1 Corinthians 10:3

Paul begins with the two great events of the Exodus. The cloud, nephélē, is the pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night that went before Israel, the visible sign of God’s presence, guidance and protection (Exodus 13:21–22). It also shielded them from the sun and from their pursuers. “Under the cloud” uses hypó, “under”, of a people covered by God’s presence. The sea, thálassa, is the Red Sea, which God parted to let his people pass through safely and closed over the Egyptian army that pursued them (Exodus 14:21–31). “Passed through” is diérchomai, formed from diá, “through”, and érchomai, “to come or go”, and it means to go through from one side to the other.

The word “all”, pâs, comes five times in these four verses. All were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, all were baptized, all ate and all drank. Every Israelite shared these gifts, the ones who later fell as much as Joshua and Caleb. That is what gives verse 5 its force, where “all” gives way to “many of them”.

The cloud that led Israel calls to mind the Comforter whom Christ promised to send, who abides with his people for ever and guides them (John 14:16–17).

Paul calls the crossing a baptism. Baptízō means to dip, immerse, sink, overwhelm, wash or baptize, and in the New Testament it is used of ceremonial washing and above all of Christian baptism. Here Paul uses it of what happened to the whole nation “in the cloud and in the sea”. The preposition eis, “unto”, means “into” or “to, toward”, and it names the one they were joined to. The preposition en, “in”, gives the setting and the means, for the cloud and the sea were God’s instruments of rescue. Through these events Israel was bound to Moses as the leader God had chosen and to the covenant God made through him, and they left their life of slavery in Egypt behind them.

This was a baptism in picture, since Israel went through no water rite, and Paul calls it a baptism because it was the Old Testament pattern of ours. Believers are “baptized into Jesus Christ”, buried with him into death, so that we should walk in newness of life (Romans 6:3–4), and we are raised with him through faith (Colossians 2:12). As many as have been baptized into Christ “have put on Christ” (Galatians 3:27), and by one Spirit we are all baptized into one body (1 Corinthians 12:13). Israel was joined to Moses, who led them out of slavery in Egypt, and we are joined to Christ, who delivers us from slavery to sin and death.

“And did all eat the same spiritual meat.” In the KJV “meat” means food. The word brōma is any food, and here it is the manna God sent from heaven every day in the wilderness (Exodus 16). Phágō, “eat”, is the ordinary verb for eating, and it supplies forms of the verb esthíō. Paul calls the manna pneumatikós, “spiritual”, from pneuma, “spirit”. The manna was real food that fed real bodies, and it came from God by a miracle, carried his meaning and pointed past itself. It was also a test, for God sent it “that I may prove them, whether they will walk in my law, or no” (Exodus 16:4). Moses later told Israel that God fed them with manna to make them know that man lives “by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD” (Deuteronomy 8:3).

The manna points to Christ. Jesus said that his Father gives the true bread from heaven, and that he himself is the bread of life (John 6:32–35). “I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever” (John 6:48–51). The Corinthians remembered his body and blood at the Lord’s table (1 Corinthians 11:23–26), and that is the parallel Paul is drawing. Israel had its spiritual food and drink, as the church has baptism and the Lord’s Supper. The next verse completes the picture with the drink, póma, the water God gave from the rock.

Paul is telling us who stood behind the rock. The Son of God, before he became man, was present with Israel in the wilderness, and he was the true source of the water that flowed from the rock. The stone itself did not turn into Jesus. The verb is ēn, “was”, the imperfect, past tense of the verb “to be”. The dé, “and”, that opens the clause is a simple connective, so the weight falls on the plain statement itself, “that Rock was Christ”. Christós means “anointed”, the Messiah. Verse 9 says the same thing from the other side, for there Israel “tempted Christ”.

So Christ was with Israel then as he is with his church now, “alway, even unto the end of the world” (Matthew 28:20), for “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever” (Hebrews 13:8). Isaiah speaks of the tried stone God lays in Zion for a sure foundation (Isaiah 28:16), and the church is built on Christ, its rock and chief corner stone (Matthew 16:18, Ephesians 2:20).

The water from the rock looks ahead to the living water Jesus gives, “a well of water springing up into everlasting life” (John 4:10–14). He cried, “If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink,” and he spoke of the Spirit (John 7:37–39). Scripture ends with the river of the water of life proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb (Revelation 22:1). The rock gave its water when it was struck, and when the soldier pierced the side of Christ on the cross, “forthwith came there out blood and water” (John 19:34). The things of the old covenant were “a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ” (Colossians 2:16–17).

“Neither be ye idolaters, as were some of them”. Mēdé, “neither”, links each new warning to the one before. An eidōlolátrēs is one who worships or serves an image, a word built from “idol” and “service”. “As it is written” brings in a direct quotation of Exodus 32:6, in the words of the Greek Old Testament, the Septuagint: “The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.” Israel had only just been delivered from Egypt and given the law at Sinai, and already they had made the calf.

Kathízō, “sat down”, means to sit down or be seated, and here it is the people taking their places at the feast. That feast was part of the calf’s worship, a meal held in its honour. Paízō, “to play”, comes from the word for a child and can mean innocent play or sport. At the feast of the calf it describes the revelry that followed, which very likely included immorality, and the next verse turns to fornication.

