Lessons #315 and 316
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+ 1. It is best to use this note after you have listened to the lessons because there are +
+ comments given in the actual delivery not in the note. +
+ 2. The Bible abbreviations are as follows: CEV =Contemporary English version, +
+ CEB = Common English Bible, ESV= English Standard Version, +
+ GW = God’s Word Translation, ISV = International Standard Version, +
+ NAB=New English Bible, NASB= New American Standard Bible, +
+ NEB= New English Bible, NET = New English Translation, +
+ NLT = New Living Translations NJB = New Jerusalem Bible, +
+ NJV = New Jewish Bible, TEV = Today’s English Version. +
+AMP = Amplified Bible, UBS = United Bible Society +
+ 3. Notes have not been edited for grammatical errors. +
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Death of some Israelites in the desert (1 Cor 10:5-13)
5 Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered over the desert.
6 Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did. 7 Do not be idolaters, as some of them were; as it is written: “The people sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in pagan revelry.” 8 We should not commit sexual immorality, as some of them did—and in one day twenty-three thousand of them died. 9 We should not test the Lord, as some of them did—and were killed by snakes. 10 And do not grumble, as some of them did—and were killed by the destroying angel. 11 These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come. 12 So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! 13 No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.
In our introduction of the section of 1 Corinthians 10:1-13 that is concerned with learning from Israel’s experience during the exodus, we indicated there are two sub sections that capture the overall theme of learning from Israel’s experience. We have considered the first subsection that covers the shared blessings of Israel under the leadership of Moses as described in verse 1 to 4. Recall that the message of that section that applied to us is that You should under the right spiritual leadership enjoy God’s blessing through Jesus Christ. In this second subsection, we are concerned with God’s judgment on many Israelites as given in verses 5 through 13. The general message of the Holy Spirit in this section is that God killed some Israelites that enjoyed His blessings in the desert for displeasing Him, which death serves as an example and a warning against displeasing Him. Based on this general message, we derive the specific message of the Holy Spirit to us as believers in Christ. A message the Holy Spirit wants us to convey to you is this: Enjoyment of God’s blessing under a good spiritual leader will not shield you from His judgment if you displease Him.
A person may wonder how we mentioned the enjoyment of God’s blessing as related to the message of this sub section of 1 Corinthians 10:5-13 since there is nothing said in it that has anything to do with blessing. On a surface reading of the sub section, it appears that it has nothing to do with blessing, but the context enables us to recognize that there is a link between this section and the blessings of the previous section. The link between this sub section and the previous sub section that enables us to reference the concept of blessing is the first word of the NIV of 1 Corinthians 10:5, that is, the word, nevertheless.
The word “nevertheless” is translated from a Greek particle (alla) that generally is an adversative particle that indicates a difference with or contrast to what precedes so that it may be translated with the word “but.” In 1 Corinthians 10:5, the particle is used to indicate a transition to something different or to contrast what was stated in the previous section. Recall, that the previous section of 1 Corinthians 10:1-4 is concerned with blessings of the Lord on all the Israelites under the great leadership of Moses. In effect, that section shows us an aspect of God’s character of blessing His people, that is, His love shown in a positive manner but beginning in verse 5 we are introduced to another aspect of God’s character in dealing with the Israelites that is the opposite of what transpired in the preceding section. God’s love was evident in blessing, but His justice is evident in the concept of judgment introduced beginning in verse 5. Thus, the Greek word translated nevertheless in the NIV contrasts blessings of previous section with the judgment of the present verse. Furthermore, it contrasts the concept of all Israelites enjoying God’s blessing to most Israelites coming under His judgment. That aside, the Holy Spirit wants us to see how God would go from blessing to judgment implying that God’s blessing does not shield anyone from His judgment when one that is blessed acts contrary to His requirement. This being the case, there is a link between blessing and judgment in our passage. The idea that is being linked is that although God blesses His own but that such blessing would not shield the believer from His judgment when that is necessary. King David is a good illustration of this truth. He was blessed of the Lord in that the Lord appointed him king of Israel and showered him with blessings of military victories over his enemies but when the king because of his blessing of kingship committed adultery and murder, the Lord was displeased with him as stated in 2 Samuel 11:27:
After the time of mourning was over, David had her brought to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing David had done displeased the LORD.
