1st Corinthians Chapter 5 verse 1 Holy Bible

1st Corinthians 5 : 1 Bible Verse Songs

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Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerses 1-8. - Excommunication of an incestuous offender. Verse 1. - It is reported. The abruptness with which the subject is introduced shows the intensity of St. Paul's feelings, and his indignation that he should have been left to hear of this crime by common report. The news had come to him "from those of Chloe's household." But St. Paul was not acting on mere "report." The Greek phrase implies, "It is notorious that there is uncleanness among you." St. Paul must have felt it to be a bad feature in the character of the Corinthian Church that they had not mentioned this gross scandal in their letter. Commonly; rather, actually or absolutely; Elsewhere in the New Testament the worn only occurs in Matthew 5:24; 1 Corinthians 6:7; 1 Corinthians 15:29. Tertullian renders it "in totum." St. Paul has no need in this instance to name his informants. Every one knew of this scandal. Fornication; a general word for all kinds of impurity. And. The word involves an indignant climax, "Yes, and uncleanness of such a kind that," etc. Is not so much as named. The true reading is, does not even exist. This form of incest was, indeed, "named" among the Gentiles, for it forms the basis of the story of Hippolytus, the scene of which was in the neighbourhood of Corinth; but the feelings even of pagans were so shocked by it that Cicero alludes to such a crime in the words, "Oh, incredible wickedness, and except in this woman's case - unheard of in all experience!" ('Pro Cluent.,' 5). At this very epoch Nero deepened the general execration against himself by the generally accepted suspicion that he had been guilty of a yet more flagrant crime. Should have; rather, that a certain person has his father's wife. Apparently this was some nominal Christian, who was living in open sin with his stepmother, and thereby braving the curse of Leviticus 18:17; Deuteronomy 27:20. We gather from 2 Corinthians 7:12 that the father was living, and had also joined the Christian community. From the complete silence as to the crime of the woman, it must be inferred that she was a heathen. Whether she had been divorced or not does not appear, nor whether the offender was nominally married to her or not. His father's wife. He might have used the one Greek word for stepmother (μητρυιά), but the periphrasis might remind some of the heinousness of the sin, and of Leviticus 18:8.

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(1) It is reported commonly.--Better, There is absolutely said to be fornication among you, and such fornication as is not even among the Gentiles. All the best MSS. omit the word "named." The force of the statement is that the fornication was of such a kind (with a stepmother) as even the Gentile world, immoral as it was, regarded with disgust, and how infinitely worse, then, was it to find such tolerated amongst Christians, whose moral standard ought to be much higher.One should have his father's wife.--The word "have" here used always implies in the New Testament actual marriage. It is, therefore, probable that she had been divorced from his father. The word for "his father's wife" is the Hebrew form of expression for stepmother. St. Chrysostom suggests "he said not his 'stepmother,' but 'his father's wife,' so as to strike much more severely;" but probably St. Paul used the Hebrew phrase instead of the ordinary Greek word for "stepmother," as it was in this phraseology that such a union was forbidden by the law of Moses (Leviticus 18:8).