Reference: Fornication
American
This word is used in Scripture not only for the sin of impurity between unmarried persons, but for idolatry, and for all kinds of infidelity to God. In Eze 16, the Jewish church is symbolized as a female infant, growing up to womanhood, and then wedded to Jehovah by covenant. When she breaks her covenant by going after idols, she is justly reproached as an adulteress and a harlot, Jer 2:20; 3:8-9; Ho 3:1. Adultery and fornication are frequently confounded. Both the Old and New Testaments condemn all impurity and fornication, corporeal and spiritual-idolatry , apostasy, heresy, and infidelity. See ADULTERY.
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For from old time I have broken thy yoke, and burst thy bonds. And thou said, I will not serve, for upon every high hill and under every green tree thou bowed thyself, playing the harlot.
And LORD said to me, Go again, love a woman beloved of [her] friend, and an adulteress, even as LORD loves the sons of Israel, though they turn to other gods, and love cakes of raisins.
Easton
in every form of it was sternly condemned by the Mosaic law (Le 21:9; 19:29; De 22:20-21,23-29; 23:18; Ex 22:16). (See Adultery.)
But this word is more frequently used in a symbolical than in its ordinary sense. It frequently means a forsaking of God or a following after idols (Isa 1:2; Jer 2:20; Eze 16; Ho 1:2; 2:1-5; Jer 3:8-9).
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And if a man entices a virgin who is not betrothed, and lays with her, he shall surely pay a dowry for her to be his wife.
Do not profane thy daughter, to make her a harlot, lest the land fall to whoredom, and the land become full of wickedness.
And the daughter of any priest, if she profanes herself by playing the harlot, she profanes her father. She shall be burnt with fire.
But if this thing be true, that the tokens of virginity were not found in the damsel, then they shall bring the damsel out to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death with stones, because she has wrought folly in Israel, to play the harlot in her father's house. So shall thou
If there be a damsel who is a virgin betrothed to a husband, and a man finds her in the city, and lays with her, then ye shall bring them both out to the gate of that city. And ye shall stone them to death with stones, the damsel, because she did not cry out, being in the city, and the man, because he has humbled his neighbor's wife. So thou read more. But if the man finds the damsel who is betrothed in the field, and the man forces her, and lays with her, then only the man who lay with her shall die, but to the damsel thou shall do nothing. There is in the damsel no sin worthy of death. For as when a man rises against his neighbor, and kills him, even so is this matter, for he found her in the field, the betrothed damsel cried out, and there was none to save her. If a man finds a damsel who is a virgin, who is not betrothed, and lays hold on her, and lays with her, and they be found, then the man who lay with her shall give to the damsel's father fifty [shekels] of silver, and she shall be his wife, because he has humbled her. He may not put her away all his days.
Thou shall not bring the hire of a harlot, or the wages of a dog, into the house of LORD thy God for any vow, for even both these are an abomination to LORD thy God.
Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for LORD has spoken. I have nourished and brought up sons, and they have rebelled against me.
For from old time I have broken thy yoke, and burst thy bonds. And thou said, I will not serve, for upon every high hill and under every green tree thou bowed thyself, playing the harlot.
When LORD spoke at the first by Hosea, LORD said to Hosea, Go, take to thee a wife of whoredom and children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom, departing from LORD.
Say ye to your brothers, Ammi, and to your sisters, Ruhamah. Contend with your mother. Contend, for she is not my wife, nor am I her husband. And let her put away her whoredoms from her face, and her adulteries from between her breasts, read more. lest I strip her naked, and set her as in the day that she was born, and make her as a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and kill her with thirst. Yea, I will have no mercy upon her sons, for they are sons of whoredom, for their mother has played the harlot. She who conceived them has done shamefully, for she said, I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.
Fausets
Used for adultery (Mt 5:32). Also spiritual unfaithfulness to the Lord, Israel's and the church's husband (Ezekiel 16; Jeremiah 2; Hosea 1; Re 17:4).
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But I say to you, that whoever may divorce his wife apart from a matter of fornication, disposes her to commit adultery, and whoever may marry her who has been divorced commits adultery.
And the woman was clothed in purple and scarlet, adorned with gold and precious stone and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup containing abominations and the filthy things of her fornication,
Hastings
Morish
This was very common among the Gentiles, which accounts for its being mentioned in the message sent from the conference at Jerusalem to the Gentiles, Ac 15:20,29; and its being so often prohibited in the epistles. The word is sometimes used where 'adultery' is the sense. Mt 5:32; 19:9. It often has in the O.T. a symbolical reference to the turning from God to idols. 2Ch 21:11,13; Isa 23:17; Eze 16:15,26,29; and in the N.T. to unfaithful intercourse with Babylon, the mother of harlots. 4/8/type/acv'>Re 14:8; 17:2,4; 18:3,9.
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Moreover he made high places in the mountains of Judah, and made the inhabitants of Jerusalem to play the harlot, and led Judah astray.
but have walked in the way of the kings of Israel, and have made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to play the harlot, like the house of Ahab did, and also have slain thy brothers of thy father's house who were better than thy
And it came to pass after the end of seventy years, that LORD examined Tyre, and she has repented of her gift, that she play the harlot with all the kingdoms of the world upon the face of the earth.
But thou trusted in thy beauty, and played the harlot because of thy renown, and poured out thy whoredoms on everyone who passed by; his it was.
Thou have also committed fornication with the Egyptians, thy neighbors, great of flesh, and have multiplied thy whoredom, to provoke me to anger.
Thou have moreover multiplied thy whoredom to the land of traffic, to Chaldea, and yet thou were not satisfied with this.
But I say to you, that whoever may divorce his wife apart from a matter of fornication, disposes her to commit adultery, and whoever may marry her who has been divorced commits adultery.
And I say to you, that whoever may divorce his wife, not for fornication, and will marry another, commits adultery. And he who married her who has been divorced commits adultery.
but to write to them, to abstain from the pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from what is strangled, and from blood.
to abstain from things sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication, keeping yourselves from which, ye will do well. Be strong.
And another, a second agent, followed, saying, Babylon the great has fallen, has fallen. She has given all the nations to drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.
with whom the kings of the earth fornicated, and those who inhabit the earth were made drunken with the wine of her fornication.
And the woman was clothed in purple and scarlet, adorned with gold and precious stone and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup containing abominations and the filthy things of her fornication,
Because all the nations have drunk from the wine of the wrath of her fornication. And the kings of the earth fornicated with her, and the merchants of the earth became rich from the power of her wantonness.
And the kings of the earth who fornicated and lived wantonly with her, will weep and will beat their breasts for her when they see the smoke of her burning,
Watsons
FORNICATION, whoredom, or the act of incontinency between single persons; for if either of the parties be married, the sin is adultery.