THE FIRST EPISTLE OF PAUL THE APOSTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS - Chapter 10 - Verse 8

Verse 8. Neither let us commit fornication, etc. The case referred to here was that of the licentious intercourse with the daughters of Moab, referred to in Nu 25:1-9.

And fell in one day. Were slain for their sin by the plague that prevailed.

Three and twenty thousand. The Hebrew text in Nu 25:9, is twenty-four thousand. In order to reconcile these statements, it may be observed, that perhaps twenty-three thousand fell directly by the plague, and one thousand were slain by Phinehas and his companions, (Grotius;) or it may be that the number was between twenty-three and twenty-four thousand, and it might be expressed in round numbers by either. —Macknight. At all events, Paul has not exceeded the truth. There were at least twenty-three thousand that fell, though there might have been more. The probable supposition is, that the three and twenty thousand fell immediately by the hand of God in the plague, and the other thousand by the judges; and as Paul's design was particularly to mention the proofs of the immediate Divine displeasure, he refers only to those who fell by that, in illustration of his subject. There was a particular reason for this caution in respect to licentiousness.

(1.) It was common among all idolaters; and Paul, in cautioning them against idolatry, would naturally warn them of this danger.

(2.) It was common at Corinth. It was the prevalent vice there. To Corinthianize was a term synonymous among the ancients with licentiousness.

(3.) So common was this at Corinth, that, as we have seen, (see the Introduction,) not less than a thousand prostitutes were supported in a single temple there; and the city was visited by vast multitudes of foreigners, among other reasons on account of its facilities for this sin. Christians, therefore, were in a peculiar manner exposed to it; and hence the anxiety of the apostle to warn them against it.

{d} "some of them" Nu 25:1-9