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Herald

Boyd’s Bible Dictionary:

(army ruler). Crier (Dan. 3:4⁴Then an herald cried aloud, To you it is commanded, O people, nations, and languages, (Daniel 3:4)); preacher (1 Tim. 2:7⁷Whereunto I am ordained a preacher, and an apostle, (I speak the truth in Christ, and lie not;) a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and verity. (1 Timothy 2:7); 2 Peter 2:5⁵And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly; (2 Peter 2:5)).

From Manners and Customs of the Bible:

1 Corinthians 9:27²⁷But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway. (1 Corinthians 9:27). Lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.

In the word “preached” we have reference to the office of a herald. Such an office was employed, not only by kings to announce their decrees, (see Dan. 3:4⁴Then an herald cried aloud, To you it is commanded, O people, nations, and languages, (Daniel 3:4)) and to proclaim their coming (see Mal. 3:1¹Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts. (Malachi 3:1) and note on Isa. 40:3³The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. (Isaiah 40:3), #513), but also by those who had charge of the ancient games, to which reference has been made in the preceding verses. The herald proclaimed at the opening of the games the name and country of each candidate, and the rules of the contest. Most commentators suppose the apostle here to represent himself as such a herald. He has announced the opening of the contest, and the laws which regulate it; he is now to be careful lest after all he himself should not succeed. For, unlike the herald in the games, he is also a competitor. Bloomfield, however, thinks that there is here, at best, only an “under-allusion” to the office of herald. See his note in loco.

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