Consequently, God visited him with a series of judgment that involved the death of his children and the rape of his daughter and concubines. Hezekiah is another king that proves our point. He was certainly blessed of the Lord as indicated by him being successful in his endeavors as stated in 2 Chronicles 32:30:
It was Hezekiah who blocked the upper outlet of the Gihon spring and channeled the water down to the west side of the City of David. He succeeded in everything he undertook.
However, the blessing he enjoyed did not keep him from judgment when he became arrogant as we read in 2 Chronicles 32:25:
But Hezekiah’s heart was proud and he did not respond to the kindness shown him; therefore the LORD’s wrath was on him and on Judah and Jerusalem.
We should not be surprised that God’s blessing does not shield us from His judgment when we live in disobedience as this concept was clearly conveyed to Israel through Moses as we read in Deuteronomy 11:27–28:
27 the blessing if you obey the commands of the LORD your God that I am giving you today; 28 the curse if you disobey the commands of the LORD your God and turn from the way that I command you today by following other gods, which you have not known.
Anyway, the point is that the word nevertheless that begins 1 Corinthians 10:5 indicates that the verse is linked to the concept of blessing introduced in the preceding section. Therefore, we are correct in presenting the message of 1 Corinthians 10:5-13 in a way that links the concept of blessing of the previous section to judgment of our present section.
Again, the message of this section that we are considering is that Enjoyment of God’s blessing under a good spiritual leader will not shield you from His judgment if you displease Him. We presented the message this way primarily because of God’s action of killing some of the Israelites that enjoyed the blessings of the preceding section as we read in the sentence of 1 Corinthians 10:5 God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered over the desert. A more literal reading of the Greek is God (was) not pleased with the most of them, for they were struck down in the wilderness.
The Holy Spirit through Apostle Paul reveals to us that the death of most of the Israelites in the desert was because they displeased the Lord as in the sentence God was not pleased with most of them. The word “pleased” is translated from a Greek word (eudokeō) that may mean “to be well pleased” as the word is used to describe the attitude of God the Father to God the Son during His transfiguration experience as stated in Matthew 17:5:
While he was still speaking, a bright cloud enveloped them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!”
The word could mean “to prefer” as Apostle Paul used it to express his preference in relationship to being with the Lord than to be on this earth as we read in 2 Corinthians 5:8:
We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.
The word may mean “to take delight” as Apostle Paul used the word to describe his attitude towards the Thessalonians as we read in 1 Thessalonians 2:8:
We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us.
In our passage of 1 Corinthians 10:5, it is in the sense “to take delight,” that is, to take a high degree of pleasure in someone that the word is used. Since our word is used with the negative “not” in the Greek, then we are informed of God’s displeasure with most of the Israelites as in the sentence God was not pleased with most of them.
It is of interest to note that it is with majority of the Israelites of the exodus generation of certain age that displeased the Lord. You see, the word most in the phrase most of them is translated from a Greek word (polys) that may mean “many, much” but here it has the sense of “majority.” The fact that majority of the Israelites displeased the Lord should cause each of us to be careful of following the crowd. As I have stated several times, it is rare for the majority to be right in things that please God. So, you should be careful that you do not go along with the crowd to please people while displeasing the Lord. Of course, it is often because we do not want to be persecuted that we are willing to go along with what we know to be contrary to the truth of God’s word. However, we should recognize that God is displeased with those who move away from the truth because of persecution as that is part of what the human author of Hebrews stated about God’s displeasure towards certain kind of believers in Hebrews 10:38:
But my righteous one will live by faith. And if he shrinks back, I will not be pleased with him.”
Anyway, the point is that the phrase most of them should cause us to be careful to recognize that quite often the majority is wrong regarding things that please God.
