1 Corinthians 10:7,8 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Neither be ye idolaters By partaking of their idolatrous feasts: by no means join the heathen in these, because if the persons whose friendship you wish to cultivate, tempt you to commit idolatry, neither your superior knowledge, nor the spiritual gifts which ye possess, will secure you against their allurements: of these things you have a striking proof in the ancient Israelites. As it is written Exodus 32:6; Exodus 32:19, with relation to the feast of the golden calf; The people sat down to eat and drink Of the sacrifices and libations which were offered to the calf. He says, sat down to eat, for in ancient times the Hebrews always sat at meat: see Genesis 43:33. It was in later times only that, in compliance with the manners of eastern nations, they lay on couches at their meals. And rose up to play Or to dance, as the word παιζειν here signifies, in honour of their idol. Dancing was one of the rites practised by the heathen in the worship of their gods. And that the Israelites worshipped the golden calf by dancing, is evident from Exodus 32:19, where it is said of Moses, that he saw the calf and the dancing, and his anger waxed hot. Neither let us commit fornication A sin commonly committed at the idolatrous feasts among the heathen. And it was the more proper for the apostle to caution the Corinthians against it, because in their heathen state they had practised it even as an act of worship, acceptable to their deities; nay, and after their conversion, some of them, it appears, had not altered their manners in that particular, 2 Corinthians 12:21. As some of them committed With the Midianitish women, when they partook of the sacrifices offered to Baal-peor: the sad consequence of which was, that there fell in one day three and twenty thousand By the plague, besides the princes who were afterward hanged, and those whom the judges slew; so that there died in all twenty-four thousand, Numbers 25:1-9.