Let’s not commit sexual immorality, as some of them committed, and in one day twenty-three thousand fell.
Parallel Translations
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Let’s not commit sexual immorality, as some of them committed, and in one day twenty-three thousand fell.
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Nether let vs comit fornicacion as some of them committed fornicacion and were destroyed in one daye.xxiii. thousande.
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Neither let vs commit fornication, as some of them committed fornication, and fell in one day three and twentie thousand.
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Contradictions (2)
Questions where the Bible appears to say two different things, with the passages on each side set together.
Cross-references (5)
Passages linked to 1 Corinthians 10:8 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Numbers 25:1-9 Israel stayed in Shittim; and the people began to play the prostitute with the daughters of Moab; for they called the people to the sacrifices of their gods. The people ate and bowed down to their gods. Israel joined himself to Baal Peor, and Yahweh’s anger burned against Israel. Yahweh said to Moses, “Take all the chiefs of the people, and hang them up to Yahweh before the sun, that the fierce anger of Yahweh may turn away from Israel.” Moses said to the judges of Israel, “Everyone kill his men who have joined themselves to Baal Peor.” Behold, one of the children of Israel came and brought to his brothers a Midianite woman in the sight of Moses, and in the sight of all the congregation of the children of Israel, while they were weeping at the door of the Tent of Meeting. When Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose up from the middle of the congregation, and took a spear in his hand. He went after the man of Israel into the pavilion, and thrust both of them through, the man of Israel, and the woman through her body. So the plague was stopped among the children of Israel. Those who died by the plague were twenty-four thousand.
- 1 Corinthians 6:18 Flee sexual immorality! “Every sin that a man does is outside the body,” but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.
- Psalms 106:29 Thus they provoked him to anger with their deeds. The plague broke in on them.
- 1 Corinthians 6:9 Or don’t you know that the unrighteous will not inherit God’s Kingdom? Don’t be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor male prostitutes, nor homosexuals,
- Revelation 2:14 But I have a few things against you, because you have there some who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to throw a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit sexual immorality.
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain 8. Neither let us commit fornication Now he speaks…
8. Neither let us commit fornication Now he speaks of fornication, in respect of which, as appears from historical accounts, great licentiousness prevailed among the Corinthians, and we may readily infer from what goes before, that those who had professed themselves to be Christ’s were not yet altogether free from this vice. The punishment of this vice, also, ought to alarm us, and lead us to bear in mind, how loathsome impure lusts are to God, for there perished in one day twenty-three thousand, or as Moses says, twenty-four. Though they differ as to number, it is easy to reconcile them, as it is no unusual thing, when it is not intended to number exactly and minutely each head, to put down a number that comes near it, as among the Romans there were those that received the name of Centumviri, (The Hundred,) while in reality there were two above the hundred. As there were, therefore, about twenty-four thousand that were overthrown by the Lord’s hand — that is, above twenty-three, Moses has set down the number above the mark, and Paul, the number below it, and in this way there is in reality no difference. This history is recorded in Numbers 25:9
There remains, however, one difficulty here — why it is that Paul attributes this punishment to fornication, while Moses relates that the anger of God was aroused against the people on this account — that they had initiated themselves in the sacred rites of Baalpeor. But as the defection began with fornication, and the children of Israel fell into that impiety, not so much from being influenced by religious considerations, as from being allured by the enticements of harlots, everything evil that followed from it ought to be attributed to fornication. For Balaam had given this counsel, that the Midianites should prostitute their daughters to the Israelites, with the view of estranging them from the true worship of God. Nay more, their excessive blindness, in allowing themselves to be drawn into impiety by the enticements of harlots, was the punishment of lust. Let us learn, accordingly, that fornication is no light offense, which was punished on that occasion by God so severely and indeed in a variety of ways.
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 8 Neither let us commit fornication, as some of…
8 Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed, and fell in one day three and twenty thousand.
Ver. 8. And fell in one day] The apostle, instead of the cloak of heat of youth, puts upon fornication a bloody cloak, bathed in the blood of twenty-three thousand. (Knewstub. on Com. 7.)
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Three and twenty thousand] Moses mentions 24,000, whereof one thousand were the chief princes, the others inferiors, provoked to sin by their example. But why doth the apostle insist in the special punishment of the people? To show (saith learned Junius) how frigid and insufficient their excuse is, that pretend for their sins the examples of their superiors.
