Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed, and fell in one day three and twenty thousand.
Ver. 8. And fell in one day] The apostle, instead of the cloak of heat of youth, puts upon fornication a bloody cloak, bathed in the blood of twenty-three thousand. (Knewstub. on Com. 7.)
Three and twenty thousand] Moses mentions 24,000, whereof one thousand were the chief princes, the others inferiors, provoked to sin by their example. But why doth the apostle insist in the special punishment of the people? To show (saith learned Junius) how frigid and insufficient their excuse is, that pretend for their sins the examples of their superiors.