This is the warning the Corinthians needed. A temple feast in Corinth could look like an ordinary social meal, yet it was held in honour of a god, and Israel’s story shows what such a meal is. The calf brought a plague on the people (Exodus 32:35). God’s first commandment is “Thou shalt have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3), and Israel was to love the one LORD their God with all their heart, soul and might (Deuteronomy 6:4–5). Paul calls covetousness idolatry too (Colossians 3:5), so an idol is anything that takes God’s place in the heart. John ends his first letter by naming Christ “the true God, and eternal life”, and adds, “Little children, keep yourselves from idols” (1 John 5:20–21). God seeks those who worship him in spirit and in truth (John 4:24), with all the heart, soul, mind and strength (Mark 12:30).

“Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed, and fell in one day three and twenty thousand.” Porneúō comes from the word for a harlot and means to act the harlot, and it covers sexual sin of every kind outside marriage. Here Paul says “let us”, counting himself under the same warning.

The event is the sin at Baal-peor (Numbers 25:1–9). While Israel camped at Shittim, the men of Israel committed whoredom with the women of Moab, who drew them into the worship of their god, Baal of Peor. Sexual sin and idolatry went together, and the LORD’s anger brought a plague on the camp. Píptō, “fell”, is the ordinary verb “to fall”, used here of those who died. Chiliás is “a thousand”.

Corinth itself was notorious for sexual immorality, including, it is said, prostitution connected with the temple of Aphrodite, so the warning came close to home. Paul had already told them to flee fornication, because the body of a believer is the temple of the Holy Ghost and is to glorify God (1 Corinthians 6:18–20). The risen Christ rebuked the church at Pergamos for holding the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a stumblingblock before Israel, “to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication” (Revelation 2:14). Jude sets Sodom and Gomorrha before us as an example of the same sin and its judgment (Jude 1:7).

Numbers says, “those that died in the plague were twenty and four thousand” (Numbers 25:9), and Paul gives a thousand fewer. The difference is small, and Paul may be giving a round figure, as ancient writers commonly did, or following another count known in his day. Either way his point stands just as Numbers tells it: a vast number died swiftly because of this sin.

“Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed of serpents.” Ekpeirázō is peirázō, to test or try, strengthened with ek, “out of”, and it means to put someone thoroughly to the test, here in a hostile and presumptuous way. To tempt God is to challenge him, to complain against what he provides and dare him to act. Moses had warned, “Ye shall not tempt the LORD your God” (Deuteronomy 6:16).

The event is in Numbers 21:4–9. The people grew impatient on the way and spoke against God and against Moses, complaining that they had no bread or water and that their soul loathed the manna, “this light bread”. God sent fiery serpents among them, and much people of Israel died. Óphis is “serpent” or “snake”, and most of its New Testament uses are of the animal itself, as here.

Paul says it was Christ they tempted. The one Israel provoked in the wilderness was the Son of God before he took flesh, the same Christ who was the Rock, and he may be the Angel of the LORD who went before them. So the Lord whom the Corinthians might provoke at an idol’s table is the same Lord whom Israel provoked.

The same chapter of Numbers holds a mercy as well, for God provided healing through a serpent of brass lifted up on a pole. Jesus said, “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:14–15). God “hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin” (2 Corinthians 5:21), and “commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

“Neither murmur ye, as some of them also murmured, and were destroyed of the destroyer.” Gongýzō describes a low muttering of discontent, grumbling against those in authority and against God’s providence. Israel murmured again and again, over meat (Numbers 11), in the rebellion of Korah (Numbers 16), and after the spies’ report, when God said that the whole murmuring generation would die in the wilderness. Their murmuring was against Moses and Aaron, and through them against God himself, who had fed and led them every day. That is why it was so serious. It accused God of failing them while his care was in front of their eyes.

Apóllymi, “destroyed”, means to destroy fully or to perish. The one who destroyed them is the olothreutḗs, a ruiner or destroyer. Paul tells believers to do all things “without murmurings and disputings” (Philippians 2:14), and Jude counts murmurers and complainers among the ungodly (Jude 1:16).

The destroyer is the agent God sends to carry out his judgment. In the Greek Old Testament the related verb describes the destroyer who passed through Egypt on the night of the Passover and struck the firstborn (Exodus 12:23). In David’s day God sent a destroying angel against Jerusalem (2 Samuel 24:16, 1 Chronicles 21:15). Paul leaves him unnamed, and he is best understood as an angel of judgment, or as the plague by which God struck the people. Either way the judgment came from God.

God tests his people for their good, and the enticement to sin comes from our own desires and from Satan. James writes, “Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man” (James 1:13). The one word peirasmós can mean a trial or an enticement, and God permits trials to prove and strengthen faith (James 1:2–4). It was Satan who came as the tempter to Jesus himself in the wilderness. In this verse God is the one who limits the temptation and opens the way out.

The way to escape comes “with the temptation”, so it is often a path through the trial while it lasts. It may be a sudden insight, fresh strength, the wisdom to leave a tempting place, a wise friend at the right time, or a change in circumstances that ends the trial altogether. What God promises is that a faithful way is always open, so his people are always able to stand.

The promise is a promise about God’s faithfulness, and it assures us that by his grace the opportunity to stand is always there. Believers can still fall into sin, and when they do, God has kept his word and the failure lies in our refusing the way he provided. That is why the warning of verse 12 and the promise of verse 13 belong together, for the promise is what makes watchfulness hopeful.