Romans 10:15

No preaching without sending. Paul is not thinking here of some human association sending out missionaries. The term ἀποσταλῶσιν, be sent, evidently alludes to the apostleship properly so called, the normal mission established by the Lord Himself by the sending of the apostles. This mission included in principle all subsequent missions. At this thought of a universal apostleship the feeling of the apostle rises; he sees them, those messengers of Jesus, traversing the world, and, to the joy of the nations who hear them, sowing everywhere the good news. The passage quoted is taken from Isaiah 52:7. A similar saying is found in Nahum (Romans 1:15), but in a briefer form: “Behold upon the mountains the feet of him that publisheth peace.” In this prophet the saying applies to the messenger who comes to announce to Jerusalem the fall of Nineveh. In Isaiah, it is more in keeping with the text of Paul, and refers more directly to the preaching of salvation throughout the whole world. This message of grace is to be the consequence of the return from the captivity. The point of time referred to is when, as Isaiah says, Isaiah 40:5, “all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” The words: “of them that publish peace,” are wrongly omitted by the Alex. MSS. The copyist has confounded the two εὐαγγελιζομένων, and thus omitted the intermediate words. It cannot be supposed that it is the T. R. and its documents which have added these words; for they would have been copied more exactly from the text of the LXX. (comp. the substitution of the εἰρήνην for the ἀκοὴν εἰρήνης). Besides, this is one of the passages in which Paul designedly abandons the translation of the LXX. to conform his quotation to the Hebrew text, the first words of which were utterly misrendered by the Greek version: ώς ὥρα ἐπὶ τῶν ὀρέων, as fair weather on the mountains...The apostle at the same time allows himself some modifications even of Isaiah's text. He rejects the words: on the mountains, which did not apply to the preaching of the gospel; and for the singular: him that publisheth, he substitutes the plural, which better suits the Christian apostleship.

We must naturally contrast the terms peace and good things (in our [French] translations: good news) with the establishment of the legal dispensation throughout the whole world; comp. Eph. 2:27, the thought and even expressions of which are so similar to those of our passage. If, with three Mjj., we read the article τά before ἀγαθά (the good things, instead of good things), Paul makes express allusion to those well-known foretold blessings which were to constitute the Messianic kingdom.

Such was to be the end of the old covenant: not the extension of the law to all nations, but a joyful and universal proclamation of peace and of heavenly grace on the part of a Saviour rich unto all. And if Israel had known the part assigned them, instead of making themselves the adversaries of this glorious dispensation, they would have become its voluntary instruments, and transformed themselves into that army of apostles who are charged with publishing the mercies of God. This divine plan was frustrated through their ignorance, both of the real nature of salvation and of its universal destination. Such is the force of the following verses.