Keepers at home - That is, characteristically attentive to their domestic concerns, or to their duties in their families. This does not mean, of course, that they are never to go abroad, but they are not to neglect their domestic affairs; they are not to be better known abroad than at home; they are not to omit their own duties and become “busy-bodies” in the concerns of others. Religion is the patron of the domestic virtues, and regards the appropriate duties in a family as those most intimately connected with its own progress in the world. It looks benignly on all which makes home a place of contentment, intelligence, and peace. It does not flourish when domestic duties are neglected; - and whatever may be done abroad, or whatever self-denial and zeal in the cause of religion may be evinced there, or whatever call there may be for the labors of Christians there, or however much good may be actually done abroad, religion has gained nothing, on the whole, if, in order to secure these things, the duties of a wife and mother at home have been disregarded. Our first duty is at home, and all other duties will be well performed just in proportion as that is.

Keepers at home - A woman who spends much time in visiting, must neglect her family. The idleness, dirtiness, impudence, and profligacy of the children, will soon show how deeply criminal the mother was in rejecting the apostle’s advice. Keepers of the house, or keepers at home, and workers at home; not only staying in the house and keeping the house, but working in the house. A woman may keep the house very closely, and yet do little in it for the support or comfort of the family.

Not roving about idly.

Keepers at home: minding their own family affairs, not gadding abroad; and inspecting into, and busying themselves about other people's matters. This is said in opposition to what women are prone unto. It is reckoned among the properties of women, by the Jews, that they are  "gadders abroad": they have some rules about women's keeping at home; they say, "a woman may go to her father's house to visit him, and to the house of mourning, and to the house of feasting, to return a kindness to her friends, or to her near relations--but it is a reproach to a woman to go out daily; now she is without, now she is in the streets; and a husband ought to restrain his wife from it, and not suffer her to go abroad but about once a month, or twice a month, upon necessity; for there is nothing more beautiful for a woman, than to abide in the corner of her house; for so it is written, Psalms 45:13 "the king's daughter is all glorious within".'' And this they say  is what is meant by the woman's being an helpmeet for man, that while he is abroad about his business, she is "sitting at home" and keeping his house; and this they observe is the glory and honour of the woman. The passage in Isaiah 44:13 concerning an image being made "after the figure of a man, according to the beauty of a man, that it may remain in the house" is by the Targum thus paraphrased: "according to the likeness of a man, according to the praise of a woman, to abide in the house.'' Upon which Kimchi, has this note: "it is the glory of a woman to continue at home, and not go abroad.'' The tortoise, which carries its house upon its back, and very rarely shows its head, or looks out of it, was, with the ancients, an emblem of a good housewife.

Chaste, and keepers at home, are well joined too. Dinah, when she went to see the daughters of the land, lost her chastity (Genesis 34:1-2). Those whose home is their prison, it is to be feared, feel that their chastity is their fetters. Not but there are occasions, and will be, of going abroad; but a gadding temper for merriment and company sake, to the neglect of domestic affairs, or from uneasiness at being in her place, is the opposite evil intended, which is commonly accompanied with, or draws after it, other evils. They learn to be idle, wandering from house to house; and not only idle, but tattlers also and busybodies, speaking things which they ought not (1 Timothy 5:13). Their business is to guide the house, and they should give no occasion to the enemy to speak reproachfully.

Keepers at home — as “guardians of the house,” as the Greek expresses. The oldest manuscripts read, “Workers at home”: active in household duties (Proverbs 7:11).

Keepers at home. Those who are continually going must neglect the duties of domestic life.

Workers at home - Rare word, found in Soranus, a medical writer, Field says. “Keepers at home” are usually “workers at home.”

Keepers at home - Whenever they are not called out by works of necessity, piety, and mercy.