Be that as it may, the Holy Spirit tells us through Apostle Paul that the Lord was not pleased with majority of the Israelites of the exodus generation. The question, of course, would naturally be: How do we know that the Lord was not pleased with majority of the Israelites? This question is important because many of us assume that because nothing has happened to us when we displease God that that means He is not displeased with us when that is not the case. Thus, it is important to have an indicator to us that God is not pleased with us. You see, it is perhaps easier for us to recognize when God is pleased with us than when He is not. I say this because we often may associate His goodness to us as evidence of His being pleased with us. It is because of this concept that Joshua and Caleb could speak after the spies sent to explore the land of Canaan gave discouraging report to Israel to assure them that they could defeat their enemies as sign of God being pleased with them as we read in Numbers 14:8:
If the LORD is pleased with us, he will lead us into that land, a land flowing with milk and honey, and will give it to us.
Following this understanding that God’s goodness to us may reveal He is pleased with us, the psalmist stated that because his enemies did not defeat him in battles that proves God is pleased with him as we read in Psalm 41:11:
I know that you are pleased with me, for my enemy does not triumph over me.
In addition to seeing God’s goodness to us as evidence of His being pleased with us, the Holy Spirit tells us that God answers our prayer when He is pleased with us, according to the declaration of 1 John 3:22:
and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him.
The point we want to stress is that when we observe God’s goodness to us, we are more prone to think that He is pleased with us. This concept is demonstrated in Moses’ prayer to the Lord and the Lord’s response to it, as recorded in Exodus 33:13–17:
13 If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favor with you. Remember that this nation is your people.” 14 The LORD replied, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” 15 Then Moses said to him, “If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. 16 How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?” 17 And the LORD said to Moses, “I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name.”
Moses presented two indicators of God being pleased with him and Israel. The first was for the Lord to teach him His ways. The second is accompanying Israel in its travel that involves helping it to defeat its enemies. The Lord promised to do what Moses requested. However, we should be careful to recognize that although the Lord may show us His goodness that that will not shield us from judgment as we have already stated. God showed Moses that He was pleased with him because of the good things that He continued to do for Israel through Moses but that did not keep Him from punishing Moses in the sense that he did not allow him to enter Canaan as he stated in his farewell address to Israel, according to Deuteronomy 1:37:
Because of you the LORD became angry with me also and said, “You shall not enter it, either.
Moses’ experience should caution us not to use God’s goodness to assume He is completely pleased with us since He may be showing us His goodness in keeping with His plan. That aside, it is easier for us to see God’s goodness as evidence of pleasing Him, but we are slow in seeing His displeasure when things do not go well with us. It is so we recognize that when things do not go well with us, it is probably because God is displeased with us that the Holy Spirit gave us the undeniable evidence of God’s displeasure with majority of the Israelites of the exodus generation in what Apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 10:5 their bodies were scattered over the desert.
The translators of the NIV omitted in their translation a Greek conjunction (gar) that is part of the last clause of 1 Corinthians 10:5 in the original. The Greek conjunction used is one that generally indicates a causal relation between two statements, whereby the second statement gives a reason for or explains the first and so it is often translated “for” in our English version as it is done in many English versions of the verse we are considering. That notwithstanding, it is difficult to see how the second clause their bodies were scattered over the desert gives the reason or cause of the first clause God was not pleased with most of them. If anything, the reverse is the case. In effect, the second gives the result of the first clause. This being the case, the Greek conjunction should be translated as that which gives self-evident conclusion drawn from the first clause. Thus, it is better to translate the Greek conjunction using the word “so” or “then.” The translators of the NCV or the CEV reflected this interpretation because they used the meaning “so” so also does the TEV or the ISV since their translators used “and so.” It is true that it is possible to understand the meaning “for” as providing an explanation to the first clause, but it is makes for a better sense that the second clause gives the result of God’s displeasure with the Israelites of the time of exodus.
