If a ruler hearken to lies, all his servants [are] wicked.
Ver. 12. If a ruler hearken to lies, all his servants are wicked.] He shall have his Aiones and Negones, that will say as he says, and fit his humour to a hair, as Doeg did Saul's, as the false prophets did Ahab's, as Herod's courtiers did him on his birthday feast, &c. These were fit helves for such hatchets, fit lettuce for such lips, fit servants for such masters.
“Mobile mutatur semper eum principe vulgus.”
Claudian.
Like prince, like people. The common sort are like a flock of cranes; as the first fly, all follow. Or as in a beast, the whole body follows the head. Rulers are the looking glasses according to which most men dress themselves. Their sins do much hurt, as by imputation - 2 Samuel 24:15,17, the prince sinned, the people suffered a - so by imitation; for man is a creature apt to imitate, and is led more by his eyes than by his ears. Magis intuentur quid fecerit Iupiter, quam quid docuit Plato, saith Augustine. Jupiter's adulteries drew the people to like wantonness. Hence Chaerea in Terence, Haec ego non facerem quae Iupiter fecit? saith he, Should I make dainty of doing that which Jupiter did? Height of place ever adds two wings to sin, example and scandal, whereby it soars higher, and flies much farther. Let rulers, therefore, look to it. Let them not be "partakers of other men's sins" 1Ti 5:22 - they have enough of their own to answer for. Potentes potenter torquebuntur - let them take heed that "the iniquity of their heels," of those that follow them at the heels, "doth not compass them about." Psa 69:5
a Delirant reges, plectuntur Achivi.