve those who are in bonds and hasten the time when "the oppressed shall go free." On this subject, see Barnes on Isaiah 48:6.

As bound with them. There is great force and beauty in this expression. Religion teaches us to identify ourselves with all who are oppressed and to feel what they suffer as if we endured it ourselves. Infidelity and atheism are cold and distant; they stand aloof from the oppressed and the sad. But Christianity unites all hearts into one, binds us to the entire human race, and reveals to us, in the case of each oppressed and injured person, a brother.

And those who suffer adversity. The word used here refers, properly, to those who are maltreated or injured by others. It does not properly refer to those who merely experience calamity.

As being yourselves also in the body. This means being yourselves exposed to persecution and suffering, and liable to be injured. That is, do to them as you would wish them to do to you if you were the sufferer. When we see an oppressed and injured person, we should remember that it is possible that we may be in the same circumstances, and then we will need and desire the sympathy of others.