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 The story to which this verse relates is that,…
The story to which this verse relates is that, Num 25:1-9. When Balaam could not curse the Israelites, he advised the debauching of them by the Moabitish women, first enticing them to fornication and adultery, then to idolatry: and they were enticed, which caused a plague amongst them, which destroyed amongst them
in one day three and twenty thousand, saith our apostle: Moses saith, that there died twenty and four thousand. There are many guesses for the clearing of that seeming contradiction. Some say, that Moses mentioneth not one day, there might in all die twenty-four thousand, but not all the same day, nor possibly by the same death. But nothing is in Scripture more ordinary, than to speak of things or persons in round numbers, though something over or under; and also to speak according to the common reckoning of people, who also may talk variously. Some might report twenty-three, some twenty-four thousand: or possibly Paul chose to mention the lesser rather than the greater round number. The sense of Moses might be, about twenty-four thousand, or near up to that number, all of which probably had not been guilty of adultery or fornication. Paul saith, there died twenty-three thousand. If there did die twenty-four thousand, there must needs die twenty-three thousand.
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 Neither let us commit fornication,.... To which the Corinthians…
Neither let us commit fornication,.... To which the Corinthians were much addicted: hence the apostle elsewhere, in this epistle, makes use of arguments, to dissuade from it, as he does here, they judging it to be no evil:
as some of them committed; i.e. fornication; as they did at Shittim, with the daughters of Moab, Num 25:1 which was a stratagem of Balaam's, and the advice he gave to Balak king of Moab, to draw them into that sin, which made way for their commission of idolatry, which they committed by eating the sacrifices of their gods, and bowing down unto them; particularly they joined themselves to Baal Peor, the same with Priapus, one part of whose religious rites lay in acts of uncleanness, and this brought the divine displeasure on them:
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and fell in one day three and twenty thousand; in Num 25:9 the number said to be "twenty and four thousand": and so say all the three Targums on the place (w), and both the Talmuds (x) and others (y); on the other hand, all the Greek copies of this epistle, and the Oriental versions, agree in the number of twenty and three thousand; so that it does not appear to be any mistake of copies, in either Testament. To reconcile this matter, or at least to abate the difficulties of it, let the following things be observed; as that the apostle does not write as an historian, and so not with that exactness as Moses did; besides, he does not say that there fell "only" three and twenty thousand, and this beings lesser number than is contained in his, and so a certain truth; moreover, Moses and the apostle use different words in their account; Moses says there died so many, including the heads of the people that were hanged up against the sun, and all that perished by the sword; the apostle says, that there fell such a number, referring only to the latter, who only could be properly said to fall, and not those that were hanged up: now the heads of the people that suffered the first kind of death, might, as is very probable, be a thousand; and they that died in the other way, three and twenty thousand, which make the sums to agree, and both are expressed by Moses, under the general name of a plague or stroke; to all this, that the apostle uses a limiting clause, which Moses does not, and says that these three and twenty thousand fell in one day. So that it is very likely that the heads of the people, supposed to be a thousand, were hanged up in one day; and the three and twenty thousand that fell by the sword died the next, which the apostle only takes notice of. Hence the Jew (z) has no reason to charge the apostle with an error.
(w) Targum Onkelos, Jon. ben Uzziel & Jerusalem in Numb, xxv. 9. (x) T. Hieros Sota, fol. 21. 4. T. Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 106. 1. (y) Midrash Kohelet, fol. 68. 4. Tzeror Hammor, fol. 127. 3. (z) R. Isaac Chizzuk Emuna, par. 2. c. 36. p. 468.
