1 Corinthians 5:1

It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father's wife.

As a puffed-up spirit caused their strifes, Paul humbles them by convicting them of sin. The best community may have an individual offender; but its duty is to punish such a one. In this the Corinthians had failed.

Commonly, [ holoos (G3654)] - rather, 'with all your self-satisfaction, it is actually, or after all, reported,' etc. The Greek word is adversative to a negative sentence understood or expressed. 'There ought to be no fornication at all; but nevertheless, it absolutely is reported.' So I must come invested "with a rod" (1 Corinthians 3:21).

It is reported. The Corinthians, though they "wrote" (1 Corinthians 7:1) on other points, gave Paul no information on those which bore against themselves. These matters reached the apostle indirectly (1 Corinthians 1:11).

So much as named. So 'Aleph ('). But A B Delta G f g, Vulgate, Lucifer, omit "named." 'Fornication so gross as (escapes reprobation) not even among the pagan, so that one (of you) hath (in concubinage; not marriage, as Alford thinks) his father's wife' - i:e., his stepmother, while his father is still alive (as Reuben, Genesis 35:22; Leviticus 18:8). She was a pagan, for which reason he does not direct his rebuke against her (cf. 1 Corinthians 5:12). Neither Christian nor Gentile law would have sanctioned such a marriage, however Corinth's profligacy might wink at the concubinage.