1 Corinthians 10:8

Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed, and fell in one day three and twenty thousand.

Notice the list of sins: (1) we should not lust after evil things; (2) neither be idolaters; (3) neither let us commit fornication. The whole sequence was the normal procedure in idol worship.

In one day three and twenty thousand ...; Numbers 25:9 gives the number who fell as 24,000; and many have been perplexed by this, even Lipscomb saying, "Why this discrepancy I am not able to explain."[16] The explanation is in the words "in one day," a phrase not in the Old Testament narrative. Paul's 23,000, therefore, did not include those slain by the judges before this "one day." It will be recalled that, before the plague broke out, God through Moses had commanded the judges of Israel to "hang all the heads of the people" who had condoned and encouraged the worship of Baal-Peor, the idol god of the Moabites, especially the Moabite women who had used the device of idol worship to seduce the Israelites to commit fornication. Putting the two figures together, in which there is no discrepancy whatever, it is clear that the judges hanged one thousand men in connection with this disaster which are not counted in Paul's 23,000 who perished in one day. Guthrie pointed out a Jewish tradition which confirms this explanation. He said, "Jewish tradition ascribed 1,000 deaths to the action of the judges described in Numbers 25:5."[17] Another pseudocon bites the dust!

[16] David Lipscomb, Commentary on First Corinthians (Nashville: Gospel Advocate Company, 1935), p. 149.

[17] Donald Guthrie, The New Bible Commentary (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1970), p. 1064.