1 Corinthians 10:9-10

“Neither let us tempt the Christ as some of them tempted Him, and were destroyed of serpents; 10. Neither murmur ye as some of them murmured, and were destroyed of the destroyer.”

The first of the two sins against which the Corinthians are indirectly put on their guard in these verses, is evidently the discontent which they feel on account of the self-denial required by their Christian call. The example quoted is that of the Israelites dissatisfied with the food to which they are reduced in the wilderness, and who are punished by the scourge of the fiery serpents (Num 21:5 seq.).

The expression to tempt God, so often used in Scripture, signifies: to put God to the proof, to try whether He will manifest His goodness, power, and wisdom either by succouring us from a danger to which we have rashly exposed ourselves, or by extricating us from a difficulty which we have ourselves wilfully created while reckoning on Him, or by pardoning a sin for which we had beforehand discounted His grace. This, according to the biblical view, is one of the greatest sins man can commit. The Jews committed it in the wilderness by their murmurs, because they sought thereby to challenge the display of Divine power in the service of their lusts. The Corinthians in their turn committed it by pushing to its utmost limits the use of their Christian liberty in regard to heathen feasts. Could our Christianity, said they, really forbid to us those pleasures? Is not God able to keep us from falling even in such circumstances? And even if we should fall, would not His grace be ready to pardon and raise us again? They thus claimed to make God move at their pleasure, even should it be necessary to work miracles of power or mercy to save them.

Of the three readings τὸν κύριον, the Lord, τὸν Χριστόν, the Christ, and τὸν θεόν, God, the last should be set aside without hesitation; it has only the Alexandrinus in its favour; it is a correction following the usual biblical phrase to tempt God. The other two come to the same thing in point of sense; for the term the Lord always denotes Christ in the New Testament when it is not found in a quotation from the Old. It might be said in favour of the reading the Lord, that it explains more easily the other two; but in favour of the Christ, we have, first, the agreement of the two Greco-Latin and Byzantine families, then the more extraordinary form and the greater difficulty of the expression, finally, its appropriateness in the application of the saying to the Corinthians and the comparison of 1 Corinthians 10:4. This reading is also preferred by Osiander, Reuss, Heinrici, Hofmann, etc. For the meaning of it, see on 1 Corinthians 10:4.

Vv. 10. Here is the fourth trespass of which St. Paul speaks: the murmuring against Moses and Aaron. The fact which he cites is that related Numbers 16; the revolt of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, in consequence of which a sudden plague destroyed the despisers of the servants of the Lord. Some have thought of the event related Numbers 14, where, in consequence of the report of the spies sent to Canaan, the people murmured and rebelled. But this sin was not followed by any immediate judgment; it became the occasion of the sentence pronounced on those who were more than twenty years of age when they came out of Egypt, a sentence which was executed only slowly during their whole journeying in the wilderness. The intervention of the destroying angel indicates a sudden and mortal plague; this circumstance is certainly not mentioned in the narrative of the punishment of Korah and his companions; but it is supposed by the term maggepha, the plague, v. 48 (Hebrew text, 17:13), which St. Paul interprets by Exodus 12:23. In quoting this example, he certainly has in view the irritation felt by a party among the Corinthians against himself, his fellow-labourers, and those of the leaders of the flock who along with them disapprove of taking part in heathen rejoicings. This party chafed at their severity, which gave rise to so painful a situation for Christians in relation to their friends, and they asked, as Korah and his followers did in respect of Moses and Aaron, Whether the authority they exercised over the Church was not a usurpation?

Of the two readings murmur and let us murmur, the first ought to be preferred, in the first place, because the second probably arises from an assimilation of this verb to the verbs of 1 Corinthians 10:8-9; and next, because we have here an admonition altogether special, applicable only to the Church of Corinth, like that of 1 Corinthians 10:7, where already the second person was used. The imperfect ἀπώλλυντο, were perishing, is preferable to the aor. ἀπώλοντο, perished; it makes us witnesses, as it were, of the mournful scene.