Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to 1 Corinthians · About this commentary
Our Fathers in the Wilderness
1 Corinthians 10:1-5
1 Now I would not have you ignorant, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; · WEB
A whole generation had every privilege the Corinthians had — and God was not pleased with most of them.
Now I would not have you ignorant, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea 1 Corinthians 10:1.
The word all sounds five times in four verses, and it is the point. Whatever the Corinthians thought secured them, an earlier generation had the equivalent, universally. Note that Paul calls Israel our fathers while writing to a largely Gentile congregation — the church is placed inside that story rather than alongside it.
And were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea; and all ate the same spiritual food; and all drank the same spiritual drink 1 Corinthians 10:2–4.
The parallels are drawn deliberately. A passage through water under a leader, and a shared food and drink given from heaven Exodus 14:22 Exodus 16:15 Exodus 17:6 — the exodus generation had its own initiation and its own sustaining meal. To a church confident in its baptism and its table 1 Corinthians 1:13–16 1 Corinthians 10:16, the analogy is unwelcome and exact.
For they drank of a spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ 1 Corinthians 10:4.
A remarkable identification, and Paul states it flatly. The one who supplied that generation in the desert was Christ himself; he was present in the wilderness, not merely foreshadowed there. Scripture had long called God the Rock of Israel Deuteronomy 32:4 Deuteronomy 32:15 Psalms 78:35, and the letter puts Christ in that place — the same move made when the Lord of the exodus is the one Israel tested 1 Corinthians 10:9.
However with most of them, God was not well pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness 1 Corinthians 10:5.
The however carries the entire argument. Every privilege listed, and most of them died short of the land Numbers 14:29–30 Hebrews 3:17. The sacraments were real, the deliverance was real, the food from heaven was real, and they did not function as a guarantee. That is the answer to a congregation reasoning that its knowledge and its rites had placed it beyond risk — the same congregation whose apostle had just said he disciplined himself lest he be disqualified 1 Corinthians 9:27. Privilege received is not the same as the race finished.
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