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 And fell in one day three and twenty thousand…
And fell in one day three and twenty thousand - Beside the princes who were afterwards hanged, and those whom the Judges slew so that there died in all four and twenty thousand. Num. xxv, 1, 9.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 8. Fell in one day three and twenty…
Verse 8. Fell in one day three and twenty thousand.] In Nu 25:9, the number is 24,000; and, allowing this to be the genuine reading, (and none of the Hebrew MSS. exhibit any various reading in the place,) Moses and the apostle may be thus reconciled: in Nu 25:4, God commands Moses to take all the heads (the rulers) of the people, and hang them up before the Lord against the sun; these possibly amounted to 1000, and those who fell by the plague were 23,000, so that the whole amounted to 24,000. Instead of εικοσιτρεις χιλιαδες, 23,000, two MSS., with the later Syriac and the Armenian, have εικοσιτεσσαρες χιλιαδες, 24,000; but this authority is too slender to establish a various reading, which recedes so much from the received text. I think the discordance may be best accounted for by supposing, as above, that Phineas and his companions might have slain 1000 men, who were heads of the people, and chief in this idolatry; and that the plague sent from the Lord destroyed 23,000 more; so an equal number to the whole tribe of Levi perished in one day, who were just 23,000. See Nu 26:62; and see Lightfoot.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain Neither let us commit fornication ... - The case…
Neither let us commit fornication ... - The case referred to here was that of the licentious contact with the daughters of Moab, referred to in Num 25:1-9.
And fell in one day - Were slain for their sin by the plague that prevailed.
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Three and twenty thousand - The Hebrew text in Num 25:9, is twenty-four thousand. In order to reconcile these statements, it may be observed that perhaps 23,000 fell directly by the plague, and 1,000 were slain by Phinehas and his companions (Grotius); or it may be that the number was between 23,000 and 24,000, and it might be expressed in round numbers by either - Macknight. At all events, Paul has not exceeded the truth. There were at least 23,000 that fell, though there might have been more. The probable supposition is, that the 23,000 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 1,000 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 special manner exposed to it; and hence, the anxiety of the apostle to warn them against it.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain fornication--literally, Fornication was generally, as in this case (Num.…
fornication--literally, Fornication was generally, as in this case (Num. 25:1-18), associated at the idol feasts with spiritual fornication, that is, idolatry. This all applied to the Corinthians (Co1 5:1, Co1 5:9; Co1 6:9, Co1 6:15, Co1 6:18; Co1 8:10). Balaam tempted Israel to both sins with Midian (Rev 2:14). Compare Co1 8:7, Co1 8:9, "stumbling-block," "eat . . . thing offered unto . . . idol."
three and twenty thousand--in Num 25:9 "twenty and four thousand." If this were a real discrepancy, it would militate rather against inspiration of the subject matter and thought, than against verbal inspiration. The solution is: Moses in Numbers includes all who died "in the plague"; Paul, all who died "in one day"; one thousand more may have fallen the next day [KITTO, Biblical Cyclopædia]. Or, the real number may have been between twenty-three thousand and twenty-four thousand, say twenty-three thousand five hundred, or twenty-three thousand six hundred; when writing generally where the exact figures were not needed, one writer might quite veraciously give one of the two round numbers near the exact one, and the other writer the other [BENGEL]. Whichever be the true way of reconciling the seeming discrepant statements, at least the ways given above prove they are not really irreconcilable.
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 8. Let us—Paul, perhaps, reverts here to the first…
8. Let us—Paul, perhaps, reverts here to the first person from delicacy.
Fornication—Any illicit sexual connexion. This caution well follows next after that against idolatry; for the idol rites consisted largely of debauchery, as is illustrated by the case to which Paul now refers.
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Committed—While the Israelites yet sojourned on the east side of the Jordan, the Moabite women first invited them to their sacrificial banquets, and thereby seduced them to whoredom. Numbers 25. The worship of the Corinthian Venus was of precisely the same kind; in which debauchery was consecrated as a religious rite. How liable the Corinthian Christians were to that sort of seduction the case of the incestuous man indicates.
Three and twenty thousand—The Old Testament (Num_25:9) says, four and twenty thousand. Scholars generally admit that Paul wrote as this present text stands; and many, as Alford and Kling, treat it as a failure of apostolic memory. Alford considers it discreditable to maintain any other view. Grotius reconciles the contradiction by supposing that the twenty-three thousand were slain by the plague and one thousand by Phinehas and his fellows. Wordsworth supposes that Paul gives the number who fell in the single day, while Numbers gives all that fell in consequence of the crime. Bengel supposes, that both accounts giving only the round numbers, the exact count might be between the two, and so both numbers be equally correct. Of course no moral truth is affected by the variance.
