What am I saying then? That a thing sacrificed to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything?
Parallel Translations
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What am I saying then? That a thing sacrificed to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything?
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What saye I then? that the ymage is eny thinge? or that it which is offered to ymages is eny thinge?
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What say I then? that the idole is any thing? or that that which is sacrificed to idoles, is any thing?
Cross-references (8)
Passages linked to 1 Corinthians 10:19 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- 1 Corinthians 8:4 Therefore concerning the eating of things sacrificed to idols, we know that no idol is anything in the world, and that there is no other God but one.
- Deuteronomy 32:21 They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God. They have provoked me to anger with their vanities. I will move them to jealousy with those who are not a people. I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation.
- Isaiah 40:17 All the nations are like nothing before him. They are regarded by him as less than nothing, and vanity.
- Isaiah 41:29 Behold, all of their deeds are vanity and nothing. Their molten images are wind and confusion.
- 1 Corinthians 1:28 God chose the lowly things of the world, and the things that are despised, and the things that don’t exist, that he might bring to nothing the things that exist,
- 1 Corinthians 3:7 So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase.
- 1 Corinthians 13:2 If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but don’t have love, I am nothing.
- 2 Corinthians 12:11 I have become foolish in boasting. You compelled me, for I ought to have been commended by you, for I am in no way inferior to the very best apostles, though I am nothing.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (18 sources)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain 19. What do I say then? It might seem…
19. What do I say then? It might seem at first view as if the Apostle either argued inconclusively, or ascribed to idols something of existence and of power. Now it might readily be objected — “What comparison is there between the living God and idols? God connects us with himself by the sacraments. Be it so. How comes it that idols, which are nothing, (1 Corinthians 8:4,) have so much power, as to be able to do the like? Do you think that idols are anything, or can do anything?” He answers, that he does not look to the idols themselves; but rather has in view the intention of those who sacrifice to idols. For that was the source of the pollution that he had indirectly pointed out. He confesses, therefore, that an idol is nothing. He confesses that it is a mere delusion when the Gentiles take it upon them to go through solemn rites of dedication, and that the creatures of God are not polluted by such fooleries. But as the design of them is superstitious and condemnable, and as the work is base, he infers, that all who connect themselves with them as associates, are involved in pollution.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 19 What say I then? that the idol is…
19 What say I then? that the idol is any thing, or that which is offered in sacrifice to idols is any thing?
Ver. 19. What say I then] He prevents a mistake. See 1Co 8:4. Ministers must in their discourses meet with all objections as much as may be.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain I do not by this contradict what I before…
I do not by this contradict what I before said, nor now affirm that an idol is any thing, or the sacrifices offered to it any thing. An idol hath nothing in it of a Deity, nor can it either sanctify or pollute any thing that is set before it; the error is in your action, as you communicate with such as are idolaters; it is your own action that polluteth you, not the idol, nor yet the meat set before it.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain What say I then?.... Or may be objected to,…
What say I then?.... Or may be objected to, or inferred from, what I say;
that an idol is anything, or that which is sacrificed to idols is anything? to which must be answered, as the Syriac version reads, "no", by no means; by running the parallel between Christians having communion with the body and blood of Christ, in the Lord's supper, through eating the bread and drinking the wine, the Israelites partaking of the altar, by eating of the sacrifices of it, and men's joining with idols and idolaters, by eating things sacrificed to idols; it follows not that an idol has anything of deity in it, and is to be set upon a level with God, when, as he had said before, an idol was nothing, and what he now said did not at all contradict that; or that things offered to idols are to be had in the same account, or to be equalled to, or be thought to have any thing in them, as the elements of the bread and wine in the Lord's supper, or the sacrifices that were offered by the Israelites on the altar, according to the divine command; he meant no such thing, but only argued from the greater to the lesser, and his sense is more fully declared in the next words.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain What say I then - Do I in saying…
