Now Mofes, this fpiritual rock, from which flowed divine inftruction, did actually accompany the Ifraelites through the wilderness; and this rock was xglos the anointed of God, the mediator through whom the Divine Being communicated the bleffings of the old covenant; Gal. iii. 19; John i. 17; and who received his commiffion, his miraculous power, and his extraordinary wifdom, immediately from the Moft High; Exod. iii. 4 to 18; iv. 12, 15, 16; vii. I; XX. 18 to 22; Numb. xii. 2, to 9. Agreeably to the foregoing obfervations, then, the paffage in 1 Cor. x. 4, will be literally translated thus. "And all drank the fame fpiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied "them; and that rock was the anointed of God." The following paraphrafe will briefly express the substance and purport of the preceding remarks. I Cor. x. 1. Brethren, I would remind you, that all our fathers were under the pillar of cloud and fire, and all paffed through the Red Sea; Exod. xiv. 28 to 31; xix. 9, 16, 18: ver. 2, and were all thus figuratively baptifed into a belief of the divine authority of Moses; ver. 3, and all ate the same food of fpiritual inftruction; ver. 4, and all drank the fame divine wisdom. For they imbibed instruction from Mofes, who accompanied them, and who may figuratively be called the rock on which the Jewish church was built; and the anointed of God, fince he was folemnly chofen by the Moft High to be the mediator between himself and the Ifraelites, through whom he communicated moral and religious directions to them; by whofe inftrumentality he formed and established the whole Jewish institution; and whom he qualified in an extraordinary manner for his dif tinguished office, by imparting divine power and wisdom to him in a higher degree than was ever before granted to any other man. In verse 9, Newcome adopts Kupiov, and Wakefield tov, as the proper reading; but Griesbach retains Tov Xolov. Verse 9 may, therefore, be thus χριστον. literally rendered: τον "Nor let us try the Anointed (i. e. the Meffiah, Acts x. 38,) as fome of them also tried the anointed (i. e. Mofes.) By this tranflation the contraft which is carried on in verses 6, 7, 8, and 10, between the actual conduct of the Ifraelites in the wilderness, and the contrary behaviour which the apostle recommends to the Corinthian christians, is preserved without interruption in the intermediate ninth verse, and in such a manner, alfo, as to accord with the Mofaic history. But if erregaσav be applied to the Meffiah, it does not correfpond with fact. For the history fhews that the Ifraelites tried and provoked Moses. The Meffiah was not born, nor invested with his office, till many centuries after. It is no valid objection against this interpretation, that 70s, in the same sentence, first means the Meffiah, and is afterward elliptical in a more ex tended fignification, as the anointed. For in ch. iii. ver. 17, of this very epiftle, vaos occurs firft figuratively, then literally, and afterwards it is elliptical in a figurative fense. The fubject and connection require the word to be understood in thefe different see Corf Bade VIII fignifications. In like manner, the varied sense of xpolos when expreffed, from what it has when elliptical, in 1 Cor. x. 9, is alfo pointed out by the the context. Notwithstanding the spiritual advantages which the apostle mentions in ver. 1 to 4, that the Ifraelites enjoyed; yet he remarks, in ver. 7, 8, 10, that they neglected and abused them; which he fays, in ver. 5, occafioned their deftruction. In verses 6, 11, he obferves, that these things are recorded as warnings and admonitions to us in this last or christian age. In the intermediate ninth verfe, therefore, he, with great propriety and fuitability, exhorts the christians not to try or provoke the Meffiah, as the Ifraelites provoked their divinely-anointed instructor and guide. |