Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honour, especially they who labour in the word and doctrine.
Ver. 17. Worthy of double honour] viz. Countenance and maintenance; that they may give themselves continually and cheerfully to preaching and prayer, Acts 6:4. Let them have reverence and recompense.
They who labour] οι κοπιωντες, even to lassitude, as he doth that cleaveth wood, or that toileth in harvest, or that goeth on warfare, 2 Timothy 2:3,4. Preaching is a painful work and enfeebleth a man exceedingly, whence the prophet cries out, "My leanness, my leanness." And our Saviour, at little past 30, was reckoned by the Jews to be toward 50 John 8:57. It is supposed by divines that he had so spent himself in preaching, that he seemed to the Jews to be much older than he was.