What say I then - Do I in saying this allow that an idol is anything divine? I aver, on the contrary, that what the heathens sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils. Such in reality are the gods of the heathens; and with such only can you hold communion in those sacrifices.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 19. What say I then?] A Jewish phrase…
Verse 19. What say I then?] A Jewish phrase for, I conclude; and this is his conclusion: that although an idol is nothing, has neither power nor influence, nor are things offered to idols any thing the worse for being thus offered; yet, as the things sacrificed by the Gentiles are sacrificed to demons and not to God, those who partake of them have fellowship with demons: those who profess Christianity cannot have fellowship both with Christ and the devil.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain 1Co 10:19-22. What say I then — Do I,…
1Co 10:19-22. What say I then — Do I, in saying this, allow that an idol is any thing divine? Or that which is offered in sacrifice to idols is any thing — Is a sacrifice to a real deity? Or is made either better or worse, or to differ from ordinary meat, by being thus offered to idols? You well know that I intend to maintain nothing of this kind: so far from it, that I aver the things which the Gentiles sacrifice — To supposed deities; they sacrifice to devils — For, though I grant the idol is nothing, yet those spirits that sometimes dwell in the images of these idols, and give answers from them, are something: they are demons, most wicked and unclean spirits, defiling every person and thing that has any relation to them. We may observe here, “The word δαιμωνια, demons, is used in the LXX. to denote the ghosts of men deceased; and Josephus (Bell., lib. 1Co 7:6) says, demons are the spirits of wicked men. It is therefore probable, that the writers of the New Testament use the word demons in the same sense, especially as it is well known that the greatest part of the heathen gods were dead men. The heathen worshipped two kinds of demons: the one kind were the souls of kings and heroes, deified after death, but who could have no agency in human affairs; the other kind of demons were those evil spirits who, under the names of Jupiter, Apollo, Trophonius, &c., moving the heathen priests and priestesses to deliver oracles, greatly promoted idolatry.” — Macknight. Such in reality, as if he had said, are the gods of the heathen, and with such only can ye hold communion in those sacrifices. And not to God — The heathen in general had no idea of God; that is, of an unoriginated, eternal, immutable, and infinitely perfect being, the Creator and Governor of all things. And I would not ye should have fellowship with devils — Or with their votaries, either in their worship, their principles, their practices, or their hopes; — ye who have at your baptism solemnly renounced the devil and all his adherents. For certainly it is not a small sin, nor a thing to be made light of, to have fellowship with them. Ye cannot of right — Or in reason, you ought not, it is contrary to your Christian profession so to do; drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils — Ye cannot have communion with both; cannot reasonably make profession of the worship of God, (which you do in the Lord’s supper in the highest instance,) and also of the worship of devils, (as you do in the idol feasts,) these being so contrary one to the other. Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy — Namely, by joining devils in competition with him? or by thus caressing his rivals? Are we stronger than He? — Able to resist or to bear his wrath? Can we secure ourselves against his judgments, when he comes forth to punish for such sins?
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain What say I then? - This is in the…
What say I then? - This is in the present tense; τί οὖν φημι ti oun phēmi, what do I say? What is my meaning? What follows from this? Do I mean to say that an idol is anything; that it has a real existence? Does my reasoning lead to that conclusion; and am I to be understood as affirming that an idol is of itself of any consequence? It must be recollected that the Corinthian Christians are introduced by Paul 1Co 8:4 as saying that they knew that an idol was nothing in the world. Paul did not directly contradict that; but his reasoning had led him to the necessity of calling the propriety of their attending on the feasts of idols in question; and he introduces the matter now by asking these questions, thus leading the mind to it rather than directly affirming it at once. “Am I in this reasoning to be understood as affirming that an idol is anything, or that the meat there offered differs from other meat? No; you know, says Paul, that this is not my meaning. I admit that an idol in itself is nothing; but I do not admit, therefore, that it is right for you to attend in their temples; for though the “idol” itself - the block of wood or stone - is nothing, yet the offerings are really made to devils; and I would not have you engage in such a service;” 1Co 10:20-21.
That the idol is anything? - That the block of wood or stone is a real living object of worship, to be dreaded or loved? See the note at 1Co 8:4.
