1-corinthians 10:6

These things were our examples - The punishments which God inflicted on them furnish us with evidences of what God will inflict upon us, if we sin after the similitude of those transgressors.

We should not lust after evil things - It is most evident that the apostle refers here to the history in Numbers 11:4, etc.: And the mixed multitude fell a lusting, and said, Who shall give us flesh to eat? Into the same spirit the Corinthians had most evidently fallen; they lusted after the flesh in the idol feasts, and therefore frequented them to the great scandal of Christianity. The apostle shows them that their sin was of the same nature as that of the murmuring rebellious Israelites whom God so severely punished; and if he did not spare the natural branches, there was no likelihood that he should spare them.

Now these things - The judgments inflicted on them by God for their sins.

Were our examples - Greek: "types" (τύποι tupoi). Margin, "figures." They were not designed to be types of us, but they are to be held up as furnishing an admonition to us, or a warning that we do not sin in the same way. The same God directs our affairs that ordered theirs; and if we sin as they did, we also must expect to be punished, and excluded from the favor of God, and from heaven.

Lust after evil things - Desire those things which are forbidden, and which would be injurious. They lusted after flesh, and God granted them their desires, and the consequence was a plague, and the destruction of multitudes Exodus 11:4. So Paul infers that the Corinthian Christians should not lust after, or desire the meat offered in sacrifice to idols, lest it should lead them also to sin and ruin.

10:6 Now these things were our examples - Showing what we are to expect if, enjoying the like benefits, we commit the like sins. The benefits are set down in the same order as by Moses in Exodus; the sins and punishments in a different order; evil desire first, as being the foundation of all; next, idolatry, 1Co 10:7,14; then fornication, which usually accompanied it, 1Co 10:8; the tempting and murmuring against God, in the following verse s. As they desired - Flesh, in contempt of manna. Num 11:4