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 of old time I have broken your yoke, and burst your bonds; and you said, 'I will not serve;' for on every high hill and under every green tree you bowed yourself, playing the prostitute.
I saw, when, for this very cause that backsliding Israel had committed adultery, I had put her away and given her a bill of divorce, yet treacherous Judah, her sister, didn't fear; but she also went and played the prostitute. It happened through the lightness of her prostitution, that the land was polluted, and she committed adultery with stones and with stocks.
Yahweh said to me, "Go again, love a woman loved by another, and an adulteress, even as Yahweh loves the children 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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"If a man entices a virgin who isn't pledged to be married, and lies with her, he shall surely pay a dowry for her to be his wife.
"'Don't profane your daughter, to make her a prostitute; lest the land fall to prostitution, and the land become full of wickedness.
"'The daughter of any priest, if she profanes herself by playing the prostitute, she profanes her father: she shall be burned with fire.
But if this thing be true, that the tokens of virginity were not found in the young lady; then they shall bring out the young lady to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death with stones, because she has done folly in Israel, to play the prostitute in her father's house: so you shall put away the evil from the midst of you.
If there is a young lady who is a virgin pledged to be married to a husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her; then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city, and you shall stone them to death with stones; the lady, because she didn't cry, being in the city; and the man, because he has humbled his neighbor's wife: so you shall put away the evil from the midst of you. read more. But if the man find the lady who is pledged to be married in the field, and the man force her, and lie with her; then the man only who lay with her shall die: but to the lady you shall do nothing; there is in the lady 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 pledged to be married lady cried, and there was none to save her. If a man find a lady who is a virgin, who is not pledged to be married, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found; then the man who lay with her shall give to the lady'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.
You shall not bring the hire of a prostitute, or the wages of a dog, into the house of Yahweh your God for any vow: for even both these are an abomination to Yahweh your God.
Hear, heavens, and listen, earth; for Yahweh has spoken: "I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me.
"For of old time I have broken your yoke, and burst your bonds; and you said, 'I will not serve;' for on every high hill and under every green tree you bowed yourself, playing the prostitute.
I saw, when, for this very cause that backsliding Israel had committed adultery, I had put her away and given her a bill of divorce, yet treacherous Judah, her sister, didn't fear; but she also went and played the prostitute. It happened through the lightness of her prostitution, that the land was polluted, and she committed adultery with stones and with stocks.
When Yahweh spoke at first by Hosea, Yahweh said to Hosea, "Go, take for yourself a wife of prostitution and children of unfaithfulness; for the land commits great adultery, forsaking Yahweh."
"Say to your brothers, 'My people!' and to your sisters, 'My loved one!' Contend with your mother! Contend, for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband; and let her put away her prostitution from her face, and her adulteries from between her breasts; read more. Lest I strip her naked, and make her bare as in the day that she was born, and make her like a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and kill her with thirst. Indeed, on her children I will have no mercy; for they are children of unfaithfulness; For their mother has played the prostitute. 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 tell you that whoever puts away his wife, except for the cause of sexual immorality, makes her an adulteress; and whoever marries her when she is put away commits adultery.
The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of the sexual immorality of the earth.
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/web'>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 prostitute, 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 prostitute, like the house of Ahab did, and also have slain your brothers of your father's house, who were better than yourself:
It will happen after the end of seventy years that Yahweh will visit Tyre, and she shall return to her wages, and will play the prostitute with all the kingdoms of the world on the surface of the earth.
But you trusted in your beauty, and played the prostitute because of your renown, and poured out your prostitution on everyone who passed by; his it was.
You have also committed sexual immorality with the Egyptians, your neighbors, great of flesh; and have multiplied your prostitution, to provoke me to anger.
You have moreover multiplied your prostitution to the land of merchants, to Chaldea; and yet you weren't satisfied with this.
but I tell you that whoever puts away his wife, except for the cause of sexual immorality, makes her an adulteress; and whoever marries her when she is put away commits adultery.
I tell you that whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and he who marries her when she is divorced commits adultery."
but that we write to them that they abstain from the pollution of idols, from sexual immorality, from what is strangled, and from blood.
that you abstain from things sacrificed to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual immorality, from which if you keep yourselves, it will be well with you. Farewell."
Another, a second angel, followed, saying, "Babylon the great has fallen, which has made all the nations to drink of the wine of the wrath of her sexual immorality."
with whom the kings of the earth committed sexual immorality, and those who dwell in the earth were made drunken with the wine of her sexual immorality."
The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of the sexual immorality of the earth.
For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her sexual immorality, the kings of the earth committed sexual immorality with her, and the merchants of the earth grew rich from the abundance of her luxury."
Watsons
FORNICATION, whoredom, or the act of incontinency between single persons; for if either of the parties be married, the sin is adultery.