1 Corinthians 10:7-8

“Neither be ye idolaters, as were some of them; as it is written, The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play. 8. Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed, and fell in one day three and twenty thousand.”

The μηδέ, neither, connects this proposition closely with the preceding; we pass from lust to the acts in which it seeks its satisfaction.

The example quoted is that of the worship of the golden calf, and of the profane feast which followed it, Exodus 32. The verb παίζειν, strictly: to play, is specially used of dancing.

Vv. 8. The danger of fornication was always connected with idolatry. At Corinth, therefore, it might easily follow participation in the sacrificial feasts.

The example quoted is that mentioned in Numbers 25, where, according to Balaam's treacherous advice, the Israelites were enticed to a sacrifice offered by the Midianites to the god Baal-Peor, and where they let themselves be drawn into this sin.

The Old Testament relates (1 Corinthians 10:9) that 24,000 perished of the plague, inflicted by the wrath of the Lord. St. Paul speaks only of 23,000. We might admit a slip of memory. But the figure 24,000 is exactly reproduced in Philo and Josephus and the Rabbins. Are we to suppose that Paul did not know his sacred history so well as they? The same fact prevents us from supposing a variant in the text of the Old Testament. May we not here suspect a piece of Rabbinical refinement, similar to the: forty stripes save one, spoken of in 2 Corinthians 11:24 ? To avoid the risk of exaggeration, it had become the habit, in oral teaching we may suppose, to speak of 23,000 instead of 24,000 (see Calvin).

The transition from the second person (that ye become not, 1 Corinthians 10:7) to the first (that we commit not) seems to arise from the fact that the second danger was much more common than the first, and might apply to Christians in general.