1 Corinthians 10:6

τύποι. Literally, types of us. In figure of us, Wiclif. τύπος signifies (1) a mark, stroke of any kind, impressed or engraven, ‘print,’ John 20:25; (2) an image, figure, as in Acts 7:43; (3) an example, pattern, Acts 7:44 (where the word is rendered fashion), cf. Hebrews 8:5 (though Chrysostom interprets examples of punishment); (4) type, in the recognized sense of the word, that of a person or circumstance designed by God to foreshadow some other person or circumstance in the future, Romans 5:14; (5) as equivalent to purport, substance of a letter or address, Acts 23:25; (6) form, outline, substance, as of a system of doctrine or morals (like the derived word ὑποτύπωσις in 2 Timothy 1:13); Romans 6:17; (7) example, in the matter of conduct, for imitation or warning, Philippians 3:17; 1 Thessalonians 1:7; 1 Timothy 4:12, &c. ἐγενήθησαν supports (7). Either this or (4) is the meaning here, or it may include both meanings. God impressed such a character upon the Jewish history—or rather perhaps it was the natural result of the similar position in which Christians now stand to that occupied by the Jews under the law—that it foreshadowed the history of the Christian Church. This idea is carried out more fully in reference to the Old Testament generally, in the Epistles to the Galatians and Hebrews than in this Epistle. Here it is simply used to point out the way in which the warnings of the Jewish history are valuable to Christians.

καθὼς κἀκεῖνοι. St Paul gives five instances of the Israelites’ sin. First the desire for food other than God had given them, Numbers 11:4; Numbers 11:33-34.