1 Corinthians 10:3,4

After deliverance came the question of sustenance. This was effected in the desert by means no less miraculous and symbolic: “and they all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink” the manna of Exodus 16:13 ff., etc., and the stream drawn from the rocks of Rephidim (Exodus 17.) and Kadesh (Numbers 20.). The epithe πνευματικὸν does not negative the materiality of the βρῶμα and πόμα, any more than the corporeality of the ripe Christian man described in 1 Corinthians 2:15; it ascribes to these nutriments a higher virtue such as, e.g., the bread of Christ's miracles had for intelligent partakers a spiritual meaning and influence : for the bread, see Deuteronomy 8:2 f. (cf. Matthew 4:3 f., John 6:31 ff., Psalms 78:23 ff.); for the water, Exodus 17:7; Numbers 20:13; Psalms 105:41; Isaiah 35:6. In drinking from the smitten rock the Israelites “were drinking” at the same time “of a spiritual rock ” and that not supplying them once alone, but “following” them throughout their history. 1 Corinthians 10:4 b explains 4 a (γὰρ): P. justifies his calling the miraculous water “spiritual,” not by saying that the rock from which it issued was a spiritual (and no material) rock, but that there was “ a spiritual rock accompanying” God's people; from this they drank in spirit, while their bodies drank from the water flowing at their feet. The lesson is strictly parl [1414] to that of Deuteronomy 8:3 f. respecting the manna. In truth, another rock was there beside the visible cliff of Rephidim: “Now this rock (ἡ πέτρα δέ) was the Christ! ” The “meat” and “drink” are the actual desert food “the same” for “all,” but endowed for all with a “spiritual” grace; the “spiritual rock” which imparted this virtue is distinguished as “following” the people, being superior to local limitations a rock not symbolic of Christ, but identical with Him. This identification our Lord virtually made in the words of John 7:37. The impf [1415] (ἔπινον) (4 b), exchanged for ἔπιον (4 a), indicates the continuous aid drawn from this “following rock”.

[1414] parallel.

[1415]mpf. imperfect tense.

Baur, Al [1416], and others suppose P. to be adopting the Rabbinical legend that the water-bearing Rephidim rock journeyed onwards with the Israelites (see Bammidbar Rabba, s. 1; Eisenmenger, Entd. Judenthum, I. 312, 467, II. 876 f.). Philo allegorized this fable in application to the Logos (Leg. alleg. II. §§ 21 f.; Quod det. pot. insid. solet, § 30). This may have suggested Paul's conception, but the predicate πνευματικῆς) emphatically discards the prodigy; “we must not disgrace P. by making him say that the pre-incarnate Christ followed the march of Israel in the shape of a lump of rock!” (Hf [1417]). ὁ Χριστός not the doctrine, nor the hope of the Christ, but Himself assumes that Christ existed in Israelite times and was spiritually present with the O.T. Church, and that the grace attending its ordinances was mediated by Him. “The spiritual homogeneity of the two covenants” which gives to the Apostle's warning its real cogency “rests on the identity of the Divine Head of both. The practical consequence saute aux veux : Christ lived already in the midst of the ancient people, and that people has perished! How can you suppose, you Christians, that you are secured from the same fate!” (Gd [1418]).

[1416] Alford's Greek Testament.

[1417] J. C. K. von Hofmann's Die heilige Schrift N.T. untersucht, ii. 2 (2te Auflage, 1874).

[1418] F. Godet's Commentaire sur la prem. Ép. aux Corinthiens (Eng. Trans.).

Holsten rejects the parenthetical ἡ πέτρα δέ clause as a theological gloss; but it is necessary to explain the previous ἐκ πνευμ. ἀκολ. πέτρας, and is covered doctrinally by the διʼ οὗ τὰ πάντα of 1 Corinthians 8:6 (see note). Already Jewish theology had referred to the hypostatized “Wisdom” (see Wisdom 10), or “the Logos” (Philo passim), the protection and sustenance of ancient Israel. The O.T. saw the spiritual “rock of Israel” in Jehovah (Deuteronomy 32; 2 Samuel 23:3; Isaiah 17:10; Isaiah 26:4, etc.), whose offices of grace, in the N.T. view of things, devolve on Christ. The Ap. does not in so many words associate the “spiritual food” and “drink” of 1 Corinthians 10:3 f. with the Lord's Supper, as he did the crossing of the Red Sea with Baptism; but the second analogy is suggested by the first, and by the reference to the Eucharist in 1 Corinthians 10:15 ff. In no other place in the N. T. are the two Sacraments collocated.