All the same, the fact is that because of God’s displeasure with the majority of the Israelites of the exodus generation, He killed them in the desert as in the clause their bodies were scattered over the desert. The word “bodies” is not explicitly used in the Greek text. Instead, the expression “bodies were scattered” is translated from a Greek word (katastrōnnymi) that outside the NT means “to spread out” or “to cover” but it appears only once in the Greek NT as a figurative usage of the meaning of “to spread out” so means to cause the death of a number of persons, with the implication of bodies spread out over an area hence the meaning “to kill” or “to lay low.” The sense of the word in our passage is “to be strewn,” that is, “to be or become spread by scattering; probably with dead bodies understood as the object of scattering.” It is because of this sense of the word that some of our English versions used the word “bodies” in their translation whereas others simply translated the word using the meaning of “to kill” or “to lay low”. This meaning is reflected in such English version as the CEB that used the expression “struck down.” Anyway, the Greek used a passive voice, without specifying who kill the Israelites in the desert but the OT Scripture is clear that it is God who killed the Israelites in the desert or wilderness.
Anyway, the clause of 1 Corinthians 10:5 their bodies were scattered over the desert summarized God’s judgment on the Israelites in the desert for not believing Him despite the many miracles they witnessed as we read in Numbers 14:11–12:
11 The LORD said to Moses, “How long will these people treat me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of all the miraculous signs I have performed among them? 12 I will strike them down with a plague and destroy them, but I will make you into a nation greater and stronger than they.”
The threat of judgment by death of the Israelites of the exodus generation by the Lord is further elaborated in Numbers 14:28–35:
28 So tell them, ‘As surely as I live, declares the LORD, I will do to you the very things I heard you say: 29 In this desert your bodies will fall—every one of you twenty years old or more who was counted in the census and who has grumbled against me. 30 Not one of you will enter the land I swore with uplifted hand to make your home, except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun. 31 As for your children that you said would be taken as plunder, I will bring them in to enjoy the land you have rejected. 32 But you—your bodies will fall in this desert. 33 Your children will be shepherds here for forty years, suffering for your unfaithfulness, until the last of your bodies lies in the desert. 34 For forty years—one year for each of the forty days you explored the land—you will suffer for your sins and know what it is like to have me against you.’ 35 I, the LORD, have spoken, and I will surely do these things to this whole wicked community, which has banded together against me. They will meet their end in this desert; here they will die.”
The Lord carried out the threat of judgment that he mentioned here since all the Israelites of military age died in the desert as we read Deuteronomy 2:15–18:
15 The LORD’s hand was against them until he had completely eliminated them from the camp.
16 Now when the last of these fighting men among the people had died, 17 the LORD said to me, 18 “Today you are to pass by the region of Moab at Ar.
The fact remains that all the Israelites who were twenty years or older except Joshua and Caleb died in the desert without getting to the Promised Land. This fact should not be misunderstood to mean that they were lost eternally since that is how some take what happened to them, especially because of what is stated in Jude 5:
Though you already know all this, I want to remind you that the Lord delivered his people out of Egypt, but later destroyed those who did not believe.
The clause but later destroyed those who did not believe refers to physical death of those Israelites that did not believe that the Lord would bring them to Canaan because of the bad report of the ten of the twelve spies Moses sent to spy on Canaan. As we have noted, God vowed that they would not enter Canaan and they did not. This does not mean that they lost their salvation but that they did not experience the Promised Land. We have dealt with the problem of this clause in our study of Jude so you may refer to that study in the church’s website. However, one factor that you should remember to convince you that not entering the land of Canaan does not mean that the individual who was saved lost the person’s salvation is that Moses did not enter Canaan also because of his failure. Moses is certainly in heaven as implied by the fact he appeared with the Lord Jesus during His transfiguration. Moses although not really in heaven until Christ took all the OT believers to heaven with Him during His ascension must have been in the part of hades that housed the OT believers for him to appear during the transfiguration experience of the Lord Jesus. My point is that although Moses did not enter Canaan, he was eternally saved. This is also true of all those Israelites that were believers when they left Egypt but later did not believe God’s promise of getting them to Canaan, hence their death in the desert. In any event, it is the death of those Israelites, twenty years and up that left Egypt who did not believe God’s promise that is meant in the clause of 1 Corinthians 10:5 their bodies were scattered over the desert or literally for they were struck down in the wilderness.
