John Bengel Commentary - 1 Corinthians 10:2 - 10:2

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John Bengel Commentary - 1 Corinthians 10:2 - 10:2


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1Co 10:2. Καὶ πάντες εἰς τὸν Μωϋσὴν ἐβαπτίσαντο, and all were baptized unto Moses) καἰ, and so. He resumes what he slightly touched upon in the preceding verse about the cloud and the sea, and shows to what each refers. They were baptized in the cloud, so far as they were under it; and in the sea, so far as they passed through it. They were neither wet with the cloud nor with the sea, much less were they immersed in either (although some conjecture, that a miraculous rain fell from that cloud, from what is said in Psa 68:9; Psa 105:39), nor is the term baptism found in the writings of Moses. But Paul uses this term with great propriety, 1. Because the cloud and the sea are in their own nature water (wherefore also Paul is silent respecting the pillar of fire); 2. The cloud and the sea took the fathers out of sight and restored them again to view, and this is what the water does to those who are baptized. 3. They were initiated by the cloud and by the sea; and as initiation, at Col 2:11, is described by circumcision, so here by baptism, a metaphor common to the Old and New Testament; comp. ch. 1Co 5:7. But they were baptized unto Moses, as the servant of God, Exo 14:31, because they had begun to believe (in) him, and that they might afterwards believe (in) him; comp. εἰς, Rom 4:20.[85] ἐβαπτίσαντο, in the middle voice, received baptism. In the 1st verse it is hinted what God did for them; in 1Co 10:2, what the fathers received. The sacraments of the Old Testament were more than two, if we take into account these extraordinary ones, at the time of their exodus out of the land of Egypt.-καὶ ἐν τῇ θαλάσσῃ, and in the sea) In repeated indicates a new step in their progress and privileges.

[85] [He staggered not] at [in reference to], the promise of God: so here, baptized unto Moses, viz., in relation to him as their divinely appointed leader.-ED.