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Or that which is offered in sacrifice to idols is anything? - Or that the meat which is offered “differs” from that which is not offered; that the mere act of offering it changes its qualities? I do not admit or suppose this.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain What then? do I say, &c. He puts this…
What then? do I say, &c. He puts this objection, as if it were contradictory to what he had taught before, (chap. viii. ver. 4.) that an idol is nothing, &c. but he answers this objection by saying that all things, that is, all meats are lawful in themselves, but not always expedient, nor edifying, when they give scandal to weak brethren, or when the infidels themselves think that such as eat things offered to idols, join with them in honouring their idols. (Witham) --- The meaning of this passage is: whilst I advise you to abstain from eating of any thing consecrated to idols, I do not advise you as supposing that these offerings have any power in themselves to defile your souls, in the same manner as by eating of the body and blood of Christ we receive strength to overcome our spiritual enemies. St. Paul here anticipates an objection that might be made by some to whom he was writing. (Estius)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain What say I then?--The inference might be drawn from…
What say I then?--The inference might be drawn from the analogies of the Lord's Supper and Jewish sacrifices, that an idol is really what the heathen thought it to be, a god, and that in eating idol-meats they had fellowship with the god. This verse guards against such an inference: "What would I say then? that a thing sacrificed to an idol is any real thing (in the sense that the heathen regard it), or that an idol is any real thing?" (The oldest manuscripts read the words in this order. Supply "Nay") "But [I say] that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils (demons)." Paul here introduces a new fact. It is true that, as I said, an idol has no reality in the sense that the heathen regard it, but it has a reality in another sense; heathendom being under Satan's dominion as "prince of this world," he and his demons are in fact the powers worshipped by the heathen, whether they are or are not conscious of it (Deu 32:17; Lev 17:7; Ch2 11:15; Psa 106:37; Rev 9:20). "Devil" is in the Greek restricted to Satan; "demons" is the term applied to his subordinate evil spirits. Fear, rather than love, is the motive of heathen worship (compare the English word "panic," from PAN, whose human form with horns and cloven hoofs gave rise to the vulgar representations of Satan which prevail now); just as fear is the spirit of Satan and his demons (Jam 2:19).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 19. What say I then?—What is the import, then,…
19. What say I then?—What is the import, then, of what I am now saying? Do I attribute any real existence to the imaginary gods and demigods represented by the idol, as Jupiter, Venus, Apollo? Or that the sacrifice is any thing more than a fiction?
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 19. What say I then? that the idol is…
19. What say I then? that the idol is any thing] St Paul does not mean to say here, any more than in ch. 1Co_8:4, that an idol, or the god represented by it, has any real objective existence, or that the sacrifices offered to such idols are the property of any such being as that they are intended to represent. But for all that, it may stand as the representative of that which has a very real existence indeed; he kingdom of evil, and those beings which maintain it.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (19) What say I then?—It might have been argued…
(19) What say I then?—It might have been argued from the preceding verse that the Apostle admitted the heathen offerings and the idols to which they were offered to be as real as were the offerings and Being to whom the altar was erected by Israel, whereas in 1Co_8:4 he had asserted the contrary.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain What say I then? What is it, then, which…
What say I then? What is it, then, which I am maintaining (fhmi)? That the idol is anything. St. Paul repudiates an inference which he had already denied. (1Co_8:4) Is anything. Has any intrinsic value, meaning, or importance. In itself, the idol offering is a mere dead, indifferent thing. Of itself, the idol is an eidolon a shadowy, unreal thing, one of the elilim; but in another aspect it was "really something," and so alone could the rabbis account for phenomena which seemed to imply the reality of infernal miracles ("Avoda Zarah," fol. 54, 2; 55, 1; and see note in "Life of St. Paul," 2:74).
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain 19. What say I then? He had said an…
19. What say I then? He had said an idol was nothing (8:4). Does he not now imply an idol is something?
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
William B. Godbey 1900 · Public Domain 19. As the blood in the human system is…
THE COMMUNION
19. As the blood in the human system is the vitalizer of the whole body, circulating into every member, so the blood of Christ circulates into every member of His mystical body, in Heaven and in earth, imparting to all His own vitality. Hence close communion is out of harmony with the life of Christ, common to all the members of His body and interpenetrating all, great and small. This blood, which is the life, is emblematized by the wine which should be participated in alike by all the members of our Lord’s body. The bread also emblematizes the body of Christ, and is consequently to be the common participation of all. Since bread is the staff of physical life on which every human body subsists, so it typifies Christ, the Creator and Nourisher of every human spirit. Hence the Eucharist is the visible bond of union, identifying the saints of all ages and nations with the one body of Christ.
William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain What say I then? that a thing sacrificed to…
What say I then? that a thing sacrificed to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? ["But, Paul," say the Corinthians, "your reasoning can not apply to feasts or sacrificial meat offered to idols; for you have already admitted ( 1Co_8:4 ) that an idol is a nonentity. By sacrifice a man may establish a communal relationship with God, for God is; but he can establish no such relationship with an idol, for an idol is not-it has no existence." The understanding of the Corinthians with regard to idols was true, but it was not the whole truth, for there was some reality back of the idol.]
J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 10:19-20 Idols have no reality or life (see 8:4-6),…
10:19-20 Idols have no reality or life (see 8:4-6), and sacrifices made to them accomplish nothing. The sacrifices pagans make to idols are actually unknowingly made to demons (see Deut 32:16-17; Ps 106:37; Rev 9:20). Those who share in their religious meals are thereby uniting themselves with demons.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.