They make the king glad with their wickedness, and the princes with their lies.
Ver. 3. They make the king glad with their wickedness] A sad commentary surely of king and people, exhilarating themselves and each other in wickedness. Their kings were well paid of their people's compliances with their unlawful edicts; and the people no less well pleased to gratify and flatter their kings, as the Romans did Tiberius and other tyrants, who therefore said of them, that they were servum pecus, servile souls, et homines ad servitutem parati, men-made slaves. Tyrants care not how wicked their subjects are; for then they know they will swallow down any command, though never so impious, without scrupling or conscience-making. They like to have such about them as will down with anything, digest iron for a need, with the ostrich; and say, as that wretched man said (when one complained he could not do such a thing for his conscience), "I am master of my conscience, I can do anything for all that." Thus Balaam resolved to curse, whatever came of it; he went not aside as at other times, neither built he any more altars, but set his face towards the wilderness, as fully bent to do it, and nothing should hinder him now, Num 24:1-2 cf. Luke 9:51. He also gave wicked counsel to King Balak (and so made him glad at parting, though before he had angered him) to lay a stumblingblock before the children of Israel, viz. to set fair women to tempt them to corporal and spiritual fornication, that God might see sin flagrant in Jacob, some transgression in Israel, and so fall foul upon them with his plagues, Numbers 23:21. Parasites propound to kings suavia potius quam sana consilia, pleasing, but pestilent counsel; they also act for them, and under them, as Doeg did for Saul, and so gratify them, letify them, as here, make them glad; but it proves to be no better than risus Sardonius, such a mirth as brings bitterness in the end. Woe to such mirthmongers and mirth makers, for if they shall do thus wickedly, they shall be consumed, both they and their king, 1 Samuel 12:25 .
And the princes with their lies] With calumnies and false accusations, wherewith they load God's innocent servants, and that against their own consciences. Thus Doeg dealt by David, the priests and prophets by Jeremiah, the Persian courtiers by Daniel and his companions, Amaziah by Amos, Haman by the whole nation of the Jews, Tertullus by Paul, the heathen idolaters by the primitive Christians, which caused those many apologies made for them by Tertullian, Athenagoras, and others. If a ruler hearken to lies (and that is a common fault among them, as David tells Saul, 1Sa 24:9) all his servants will be wicked, Proverbs 29:12; he shall have his Aiones and Negones that will say as he says, and fit his humour to a hair; he shall have plenty of such as will slander the saints and cast an odium upon the conscientious. I once saw (saith Melancthon) an old coin, on the one side whereof was Zopyrus, on the other Zoilus; he adds, fuit imago aulae, comitantur calumniae bene merentes, It was a picture of princes' courts, where are store of such as, by flattery, daub white upon black, and, by calumny, sprinkle black upon white.