By the way, although we have stated that God killed the Israelites that died in the desert, but we should recognize that it is the second member of the Godhead, the Lord Jesus, that did this. We say this because the Holy Spirit has already indicated that Jesus Christ was the One who travelled with the Israelites in the desert since the apostle had described Jesus Christ as the rock from which the Israelites drank. The One who accompanied Israel in its travels in the desert is the Lord Jesus Christ that is also described as the “angel of the Lord” or “angel of God” as we may gather from Exodus 14:19:
Then the angel of God, who had been traveling in front of Israel’s army, withdrew and went behind them. The pillar of cloud also moved from in front and stood behind them.
It is probably the case that when God kills people in large numbers at one time or over a period of time that it is the Lord Jesus that is responsible as He is the angel of the Lord/God. We can see this fact not only with the death of the Israelites in the desert but by the death of a hundred and eighty-five thousand Assyrian soldiers as we read in 2 Kings 19:35–36:
35 That night the angel of the LORD went out and put to death a hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the Assyrian camp. When the people got up the next morning—there were all the dead bodies! 36 So Sennacherib king of Assyria broke camp and withdrew. He returned to Nineveh and stayed there.
The angel of the LORD that killed the Assyrian soldiers is the Lord Jesus prior to His incarnation. Anyway, our point is that it is the Lord Jesus prior to His incarnation that was responsible for the death of the Israelites in the desert because He was displeased with them.
There is no doubt that the last clause of 1 Corinthian 10:5 their bodies were scattered over the desert described in a summary fashion the death of the Israelites in the desert but there were certainly some specific examples of the Israelites dying in the desert that the Holy Spirit would have brought in the mind of the apostle as he thought of the exodus generation of the Israelites who died in the desert. These specific examples should be known by any Jew or anyone that was acquainted with the narrative of the exodus so that we are not saying something that would not have been in the mind of the apostle that the Holy Spirit leaves for us to deduce from the summary statement. There was the incident in which the Israelites complained of not eating anything but the manna that the Lord provided them. In effect, they were not satisfied with God’s perfect provision of food that was meant to nourish them completely. They craved for other food than the one the Lord had provided them as we read in Numbers 11:4–6:
4 The rabble with them began to crave other food, and again the Israelites started wailing and said, “If only we had meat to eat! 5 We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost—also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic. 6 But now we have lost our appetite; we never see anything but this manna!”
The Lord responded by providing them quail to eat but to show His displeasure, He killed an unspecified number of people that were rabbles as we read in Numbers 11:33–34:
33 But while the meat was still between their teeth and before it could be consumed, the anger of the LORD burned against the people, and he struck them with a severe plague. 34 Therefore the place was named Kibroth Hattaavah, because there they buried the people who had craved other food.
Verse 34 implies that all of the Israelites who complained about the manna and were not satisfied with the Lord’s provision died.
Another occasion the Lord killed some Israelites was when some of them, under the leadership of Korah, rebelled against Moses’ authority, as we read in Numbers 16:1–3:
1 Korah son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, and certain Reubenites—Dathan and Abiram, sons of Eliab, and On son of Peleth—became insolent 2 and rose up against Moses. With them were 250 Israelite men, well-known community leaders who had been appointed members of the council. 3 They came as a group to oppose Moses and Aaron and said to them, “You have gone too far! The whole community is holy, every one of them, and the LORD is with them. Why then do you set yourselves above the LORD’s assembly?”
The Lord would not tolerate the challenging of the authority of Israel’s spiritual leader, Moses, so He brought His judgment on all those involved in challenging Moses’ authority by killing them in an unusual way of having them buried alive as recorded in Numbers 16:28–33:
28 Then Moses said, “This is how you will know that the LORD has sent me to do all these things and that it was not my idea: 29 If these men die a natural death and experience only what usually happens to men, then the LORD has not sent me. 30 But if the LORD brings about something totally new, and the earth opens its mouth and swallows them, with everything that belongs to them, and they go down alive into the grave, then you will know that these men have treated the LORD with contempt.” 31 As soon as he finished saying all this, the ground under them split apart 32 and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them, with their households and all Korah’s men and all their possessions. 33 They went down alive into the grave, with everything they owned; the earth closed over them, and they perished and were gone from the community.
