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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadMatthew Poole Commentary - 1 Corinthians 10:8 - 10:8
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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.