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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"I have ever broken thy yoke of old, and bursten thy bonds: yet sayest thou, 'I will no more serve.' But like a harlot thou runnest about upon all high hills,
Namely, that after I had well seen the adultery of the shrinking harlot Israel, I put her away, and gave her a bill of divorcement. For all this, her unfaithful sister Judah was not ashamed, but went back and played the whore also. Yea, and the noise of her whoredom hath defiled the whole land. For she hath committed her adultery with stones and stocks.
Then said the LORD to me, "Go yet thy way and vow an adulterous woman, whom thy neighbour loveth as the LORD doth the children of Israel: howbeit, they have respect to strange gods, and love the wine cans."
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 beguile a maid that is not betrothed and lie with her, he shall endote her and take her to his wife:
"'Thou shalt not pollute thy daughter, that thou wouldest maintain her to be an whore: lest the land fall to whoredom, and wax full of wickedness.
If a priest's daughter fall to play the whore, she polluteth her father: therefore she shall be burnt with fire.
But and if the thing be of a surety that the damsel be not found a virgin, let them bring her unto the door of her father's house, and let the men of that city stone her with stones to death, because she hath wrought folly in Israel, to play the whore in her father's house. And so thou shalt put evil away from thee.
If a maid be handfasted unto a husband, and then a man find her in the town and lay with her, then ye shall bring them both out unto the gates of that same city and shall stone them with stones to death: The damsel because she cried not, being in the city, and the man, because he hath humbled his neighbour's wife; and thou shalt put away evil from thee. read more. But if a man find a betrothed damsel in the field and force her and lie with her: Then the man that lay with her shall die alone, and unto the damsel thou shalt do no harm, because there is in the damsel no cause of death. For as when a man riseth against his neighbour and slayeth him, even so is this matter. For he found her in the fields and the betrothed damsel cried: but there was no man to help her. If a man find a maid that is not betrothed and take her and lie with her and be found: Then the man that lay with her shall give unto the damsel's father fifty sicles of silver. And she shall be his wife, because he hath humbled her, and he may not put her away all his days.
Thou shalt neither bring the hire of an whore nor the price of a dog into the house of the LORD thy God, in no manner of vow: for even both of them are abomination unto the LORD thy God.
Hear O heaven, and hearken O earth, for the LORD hath spoken: I have nourished and brought up children, and they are fallen away from me.
"I have ever broken thy yoke of old, and bursten thy bonds: yet sayest thou, 'I will no more serve.' But like a harlot thou runnest about upon all high hills,
Namely, that after I had well seen the adultery of the shrinking harlot Israel, I put her away, and gave her a bill of divorcement. For all this, her unfaithful sister Judah was not ashamed, but went back and played the whore also. Yea, and the noise of her whoredom hath defiled the whole land. For she hath committed her adultery with stones and stocks.
First, when the LORD spake unto Hosea, he said unto him, "Go thy way, take a harlot to thy wife, and get children by her: for the land hath committed great whoredom against the LORD."
Tell your brethren, that they are my people; and your sistren, that they have obtained mercy. As for your mother, ye shall chide with her, and reprove her: for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband, unless she put away her whoredoms out of my sight, and her adultery from her breasts. read more. If no, I shall strip her naked, and set her, even as she came into the world. Yea, I shall lay her waste, and make her like a wilderness, and slay her for thirst. I shall have no pity also upon her children, for they be the children of fornication. Their mother hath broken her wedlock, and she that bare them, is come to confusion. For she said, 'I will go after my lovers, that give me my water and my bread, 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 unto you, Whosoever put away his wife, except it be for fornication, causeth her to break matrimony. And whosoever marryeth her that is divorced breaketh wedlock.
And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and decked with gold, precious stone, and pearls, and had a cup of gold in her hand, full of abominations, and filthiness 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/mstc'>Re 14:8; 17:2,4; 18:3,9.
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Moreover, he made hill altars in the mountains of Judah, and caused the inhabiters of Jerusalem to commit adultery, and he thrust Judah out of the way.
but walkedst in the ways of Asa king of Israel and hast made Judah and the dwellers of Jerusalem go a-whoring, like to the whoring of the house of Ahab, and hast thereto slain thy brethren that were thy father's house, which were better than thou:
Thus shall it happen after seventy years. The LORD shall visit the city of Tyre, and she shall convert unto her reward, and shall commit fornication with all the kingdoms that be in the world.
"'But thou hast put confidence in thine own beauty, and played the harlot, when thou hadst gotten thee a name. Thou hast committed whoredom with all that went by thee, and hast fulfilled their desires:
Thou hast committed fornication with the Egyptians thy neighbours, which had much flesh: and thus hast thou used thine whoredom to anger me.
Thus hast thou still committed thy fornication from the land of Canaan unto the Chaldeans, and yet thy lust not satisfied.
But I say unto you, Whosoever put away his wife, except it be for fornication, causeth her to break matrimony. And whosoever marryeth her that is divorced breaketh wedlock.
I say therefore unto you, whosoever putteth away his wife, except it be for fornication, and marrieth another, breaketh wedlock. And whosoever marrieth her which is divorced, doth commit adultery."
but that we write unto them, that they abstain themselves from filthiness of images, from fornication, from strangled, and from blood.
that is to say: that ye abstain from things offered to images, from blood, from strangled and fornication. From which if ye keep yourselves, ye shall do well. So fare ye well."
And there followed another angel, saying, "Babylon is fallen, is fallen; that great city, for she made all nations drink of the wine of her fornication."
with whom the kings of the earth have committed whoredom, and the inhabiters of the earth are drunken with the wine of her fornication."
And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and decked with gold, precious stone, and pearls, and had a cup of gold in her hand, full of abominations, and filthiness of her fornication.
for all nations have drunken of the wine of the wrath of her fornication. And the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and her merchants are waxed rich of the abundance of her pleasures."
And the kings of the earth shall beweep her and wail over her, which have committed fornication with her, and have lived wantonly with her, when they shall 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.