The Prophet now arraigns all the citizens of Samaria, and in their persons the whole people, because they rendered obedience to the king by flattery, and to the princes in wicked things, respecting which their own conscience convicted them. He had already in the fifth chapter mentioned the defection of the people in this respect, that they had obeyed the royal edict. It might indeed have appeared a matter worthy of praise, that the people had quietly embraced what the king commanded. This is the case with many at this day, who bring forward a pretext of this kind. Under the papacy they dare not withdraw themselves from their impious superstitions, and they adduce this excuse, that they ought to obey their princes. But, as I have already said, the Prophet has before condemned this sort of obedience, and now he shows that the defection which then reigned through all Israel, ought not to be ascribed to the king or to few men, but that it was a common evil, which involved all in one and the same guilt, without exception. How so? By their wickedness, he says, they have exhilarated the king, and by their lies the princes; that is, If they wish to cast the blame on their governors, it will be done in vain; for whence came then such a promptitude? As soon as Jeroboam formed the calves, as soon as he built temples, religion instantly collapsed, and whatever was before pure, degenerated; how was the change so sudden? Even because the people had inwardly concocted their wickedness, which, when an occasion was offered, showed itself; for hypocrisy did lie hid in all, and was then discovered. We now perceive what the Prophet had in view. And this place ought to be carefully noticed: for it often happens that some vice creeps in, which proceeds from one man or from a few; but when all readily embrace what a few introduce, it is quite evident that they have no living root of piety or of the fear of God. They then who are so prone to adopt vices were before hypocrites; and we daily find this to be the case. When pious men have the government of a city, and act prudently, then the whole people will give some hope that they will fear the Lord; and when any king, influenced by a desire of advancing the glory of God, endeavors to preserve all his subjects in the pure worship of God, then the same feeling of piety will be seen in all: but when an ungodly king succeeds him, the greater part will immediately fall back again; and when a magistrate neglects his duty, the greater portion of the people will break out into open impiety. I wish there were no proofs of these things; but throughout the world the Lord has designed that there should exist examples of them. This purpose of God ought therefore to be noticed; for he accuses the people of having made themselves too obsequious and pliant. When king Jeroboam set up vicious worship, the people immediately offered themselves as ready to obey: hence impiety became quite open. They then delighted the king by their wickedness, and the princes by their lies; as though he said, "They cannot transfer the blame to the king and princes. Why? Because they delighted them by their wickedness; that is, they haltered the king by their wickedness and delighted the princes by their lies." It follows --

They make the king glad with their wickedness - Wicked sovereigns and a wicked people are a curse to each other, each encouraging the other in sin. Their king, being wicked, had pleasure in their wickedness; and they, seeing him to be pleased by it, set themselves the more, to do what was evil, and to amuse him with accounts of their sins. Sin is in itself so shameful, that even the great cannot, by themselves, sustain themselves in it, without others to flatter them. A good and serious man is a reproach to them. And so, the sinful great corrupt others, both as aiding them in their debaucheries, and in order not to be reproached by their virtues, and because the sinner has a corrupt pleasure and excitement in hearing of tales of sin, as the good joy to hear of good. Whence Paul says, "who, knowing the judgment of God that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them" Romans 1:32.
But whereas, they all, kings, princes, and people, thus agreed and conspired in sin, and the sin of the great is the rarest destructive, the prophet here upbraids the people most for this common sin, apparently because they were free from the greater temptations of the great, and so their sin was the more willful. "An unhappy complaisance was the ruling character of Israel. It preferred its kings to God. Conscience was versatile, accommodating. Whatever was authorized by those in power, was approved." Ahab added the worship of Baal to that of the calves; Jehu confined himself to the sin of Jeroboam. The people acquiesced in the legalized sin. Much as if now, marriages, which by God's law are incest, or remarriages of the divorced, which our Lord pronounces adultery, were to be held allowable, because man's law ceases to annex any penalty to them.

They make the king glad - They pleased Jeroboam by coming readily into his measures, and heartily joining with him in his idolatry. And they professed to be perfectly happy in their change, and to be greatly advantaged by their new gods; and that the religion of the state now was better than that of Jehovah. Thus, they made all their rulers, "glad with their lies."

They make the (b) king glad with their wickedness, and the princes with their lies.
(b) They esteem their wicked king Jeroboam above God, and seek how to flatter and please him.

They make the king glad with their wickedness,.... Not any particular king; not Jeroboam the first, as Kimchi; nor Jehu, as Grotius; if any particular king, rather Jeroboam the second; but their kings in general, as the Septuagint render it, in succession, one after another; who were highly delighted and pleased with the priests in offering sacrifice to the calves, and with the people in attending to that idolatrous worship, by which they hoped to secure the kingdom of Israel to themselves, and prevent the people going to Jerusalem to worship: it made them glad to the heart to hear them say that God was as well pleased with sacrifices offered at Daniel and Bethel, as at Jerusalem:
and the princes with their lies; with their idols and idolatrous practices, which are vanity and a lie; though some interpret this of their flatteries, either of them, or their favourites; and of their calumnies and detractions of such they had a dislike of.

Their princes, instead of checking, "have pleasure in them that do" such crimes (Romans 1:32).

They - The courtiers in particular make it their work to invent pleasing wickedness, and to acquaint the king with it. With their lies - With false accusations against the innocent.