He said to the people, “Be ready by the third day. Don’t have sexual relations with a woman.”
Parallel Translations
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He said to the people, “Be ready by the third day. Don’t have sexual relations with a woman.”
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And he said unto the people, Be ready against the third day: come not at your wives.
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And he said unto the people: 'Be ready against the third day; come not near a woman.'
Cross-references (13)
Passages linked to Exodus 19:15 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Exodus 19:11 and be ready for the third day; for on the third day Yahweh will come down in the sight of all the people on Mount Sinai.
- 1 Samuel 21:4-5 The priest answered David, and said, “I have no common bread, but there is holy bread; if only the young men have kept themselves from women.” David answered the priest, and said to him, “Truly, women have been kept from us as usual these three days. When I came out, the vessels of the young men were holy, though it was only a common journey. How much more then today shall their vessels be holy?”
- 1 Corinthians 7:5 Don’t deprive one another, unless it is by consent for a season, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer, and may be together again, that Satan doesn’t tempt you because of your lack of self-control.
- Joel 2:16 Gather the people. Sanctify the assembly. Assemble the elders. Gather the children, and those who nurse from breasts. Let the bridegroom go out of his room, and the bride out of her room.
- Exodus 19:16 On the third day, when it was morning, there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud on the mountain, and the sound of an exceedingly loud trumpet; and all the people who were in the camp trembled.
- Amos 4:12 “Therefore thus I will do to you, Israel; because I will do this to you, prepare to meet your God, Israel.
- Zechariah 6:3 in the third chariot white horses; and in the fourth chariot dappled horses, all of them powerful.
- Zechariah 7:3 and to speak to the priests of the house of Yahweh of Armies, and to the prophets, saying, “Should I weep in the fifth month, separating myself, as I have done these so many years?”
- Malachi 3:2 “But who can endure the day of his coming? And who will stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire, and like launderers’ soap;
- Matthew 3:10-12 “Even now the ax lies at the root of the trees. Therefore every tree that doesn’t produce good fruit is cut down, and cast into the fire. I indeed baptize you in water for repentance, but he who comes after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you in the Holy Spirit. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will thoroughly cleanse his threshing floor. He will gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn up with unquenchable fire.”
- Matthew 24:44 Therefore also be ready, for in an hour that you don’t expect, the Son of Man will come.
- 2 Peter 3:11-12 Therefore since all these things will be destroyed like this, what kind of people ought you to be in holy living and godliness, looking for and earnestly desiring the coming of the day of God, which will cause the burning heavens to be dissolved, and the elements will melt with fervent heat?
- Zechariah 12:12-14 The land will mourn, every family apart; the family of David’s house apart, and their wives apart; the family of the house of Nathan apart, and their wives apart; the family of the house of Levi apart, and their wives apart; the family of the Shimeites apart, and their wives apart; all the families who remain, every family apart, and their wives apart.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (7 sources)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain But give yourselves to prayer and abstinence, that you…
But give yourselves to prayer and abstinence, that you may at this time attend only upon the Lord, 1 Cor. 7:5.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Exo 19:15 And he said unto the people, Be…
Exo 19:15 And he said unto the people, Be ready against the third day: come not at [your] wives.
Ver. 15. Be ready against the third day.] If the word of a command expected such readiness, what shall the word of promise? &c.
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Come not at your wives.] For the legal uncleanness that was in it, {Lev 15:18 1Sa 21:4} figuring the filth of original sin.
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 Abstain from the use of the marriage-bed, partly because…
Abstain from the use of the marriage-bed, partly because your wives may haply have their uncleanness upon them, though unknown to themselves, at least to you, whereby you may be legally defiled; see Lev 15:18; and partly that your minds may be abstracted from all sensual delights, and wholly employed about this great and holy work and service. There is a like command 1Co 7:5; but both this and that do indifferently concern both ministers and people, and are limited to a certain time, and therefore are very impertinently alleged for the perpetual celibacy of ministers. See also 1Sa 21:5.
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 And he said unto the people, be ready against…
And he said unto the people, be ready against the third day,.... The third day from thence, the sixth of the month Sivan, against which day they were to prepare themselves, by washing their garments, and all other outward acts of sanctification and purity they were directed to, that they might be ready for the service of that day, to hear and receive the law from God himself: Aben Ezra has this note on the passage,"perhaps not a man slept that night, that he might hear the voice of the Lord in the morning, as was the way or custom of the high priest on the day of atonement;''that is, not to sleep the night before:
come not at your wives; or, "do not draw nigh to a woman" (q), to lie with her; meaning not with a strange woman, or one that was not his wife, for that was not lawful at any time; nor with a menstruous woman who was unclean, and so forbidden, but with a man's own wife: what was lawful must now be abstained from, for the greater sanctification and solemnity of the service of this day, see Co1 7:5, so Chaeremoh (r) the stoic says of the Egyptian priests, that when the time is at hand that they are to perform some very sacred and solemn service, they spend several days in preparing for it; sometimes two and forty, sometimes more, sometimes less, but never under seven; when they abstain from all animals, and from all kind of herbs and pulse, and especially from venereal conversation with women; and to this latter Juvenal (s) the poet has respect.
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(q) Sept. "to a woman", Ainsworth. (r) Apud Porphyr, de Abstinentia, l. 4. sect. 7. Vid Clement. Alexand Stromat. l. 1. p. 306. (s) "Ille petit veniam quoties non abstinet uxor, "Concubitu, sacris observandisque diebus". Juvenal, Satyr 6.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Wives. St. Paul recommends continence when people have to…
Wives. St. Paul recommends continence when people have to pray, 1 Corinthians vii. On the pagan temple of Epidaurus, this inscription was placed, "Let those be chaste who enter here." (Clement of Alexandria, strom. 5.)
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).
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (15) Come not at your wives.—Comp. 1Sa_21:4-5 :1Co_7:5. It…
(15) Come not at your wives.—Comp. 1Sa_21:4-5 :1Co_7:5. It was the general sentiment of antiquity that a ceremonial uncleanness attached even to the chastest sexual connection. (Herod. I. 189, ii. 64; Hesiod. Op. et D., 11. 733-4: Tibull, Carni. ii. 1, 11. 11, 12; Porphyr., De Abstinentia, 4:7.) The Levitical law took the same view (Lev_15:18), as did the Indian law (Menu, v. 63), the Persian (Zendavesta, quoted by Bähr, Symbolik, vol. ii., p. 466), and the Mahometan (Koran, iv. 5).
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 Come not at your wives. Compare 1Sa_21:4, 1Sa_21:5; 1Co_7:5.…
Come not at your wives. Compare 1Sa_21:4, 1Sa_21:5; 1Co_7:5. A similar obligation lay on the Egyptian priests (Porphyr. De Abstin. 4:7); and the idea which underlies it was widespread in the ancient world (See Heb 1:198; Hesiod. Op. et Di. 733-4; Tibul. Carm. 2:1; 51:11, 12.) The subject is well treated, from a Christian point of view, by Pope Gregory the First, in his answers to S. Augustine"s questions (Bode, Hist. Eccl. 2.).
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.