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 of old I broke thy yoke, I burst thy bonds; and thou wilt say, I will not serve; for upon every high hill and under every green tree thou turnest one side, committing fornication:
And I shall see for all the causes that Israel turning away committed adultery, I sent her away and I shall give a writing of her cutting off to her; and her faithless sister Judah was not afraid, and she will go and commit fornication, she also. And it was her fornication being light, and she will defile the land, and she will commit adultery with stones and with woods.
And Jehovah will say to me, Yet go, love a woman loving evil and an adulteress, as Jehovah loves the sons of Israel, and they took to other gods and love raisin-cakes.
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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If a man shall seduce a virgin who was not betrothed, and lying with her, endowing, he shall endow her to him for a wife.
Thou shalt not profane thy daughter to commit fornication: and the land commit fornication and the land was filled with wickedness.
And the daughter of a man a priest, if she shall be profaned to commit fornication, it is profaning her father: she shall be burnt in fire.
And if this word was the truth, and the signs of virginity not found for the maiden: And they brought the maiden to the door of the house of her father, and the men of her city stoned her with stones and she died; for she did folly in Israel to commit fornication in her father's house: and thou didst put away evil from the midst of thee.
When there shall be a maiden, a virgin, betrothed to a man, and a man found her in the city and lay with her; And ye brought out them two to the gate of that city, and stoned them with stones, and they died; and the maiden for the word which she cried not in the city, and the man for the word which he humbled his neighbor's wife: and thou didst put away evil from the midst of thee. read more. And if in the field the man shall find the betrothed maiden, and the man held fast upon her, and lay with her, and the man that lay with her died alone. And to the maiden thou shalt not do a word; not to the maiden the sin of death: for as a man shall rise up against his friend, and he killed him the soul, so this word. For in the field he found her, the betrothed maiden cried and none saving her. When a man shall find a maiden, a virgin, which is not betrothed, and lay hold upon her and lay with her, and they were were found; And the man lying with her gave to the maiden's father fifty of silver, and to him she shall be for a wife; because that he humbled her, he shall not be able to send her away all his days.
Thou shalt not bring the hire of a harlot, and the price of a dog to the house of Jehovah thy God, for any vow: for these two are also an abomination to Jehovah thy God.
Hear, ye heavens, and give ear thou earth, for Jehovah spake: for I caused to grow and lifted up sons, and they rebelled against me.
For from of old I broke thy yoke, I burst thy bonds; and thou wilt say, I will not serve; for upon every high hill and under every green tree thou turnest one side, committing fornication:
And I shall see for all the causes that Israel turning away committed adultery, I sent her away and I shall give a writing of her cutting off to her; and her faithless sister Judah was not afraid, and she will go and commit fornication, she also. And it was her fornication being light, and she will defile the land, and she will commit adultery with stones and with woods.
The beginning of the word of Jehovah by Hosea. And Jehovah will say to Hosea, Go, take to thee a wife of fornication and children of fornication; for the land committing fornication, will commit fornication from after Jehovah.
Say ye to your brethren, My people; and to your sisters, Being compassionated. Contend with your mother, contend ye, for she is not my wife, and I not her husband: for she shall put away her fornications from her face, and her adulteries from between her breasts; read more. Lest I shall strip her naked, and I set her as the day of her birth, and I set her as a desert, and I set her as a land of dryness, and I slew her with thirst And her sons I will not compassionate, for they are the sons of fornications For their mother committed fornication: she conceiving them acted shamefully: for she said, I will go after those loving me giving me my bread and my water, my wool and my linen, mine oil and my drinks.
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 whosoever shall let go his wife except for the reason of adultery, makes her to commit adultery; and whosoever should marry her having been loosed, commits adultery.
And the woman surrounded with purple and scarlet, and covered with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and the impurity of her harlotry:
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/juliasmith'>Re 14:8; 17:2,4; 18:3,9.
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Also he made heights in the mountains of Judah, and he will cause those inhabiting Jerusalem to commit fornication, and he will seduce Judah.
And thou wilt go in the way of the kings of Israel, and thou wilt cause Judah to commit fornication, and those inhabiting Jerusalem, according to the fornications of the house of Ahab, and also thou didst kill thy brethren of the house of thy father, being good above thee.
And it was from the end of seventy years, Jehovah will review Tyre, and she turned back to her gift, and she committed fornication with all the kingdoms of the land upon the face of the earth.
And thou wilt trust in thy beauty, and commit fornication upon thy name, and thou wilt pour out thy fornications upon every one passing by; to him it will be.
And thou wilt commit fornication with the sons of Egypt thy neighbors, great of flesh: and thou wilt multiply thy fornications to irritate me.
And thou wilt multiply thy fornination at the land of Canaan with the Chaldeans, and also thou wert not satisfied with this,
But I say to you, That whosoever shall let go his wife except for the reason of adultery, makes her to commit adultery; and whosoever should marry her having been loosed, commits adultery.
And I say to you, That whoever should loose his wife, except for fornication, and marry another, commits adultery; and he having married the one loosed commits adultery.
But to send to them, to keep off from pollutions of images, and harlotry, and strangulation, and blood.
To keep off from things sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and strangulation, and harlotry: from which keeping yourselves, ye shall do well. Fare ye well.
And another angel followed, saying, She fell, Babylon fell, the great city, for all nations has she given to drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.
With whom the kings of the earth were debauched, and they dwelling upon the earth were intoxicated from the wine of her harlotry.
And the woman surrounded with purple and scarlet, and covered with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and the impurity of her harlotry:
For of the wrath of the wine of her fornication have all nations drunk, and the kings of the earth were debauched with her, and the wholesale merchants of the earth were rich from the power of her luxury.
And weep for her, and lament over her, shall the kings of the earth having been debauched with her, and having led an insolent life, 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.