He leadeth counsellors away spoiled, and maketh the judges fools.
Ver. 17. He leadeth counsellors away spoiled] viz. Of wit, wealth, and honour. This should be a warning to them, not to take ill causes in hand, not to call evil good and good evil, not to justify the wicked for a reward, and to take away the righteousness of the righteous from him; not to bolster out a bad cause, and to outface a good, lest if they improve their wits and parts to so evil an end, God make them as despicable as before they were honourable. They may see what the Lord did to Ahithophel, that oracle of his time; to Pharaoh's counsellors, Isaiah 9:11,12; to Pharaoh himself, Exo 1:10 with Proverbs 28:15 .
And he maketh the judges fools] Broughton rendereth the verse thus, He brings counsellors to badness, and judges to stark madness. He infatuateth them, not by infusing folly into them, anymore than the sun, when he shineth not in our horizon, causeth darkness in the air, which of itself and of its own nature is dark. But when God withholdeth that light of wisdom which he had imparted to a man, his inbred darkness must needs show itself. More than this, it sometimes cometh to pass, that when God delivereth a man up for his sins to a reprobate and injudicious mind, he is thenceforth deprived sometimes of natural wisdom and common sense, that the divine revenge may be the more apparent.