Romans 10:15
The feet of those who bring good news
- The gospel’s word εὐαγγελίζομαι euangelizomai · to speak good news
Original
Translations
And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”
And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!
And how will they preach, if they may not be sent? According as it has been written: “How beautiful the feet of those proclaiming good tidings of peace, of those proclaiming good tidings of the good things!”
보내심을 받지 아니하였으면 어찌 전파하리요 기록된 바 아름답도다 좋은 소식을 전하는 자들의 발이여 함과 같으니라
보내어지지 아니하였으면 그들이 어찌 선포하리요? 이것은 기록된바, 화평의 복음을 선포하며 좋은 일들의 반가운 소식을 가져오는 자들의 발이 어찌 그리 아름다운가! 함과 같으니라.
Commentaries
Matthew Henry on Rom 10:12-17 as a whole
There is not one God to the Jews, more kind, and another to the Gentiles, who is less kind; the Lord is a Father to all men. The promise is the same to all, who call on the name of the Lord Jesus as the Son of God, as God manifest in the flesh. …
Read the whole commentary →Wesley Rom 10:15
But how shall they preach, unless they be sent - Thus by a chain of reasoning, from God's will that the gentiles also should "call upon him," St. Paul infers that the apostles were sent by God to preach to the gentiles also. The feet - Their very footsteps; their coming. …
Read the whole commentary →
Note
Romans 9–11 is Paul's anguish over Israel. In chapter 10 he says that righteousness comes by faith, not by the works of the law, and he opens the door to everyone with the words of Joel: "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved" (Romans 10:13). Then he builds a chain backwards. How can they call on One they have not believed? How can they believe in One they have not heard? How can they hear without someone to preach? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? At the end of the chain stands Isaiah: "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!" (Romans 10:15).
The gospel word is the verb , here a present middle participle in the genitive plural, εὐαγγελιζομένων, "of those bringing good news". In the Textus Receptus, which the King James Version follows, the participle comes twice, and the KJV reads: "How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!" One Greek verb, two English renderings: "preach the gospel" and "bring glad tidings". The older manuscripts behind the BSB have the participle once, and so the BSB says simply "those who bring good news". The LSV keeps the longer text and the one verb: "those proclaiming good tidings of peace, of those proclaiming good tidings of the good things".
The longer form follows Isaiah's Hebrew closely. Isaiah 52:7 has the piel participle of , mevasser, twice: the herald proclaims peace, brings good news of good, proclaims salvation, and cries to Zion, "Your God reigns!" (Isaiah 52:7). In the Hebrew he is one runner coming over the mountains with news of the Lord's return to Zion; Paul makes the herald many, the messengers sent out to the nations. Nahum uses the same picture of the herald on the mountains (Nahum 1:15).
Basar is not always good news. In 1 Samuel 4:17 the man who brings word to Eli, named with the same verb, reports a defeat: "Israel has fled before the Philistines" (1 Samuel 4:17), and the ark of God taken. The word means to bring news; what the news is depends on what has happened. Isaiah's herald carries peace and good and salvation, and when the Greek Old Testament put his verb as εὐαγγελίζομαι, it handed the New Testament its word for the gospel.
Wesley sees Paul argue by a chain of reasoning from God's will that the Gentiles should call on him, and conclude that "the apostles were sent by God to preach to the gentiles also" Wesley. The feet, he says, are "Their very footsteps; their coming" Wesley. Matthew Henry: "It was necessary that the gospel should be preached to the Gentiles. Somebody must show them what they are to believe" Matthew Henry. And: "How welcome the gospel ought to be to those to whom it was preached!" Matthew Henry.
Behind everyone who has heard the gospel are the footsteps of someone who was sent, came and spoke, and Paul calls those footsteps beautiful.