What does it mean that Joseph was a just man (Matthew 1:19)?

Mary is seen at the beginning in question, if not under reproach. The singular honor which God's grace has conferred on her, is too great to be received unhesitatingly, even by the people of God themselves. We cannot believe for joy: the thing is too good to be true; the will to believe is not sufficient to accomplish faith. For so far is this from being credulity, that it requires all the more decisive proof, the more that for which we seek it awakens all the desire of our hearts. This is all the truth, (whatever the amount may be) contained in the strong assertion of the poet. ― "There lives more faith in honest doubt, Believe me, than in half the creeds:" although the last line can scarcely express his thought accurately. Joseph here, as a righteous man, but in perplexity, thinks of a half measure: he will give her a writing of divorce without statement of the cause, and put her away. But the appearance of an angel to him in a dream resolves his doubt and changes his purpose.

But first observe Joseph's conduct. Being a just man, and not willing to make his wife a public example, he was minded to put her away privily. You must bear in mind that Joseph and Mary had been a long time espoused, and, by Jewish law, if two were espoused, any fruit that came in the way of nature was regarded as their mutual offspring. Therefore Joseph concluded he would be regarded as the father of this unborn child. Yet he was not hasty or precipitate. He had not got the jealous nature that many a man would boast of, and did not act with that rashness that others even would admire in such circumstances. It is well to think matters well over when a difficulty crosses your path.

Matthew 1:19. Vol. III. 148. — I think that δειγματισαι (or παραδειγματισαι) was the exposure which must have resulted from Joseph's acting on Deut. 22. To which appearances, humanly, would have led, if God had not arrested this just man by the intervention of Gabriel, and enabled him, through the angels blessed message, to judge righteous judgment. I doubt that his intention "to put her away privily" could be said to come under Deut. 24, which supposes the man to have already taken and owned his wife before he found some scandalous thing in her.

When at first it was thought that a great sin had been committed, Joseph (because he was a man of honourable principles, as the scripture explains) determined to dissociate himself from it at all cost to his personal feelings; yet privily, to avoid the infliction of unnecessary pain and scandal on one whom he loved; but when God reveals to him the truth, he acts in direct and implicit obedience, purity, and simplicity. Again when he is warned of danger to the holy Child, he directly takes the Child and mother to Egypt and shelters and protects them through the long, dangerous journeys subordinating all his own interests to their care and safety. It was a manly and honourable charge to protect a woman and child — quite as truly so, when it involved great and unceasing danger, as to lead in the van of an army, though it may receive neither notice nor applause. An upright, devout, gracious, simple labouring man, with royal blood in his veins and royal faith in his heart, Joseph was, by divine grace, in every way qualified for such an important trust. Again, we cannot help thinking of that illustrious chief whose integrity was so great that the people of the hostile countries through which his army passed would bring their goods to him to protect them from the marauding of their own soldiers; and who when his Queen gave him the Kohinoor diamond to get polished, never once let it go out of his sight, but would sit an hour every day whilst the jeweller worked at it, and then wrap it up in his silk handkerchief to take it home. The heart of his Sovereign could safely trust him. From various passages it is concluded that Joseph had died before our Lord's public ministry commenced.

"Righteously." A righteous man is one who renders what is right to all outside himself; to God first and foremost. When the Lord Jesus said, "Render therefore to Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and to God the things that are God's" He was preaching practical righteousness.

It is no mere coincidence that the two Josephs of the New Testament were prominent, one at the birth and the other at the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. There is a third Joseph in Acts 1, but he is of no account. The Joseph of the Old Testament was called “a fruitful bough,” and these two men were of the same stock; they brought forth their fruit in its season, and their fruit abides, and their leaves have not withered unto this day. They bore the same name and in character they were alike. They are both said to be “just” men, which clearly indicates that they had walked in the fear of God though their positions in life were very different. He of Arimathea was a rich man and an honourable counsellor, while the husband of Mary was an obscure and poor carpenter of despised Nazareth, though of the house and lineage of David. His social position confirmed the Scripture which spoke of the tabernacle of David having fallen down, and yet as we consider his character and faith, we see his moral greatness; he was a true son of David, a man after God’s own heart.

Joseph, a just man, simple in heart and obedient, discerns without difficulty the revelation of the Lord, and obeys it.

They occur together in Matthew 1:19; Joseph not desiring (the) to expose Mary publicly, purposed (bo) to have put her away secretly. In 1 Timothy 5:11 as to the younger widows not being put in the list, they will (the), their desire is, to marry; in verse 14 Paul's deliberate judgment and will is that they should: "I will (bo) therefore."