1 Corinthians 10:1-11

2. The example of The Israelites. 10:1-11.

This passage is the continuation of the foregoing. What the apostle has just indicated as a possibility for himself, he now points out as a reality in the history of the Jewish people. In them we have a nation who, after having been the object of the most ample favours from God, favours even which were perfectly analogous to those we enjoy as Christians, nevertheless perished because of its failure in self-renunciation. In fact: 1, the Israelites having come out of Egypt had all participated in the extraordinary favours which accompanied this deliverance, 1 Corinthians 10:1-4; 1 Corinthians 10:2, and yet they almost all perished in the wilderness, 1 Corinthians 10:5; 1 Corinthians 3, such is the image of the lot which threatens the Corinthians if they act in the same manner, 1 Corinthians 10:6-11.

The analogy between this passage and the preceding is striking: this nation, that had come out of Egypt to get to Canaan, corresponds to the runner who, after starting in the race, misses the prize, for want of perseverance in self-sacrifice. The one runner whom the judge of the contest crowns is the counterpart of the two faithful Israelites, to whom alone it was given to enter the Promised Land.

But in the following passage we have no longer to do with a simple comparison; it is more serious; we enter into the realities of history. The apostle, as has been remarked here, becomes a Jew to the Jews, as he had formerly become a Greek to the Greeks.