appropriate as a warning to the Corinthians not to desire par- ticipation in the sacrificial feasts of the heathen in which they had been accustomed to indulge.
7. 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.
The Corinthians were as much exposed to temptation on this subject as the IsraeUtes had been, and were quite as liable to fall into idolatrous practices. The Israelites did not con- sider themselves as idolaters when they made the golden calf; they did not believe that the second commandment forbade the worship of the true God by images, and it was Jehovah whom they designed to worship. The feast was proclaimed as a feast to Jehovah, Ex. 32, 6. They made the same excuse for the use of images as the Romanists now do ; and the same in effect as that which the Corinthians made for their compliance with heathen usages. The latter did not consider the partici- pation of the feasts in the idol's temple as an act of idolatry. As the Israelites perished for their sin, their excuse notwith- standing, so those who are in fact idolaters, whether they so regard themselves or not, must expect a like fate. It is not enough to make a thing right, that we think it to be so. Things do not change their nature according to our thoughts about them. Murder is murder, though man in his self-conceit and pride may call it justifiable homicide.
They sat down to eat and to drink^ i. e. of the sacrifices offered to Jehovah in the presence of the golden calf, as a symbol of creative power — and rose up to play^ i. e. to dance, as that amusement was, among the ancients, connected with their religious feasts. Homer, Od. 8, 251.
8. Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed, and fell in one day three and twenty thousand.
Idolatry and fornication have always been so intimately connected that the former seldom fails to lead to the latter. This was illustrated in the case of the Israelites. Num. 25, 1-9, " And the people began to commit whoredom with the daughters of Moab ; and they called the people unto the sacri- fices of their gods. . . . And Israel joined himself unto Baal- peor." This was a god of the Moabites, who was worshipped 8*