Apparently, some of the Israelites did not get the lesson the Lord wanted them to learn about being careful with spiritual leadership, so they complained against Moses and Aaron because of the death of Korah and his supporters as we read in Numbers 16:41–45:
41 The next day the whole Israelite community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. “You have killed the LORD’s people,” they said. 42 But when the assembly gathered in opposition to Moses and Aaron and turned toward the Tent of Meeting, suddenly the cloud covered it and the glory of the LORD appeared. 43 Then Moses and Aaron went to the front of the Tent of Meeting, 44 and the LORD said to Moses, 45 “Get away from this assembly so I can put an end to them at once.” And they fell facedown.
It is interesting that the Israelites said that Moses killed the rebels instead of the Lord. They blamed Moses instead of those rebels, indicating that they did not get the reason for the death of the rebels. Consequently, the Lord was still not pleased with complaint against Moses, Israel’s spiritual leader, so He killed 14,700 Israelites as we read in Numbers 16:46–49:
46 Then Moses said to Aaron, “Take your censer and put incense in it, along with fire from the altar, and hurry to the assembly to make atonement for them. Wrath has come out from the LORD; the plague has started.” 47 So Aaron did as Moses said, and ran into the midst of the assembly. The plague had already started among the people, but Aaron offered the incense and made atonement for them. 48 He stood between the living and the dead, and the plague stopped. 49 But 14,700 people died from the plague, in addition to those who had died because of Korah.
Still another occasion where the Lord’s displeasure was evident in the death of some Israelites was when some men were enticed into idolatry and sexual immorality by the Moabite women. The result was God’s plague that led to the death of 24,000 Israelites, as stated in Numbers 25:6–9:
6 Then an Israelite man brought to his family a Midianite woman right before the eyes of Moses and the whole assembly of Israel while they were weeping at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. 7 When Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest, saw this, he left the assembly, took a spear in his hand 8 and followed the Israelite into the tent. He drove the spear through both of them—through the Israelite and into the woman’s body. Then the plague against the Israelites was stopped; 9 but those who died in the plague numbered 24,000.
Hence, we get the idea that the clause of 1 Corinthians 10:5 their bodies were scattered over the desert. while it refers primarily to the death of the Israelites in the desert for not believing the Lord but that the Holy Spirit would have brought to the mind of the apostle these specific examples that we have cited as he wrote of God’s displeasure with the exodus generation of the Israelites. Our inclusion of these specific examples will become clearer as we consider what the Holy Spirit wrote through Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 10:6. Anyway, as we indicated, Israelites enjoyed God’s blessings under their spiritual leader, Moses, but that did not shield majority of them from His judgment. This reminds us of the message we are expounding which is that Enjoyment of God’s blessing under a good spiritual leader will not shield you from His judgment if you displease Him. The point remains that the truth the Holy Spirit conveyed to us through Apostle Paul is that the death of a majority of the Israelites in the desert was because of God’s displeasure with them. This then is the first reason for the message we stated. This brings us to another reason for the message we are considering as given in the passage of our study.
We asserted in verse 5 that the clause their bodies were scattered over the desert is indeed a summary statement not only to describe the overall judgment of death on the Israelites who did not believe God’s promise of getting them to the Promised Land but includes the specific cases of death of many Israelites because of God’s judgment on them for one sin or the other. This interpretation is supported by the next phrase of 1 Corinthians 10:6 these things. The expression “these things” is translated from a Greek word (houtos) that in general means “this” to designate the nearer of two things. It could be used to refer to something that has immediately preceded and so may be translated “this one.” It can also refer to what follows so it may simply mean “this.” In our context, it is used to describe what preceded its usage in verse 6. A problem arises because the Greek used the plural implying that the apostle had in mind several things. So, what are these things? In answering this question, we should remember that there are at least two general things the apostle had mentioned prior to this verse. The first refers to the blessings of the Lord the Israelites enjoyed in the desert under the leadership of Moses. The second is judgment by death of most of the Israelites of exodus generation that left Egypt. The first general thing of blessings could not possibly be in the apostle’s mind at this point because what follows in verse 6, following the phrase these things is judgment and not blessing. Therefore, we are left to the second thing of judgment. However, the death of the Israelites in the desert may be viewed as a single event which does not agree with the use of the plural of our Greek word. This being the case, it makes sense to recognize that the apostle had in mind the various incidents of death of the Israelites in the desert. Thus, the various examples of Israelites being judged by death that we have mentioned must have been what were in the mind of the apostle for him to use the phrase these things.
