The Lord gave the word,.... The word of the Gospel to his apostles. He committed the word of reconciliation to them; he intrusted them with it, as a sacred depositum; he gave gifts unto them, qualifying them for the ministration of it; he gave them a commission to preach it; and he gave them a door of utterance to speak it as it should be, and an opportunity to publish it.
The Targum wrongly interprets it of the word of the law;great [was] the company of those that published [it]; there were in our Lord's time twelve apostles and seventy disciples, who were sent out to preach the Gospel; and many more in the times of the apostles, and since.
The word for "company" signifies an "army" : Christ's ministers are soldiers, and war a good warfare; they have weapons which are not carnal, but spiritual, and mighty through God, and they are made to triumph in Christ in every place.
And the word rendered "those that published" is in the feminine gender; not as suggesting that women would be preachers of the Gospel under the New Testament dispensation, for that is forbidden, 1Co 14:34; but in allusion to the custom of women in Israel publishing the victories obtained by their armies and generals; see 1Sa 18:7; and it may be it is used to denote the weakness of Gospel ministers in themselves, who have the treasure of the word put into their earthen vessels, that the power may appear to be of God, and not of man; so ministers are called maidens, Pr 9:3; and this same word is used of them in Isa 40:9.
And it may be observed, that notwithstanding it is of the said gender, yet it is by the Targum interpreted of men, thus;"but Moses and Aaron evangelized the word of God to the great army of Israel.''And it may also be observed, that this word twrvbmh, which signifies a "publishing of good news", is derived from a root which signifies "flesh" denoting, that the good tidings of the Gospel, or of peace and pardon, righteousness, life, and salvation, published in it, are by an incarnate Saviour, or through his assumption of our flesh, and suffering in it.