A Tolerated Offense and a Boundary Redrawn

Leviticus 18:8 forbids it: “The nakedness of thy father’s wife shalt thou not uncover.” Roman law also barred marriage with a stepmother (Gaius, Institutes 1.63), so Paul’s remark about the Gentiles is accurate. “Have” is a present infinitive, an ongoing relationship rather than a single act. The oldest manuscripts lack “named”.

“Mourned” is pentheo, the grief of a funeral, the verb Jesus uses in Matthew 9:15 of mourning when the bridegroom is taken away. When Ezra learned of forbidden marriages among the returned exiles, he “mourned because of the transgression” (Ezra 10:6). Corinth’s reaction was the reverse.

Paul uses the same formula, absent in body and present in spirit, in Colossians 2:5. “Have judged already” is a perfect tense, kekrika: the verdict is reached and stands. Paul writes from Ephesus, across the Aegean, yet counts himself at the meeting.

The Greek lets “in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” attach to Paul’s judging in verse 3, to the church’s gathering, or to the handing over in verse 5. Whichever it modifies, the verse assembles three presences: the church, Paul’s spirit, and the Lord’s power.

In the Greek of Job 2:6, God “delivers” Job into the adversary’s hand with the limit “but save his life”; the same verb stands here. 1 Timothy 1:20 uses the phrase of Hymenaeus and Alexander, handed over “that they may learn not to blaspheme”. In both places the handing over has a purpose beyond itself.

“Glorying” is kauchema, the thing one boasts about. The leaven saying was proverbial; Paul repeats it word for word in Galatians 5:9. Leaven was not packaged yeast but a lump of old fermented dough kept back from the last batch, so each new batch carried the old one into it.

Before Passover every Jewish household cleared its rooms of leaven (Exodus 12:15, 19), and the Mishnah describes searching for it by lamplight on the night before (Pesachim 1:1). “Passover” is pascha, here the lamb itself; “is sacrificed” is thyo, the verb of Mark 14:12, “when they killed the passover”.

“Keep the feast” is present tense, “let us go on keeping festival”, as though the whole of life were the week of unleavened bread. “Sincerity” is eilikrineia, purity, traditionally explained as what can be judged in sunlight and found clean. Deuteronomy 16:3 calls the unleavened loaves “the bread of affliction”.

“Company with” is synanamignymi, to mix oneself up together with, to mingle; it appears only here, in verse 11, and in 2 Thessalonians 3:14. “Fornicators” is pornoi. The word the Corinthians had apparently taken as a total social ban was about mingling, close association.

“Covetous” is pleonektes, the grasping person who always wants more. “Extortioners” is harpax, a snatcher, the word Jesus uses of false prophets who are “ravening wolves” (Matthew 7:15). In a port city of trade and temples, avoiding all such people meant leaving the world.

The list of verse 10 grows by two: the “railer”, loidoros, the abusive talker, and the drunkard. In 4:12 the apostles were the ones being reviled, loidoroumenoi, and blessing in return. Meals were where the church met, and 11:20–21 shows the Lord’s Supper was eaten at a full meal.

“Them that are without” is hoi exo, the outsiders, a Jewish phrase for those outside the community; Jesus uses it in Mark 4:11, and Paul in Colossians 4:5 and 1 Thessalonians 4:12. The question expects a yes: the church does judge its own.

Early Greek manuscripts had no accent marks, and “judgeth” can be accented as present or as future: God judges, or God will judge. The last sentence is Deuteronomy’s refrain, “so shalt thou put the evil away from among you”, repeated nearly ten times there and used of sexual offences in Deuteronomy 22:21–24.