Be that as it may, we stated that another reason for the message of this passage that we are considering is that the death in the desert of most of the Israelites that left Egypt is to dissuade believers from evil desires. This reason is derived from the sentence of 1 Corinthians 10:6 these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did.
The things that happened to those Israelites that died in the desert in different occasions are described as “examples” in the NIV of what could happen in the future to those who follow their pattern. We say this because the word “examples” of the NIV is translated from a Greek word (typos) that may mean “mark” that is made as result of blow or pressure as it is used to describe Thomas’s desire to see the nail marks on Jesus’ body to believe the disciples indeed saw the resurrected Christ, as we read in John 20:25:
So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!” But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it.”
The word may mean “a kind, class, or thing that suggests a model or pattern,” hence means “form” as it is used by Apostle Paul in describing the Christian teaching he gave to the Roman believers as we read in Romans 6:17:
But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted.
The word may mean “an archetype serving as a model” so the word may mean “example” in moral life as Apostle Paul used it to encourage Timothy to be a pattern or example to those he serves as their pastor as we read in 1 Timothy 4:12:
Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity.
The meaning “an archetype serving as a model” may be understood to mean “types” given by God as an indication of the future, in the form of persons or things as the word is used by Apostle Paul to indicate that Adam was in some regards similar to the One who was to come, that is, Christ, as we read in Romans 5:14:
Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who was a pattern of the one to come.
Our Greek word is translated “pattern” in the NIV while other English versions such as the NET used the word “type” or “figure” as in the TEV. In our passage of 1 Corinthians 10:6, the word is used in the sense of “archetype”, that is, an example that prefigures or foreshadows what is to come. Hence, those who died in the desert serve as type of what could happen to believers who follow their failures. However, the Holy Spirit through Apostle Paul conveys that we should not follow their example.
The assertion that we should not follow the example of those Israelites that died in the desert is given in the NIV of 1 Corinthians 10:6 in the expression to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did. The expression “to keep us from setting our hearts” is translated from a Greek noun (epithymētēs) that is derived from a Greek verb (epithymeō) that means “to desire greatly” or “to lust.” The word occurs only here in the Greek NT, but it is used in the Septuagint to describe those who craved for other food that the Lord killed, as narrated in the passage we cited previously, that is, Numbers 11:34:
Therefore the place was named Kibroth Hattaavah, because there they buried the people who had craved other food.
This aside, the word is used in the NT for “one who very much desires something, whether good or bad” so means “one who greatly desires.” However, it is used in a negative sense in our passage, so the word refers to a “lustful person,” that is, a person who wants or needs something in an inordinate, self-indulgent manner. We assert that the word is used in a negative sense primarily because of the phrase evil things.
The expression “evil things” is translated from a Greek adjective (kakos) that refers to that which is socially or morally reprehensible hence means “evil, bad” but it also refers to that which is harmful or injurious. It is with the sense of that which is morally reprehensible that the word is used in our passage, indicating that it is correct to describe the persons involved in the experience of the Israelites in the desert as lustful persons in a negative sense. The evil things in view would be elaborated beginning in verse 7. That notwithstanding, the Holy Spirit through Apostle Paul makes clear that we should not follow their conduct as implied in the clause things as they did. Hence, we are again reminded of the message of this section which is Enjoyment of God’s blessing under a good spiritual leader will not shield you from His judgment if you displease Him.
05/28//21 [End of Lessons # 315 and 316]