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 8. Neither let us commit fornication] i.e. the natural…
8. Neither let us commit fornication] i.e. the natural result of joining in the impure worship of Ashtaroth, or Astarte, the Syrian Venus. The temple of Aphrodite, on the Acro-Corinthus, contained a thousand priestesses devoted to the same licentious worship. See Introduction. The warning in the text was, therefore, by no means needless. The occasion referred to is that related in Num_25:1-6.
three and twenty thousand] In Num_25:9 we find 24,000. The actual number would no doubt be between the two, so that both here and in the book of Numbers only round numbers are given. “Our Apostle saith not definitely three and twenty thousand perished, but three and twenty thousand at the least.” Lightfoot.
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 (8) And fell in one day three and twenty…
(8) And fell in one day three and twenty thousand.—In Num_25:9 the statement is that twenty-four thousand perished. Various and ingenious attempts have been made to reconcile these two accounts of the actual numbers. The explanation most in harmony with the character of the writer, and the utterly unessential nature of the point historically, is, I venture to think, that either the Apostle quoted from memory a fact of no great importance, or else that he referred for his figures to some copy of the LXX., in which the numbers might be specified as here.
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 Commit fornication. This sin was not only an ordinary…
Commit fornication. This sin was not only an ordinary accompaniment of idolatry, but often a consecrated part of it, as in the case of the thousand hierodouloi, or female attendants, in the temple of Aphrodite on Acro-Corinthus. Three and twenty thousand. The number given in Num_25:9 is twenty-four thousand. We cannot give any account of the discrepancy, which is, however, quite unimportant.
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 8. Neither let us commit fornication, etc. The fornication…
8. Neither let us commit fornication, etc. The fornication with the Midianites (Num. 25:1–9). It is stated that 24,000 lost their lives. Paul names 23,000 as the number who lost their lives by the plague. The number was no doubt between 23,000 and 24,000, and is stated in each place by a round sum, according to Jewish custom, Paul naming the smaller. Fornication was also one of the besetting sins of Corinth.
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 8. “Neither let us commit fornication, as some of…
8. “Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed fornication, and fell in one day twenty-three thousand.” All deflection from God after the world is spiritual fornication, whose sweeping spiritual ruin is here vividly symbolized by twenty-three thousand in one day dropping dead. When churches reject sanctification, they always go after worldly gods, i. e., side-track away into spiritual fornication, as sanctification is simple holy wedlock with Jesus, which the Holy Ghost wants to celebrate, every recusant of course deciding in favor of rival lovers inimical to Jesus. The reason why we see the wholesale apostasy in all denominations is because God has brought on them the test of the Holiness gospel. Hence they are bound to receive it or backslide. Perhaps the Jews would have remained loyal to Jehovah many centuries if He had not sent to them His Son, who became to them an immediate stumbling block, because they rejected Him, then and there apostatizing and becoming a hiss and by-word in all the earth, rejected of God and reprobated.
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 Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them…
Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed, and fell in one day three and twenty thousand . [ Num_25:1-9 . While Paul gives the number as twenty-three thousand, Moses gives it as twenty-four. Alford and Kling think the discrepancy is due to a failure in Paul's memory, but why should the Spirit of God let him thus forget? Grotius says that a thousand were slain by Phinehas and his followers, and the rest were destroyed by the plague. Kitto varies this a little by saying that Paul gives the number that fell on one day, as his words show, while Moses gives the full number that perished on both days. But Bengel's solution is a sufficient one. The Hebrews habitually dealt in round numbers, so that a number between twenty-three and twenty-four thousand could be correctly stated by either figure. Moses gave the maximum and Paul the minimum. The sin mentioned was not only an ordinary accompaniment of idolatry, but often a consecrated part of it, as in the rites of Baal-peor among the Moabites and those of Venus among the Corinthians. Sins are gregarious.]
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.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain fell in one day
fell in one day
Cf. Num 25:9. A discrepancy has been imagined. 1Co 10:8. gives the number of deaths in "one day"; Num 25:9, the total number of deaths "in the plague." Some discrepant statements concerning numbers are, however, found in the existing manuscripts of the Hebrew Scriptures. These are most naturally ascribed to the fact that the Hebrews used letters in the place of numerals. The letters for Koph to Tau express hundreds up to four hundred. Five certain Hebrew letters, written in a different form, carry hundreds up to nine hundred, while thousands are expressed by two dots over the proper unit letter: e.g. the letter Teth, used alone, stands for 9; with two dots it stands for nine thousand. Error in transcription of Hebrew numbers thus becomes easy, preservation of numerical accuracy difficult.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 10:8 See Num 25:1-9.
10:8 See Num 25:1-9.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.