A wicked messenger falleth into mischief: but a faithful ambassador [is] health.
Ver. 17. A wicked messenger falleth into mischief.] Incurs the displeasure and just revenge of them that sent him, or, at least, of God, in case of his slackness. How much more then wicked ministers, those "messengers of the Churches," 2Co 8:23 that do the Lord's work "negligently," Jer 48:10 that "corrupt" a his message, 2Co 2:17 that huckster it and handle it craftily and covetously, calling good evil, and evil good, &c.? "Who is blind but my servant? or deaf as my messenger?" Isa 42:19 Such an ambassador was once worthily derided in the Roman state. As at another time, a certain stranger coming on embassy to the senators of Rome, and colouring his hoary hair and pale cheeks with vermilion hue, a grave senator, espying the deceit, stood up and said, ‘What sincerity are we to expect at this man's hands, whose locks, and looks, and lips do lie?' It was an honest complaint of a Popish writer, We, saith he, handle the Scripture, tantum ut nos pascat et vestiat, that we may pick a living out of it, and are therefore fain to preach placentia, pleasingly and so to put men into a fool's paradise. But "shall they" thus "escape by iniquity?" Psa 56:7 have they no better doctors?
But a faithful ambassador is health.] To him that sendeth him, to those he is sent to, and to himself. So is a faithful minister that delivers "the whole counsel of God"; all that he hath in commission. Jer 1:17 Eze 3:17
a καπηλενειν .