And fell in one day three and twenty thousand. — In Numbers 25:9 the statement is that twenty-four thousand perished. Various and ingenious attempts have been made to reconcile these two accounts of the actual numbers. The explanation most in harmony with the character of the writer, and the utterly unessential nature of the point historically, is, I venture to think, that either the Apostle quoted from memory a fact of no great importance, or else that he referred for his figures to some copy of the LXX., in which the numbers might be specified as here.
Related Commentaries of 1 Corinthians 10:8
1 Corinthians 10:8
8 Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed, and fell in one day three and twenty thousand.