Charles Ellicott Commentary Matthew 18:10

"See that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, that in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father who is in heaven." — Matthew 18:10 (ASV)

Take heed that you despise not. The words remind us of what we are apt to forget in the wider range of the preceding verses. The child was still there, perhaps still folded in the arms of Jesus and still the object of His care, even while He spoke of the wider offenses that must needs come upon the world at large.

Given the frequency with which our Lord’s words were addressed to the thoughts of His hearers, it seems likely that the faces of at least some of the disciples betrayed a touch of half-contemptuous wonder as they looked on the child, which called for this prompt rebuke. The words, however, as interpreted by what follows, have a wider range. They include among the “little ones” the childlike as well as children—indeed, all whom Christ came to save.

The reference to their angels in heaven distinctly recognizes the belief in guardian angels, each entrusted with a definite and special work. That guardianship is asserted in general terms in Psalm 34:7, Psalms 91:11, Hebrews 1:14, and elsewhere. What is added to this general fact is that those who have the guardianship of the little ones are among the most noble of the heavenly host. They are like the angels of the Presence who, like Gabriel, stand before the face of God and rejoice in the beatific vision (Luke 1:19).

The words I say unto you clothe what follows with the character of a new truth, just as they do in the similar utterances of Luke 15:7 and Luke 15:10. Whatever difficulties may arise from the subject of the ministry of angels, they lie outside the work of the interpreter. There can be no question that our Lord adopts this belief as His own, doing so at a time when the Sadducees, as a leading sect, were calling it into question (Acts 23:8).

These words are also indirectly important as a witness to another fact. While the Lord Jesus proclaimed the universal Fatherhood of God as it had never been proclaimed before, He also claims a sonship nearer and higher than could have been claimed by any human being. He does this almost unconsciously, as it were, when the assertion of the claim was not the main point.