1. Moreover (é¢). But the correct reading is ydp for, in- troducing an illustration of rejection by God, and thus connect- ing what follows with the close of the last chapter. It is pos- sible that I may be rejected, for the Israelites were.
All. Strongly emphasized in contrast with most of them (A. V., many) in ver. 5. -Ald enjoyed the privileges, but few improved them. The word is repeated five times.
Under the cloud. The cloudy pillar which guided the Is- raelites. It is sometimes spoken of as covering the host. See Ps. ev. 389; Wisdom x. 17; xix. 7; Num. xiv. 14.
2. Baptized unto Moses (eis). Rev., margin, into. See on Matt. xxviii. 19; Rom. vi. 8. They were introduced into a spiritual union with Moses, and constituted his disciples.
Cloud—sea. The two together forming the type of the water of baptism. Bengel says: “The cloud and the sea are in their nature water.” The cloud was diffused and suspended water.
3. Spiritual meat. The manna, called spiritual because coming from heaven. See Ps. Ixxviii. 25; John vi. 31; and on Apoc. xi. 8; ii. 17.
4. Drink—spiritual drink. Spiritual, like the meat, in be- ing supernaturally given. The aorist tense denotes something
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past, yet without limiting it to a particular occasion. They drank at Rephidim (Exod. xvii. 6), but they continued to drink spiritual drink, for
They drank (éwov). The imperfect tense denoting con- tinued action—throughout their journey.
That spiritual rock. For that read a. Paul appears to recall a rabbinic tradition that there was a well formed out of the spring in Horeb, which gathered itself up into a rock like a swarm of bees, and followed the people for forty years; some- times rolling itself, sometimes carried by Miriam, and always addressed by the elders, when they encamped, with the words, “Spring up, O well!” Num. xxi. 17. Stanley says: “In ac- cordance with this notion, the Rock of Moses, as pointed out by the local tradition of Mt. Sinai, is not a cleft in the mount- ain, but a detached fragment of rock about fifteen feet high, with twelve or more fissures in its surface, from which the water is said to have gushed out for the twelve tribes. This local tradition is as old as the Koran, which mentions this very stone.” *
Was Christ. Showing that he does not believe the legend, but only uses it allegorically. The important point is that Christ the Word was with His people under the old covenant. “Tn each case we recognize the mystery of a ‘real presence’” (Ellicott). “God was in Christ” here, as from the beginning. The mosaic and the christian economies are only different sides of one dispensation, which is a gospel dispensation throughout. The Jewish sacraments are not mere types of ours. They are identical.
5. Many (rois wAcloow). The A. V. misses the force of the article, the many. Hence Reyv., correctly, most of them. All perished save Caleb and Joshua.
Overthrown (xatectpo&Incav). Only here in the New Testament. Lit., were strewn down along (the ground). The
* Edwards, Meyer, Alford, Stanley, adopt the reference to the tradition. Ellicott is very doubtful; and Godet thinks it incredible that ‘‘the most spiritual of the apostles should hold and teach the Church such puerilities,”
DAO WORD STUDIES IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. [Cu. X.
word belongs mostly to later Greek, though found in Herodotus in the general sense of slaying. So Euripides: “He dazd low his wife and child with one dart” (“ Hercules Furens,” 1000). It is used of spreading a couch.
6. Examples (rvzros). See on 1 Pet. v. 3. The word may mean either an example, as 1 Tim. iv. 12, or a type of a fact or of a spiritual truth. Heb. ix. 24; Rom. v. 14.
We should not lust (4 elvas nds éridupntas). Lit., should not be desirers. "EmiSuuntys desirer, lover, only here in the New Testament. Frequent in the classics. The sins of the Israelites are connected with those of the Corinthians.