What Does 1 Corinthians 10:18 Mean?
Look at Israel according to the flesh. Are not those who eat the slain offerings sharers in common of the altar?
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Behold Israel after the flesh: are not they which eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar?THE KEY
Eating at the altar makes the eater a sharer in what it holds, so the meal is participation, not mere consumption.
THE MEANING
The verse asks you to see that those who eat the sacrifices are sharers in the altar. Eating places the eater within what the altar represents; it is participation in a shared offering, not detached consumption.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that eating from an altar is only a private act with no share in what the altar represents.
THE ROOT
κοινωνοί
koinōnoi
GROWS FROM
κοινός
koinos
common, shared
“sharers in common” in this verse is koinōnoi. “Partakers” belongs to the Greek word family of κοινός, meaning “common” or “shared.” The word points to people who hold something in common: eating here makes the person a participant in the altar’s shared reality.
ALSO GROWS
koinōnia: sharing in common
κοινωνία
This branch names shared participation and shows that the altar meal binds its participants together.
koinōneō: to share, participate
κοινωνέω
This verb makes the action explicit: the eater takes part in what the altar represents.
THE PATTERN
Eating what is set apart as an offering makes the eater a participant in its shared meaning.
And the flesh of the slaughter of his wholeness offerings, for the open hand, shall be eaten the same day that it is brought near. He shall not leave any of it until the morning.Is not the cup of blessing that we bless a sharing in common of the blood of the Anointed One? Is not the bread that we break a sharing in common of the body of the Anointed One?The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him.THE THREAD
You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons; you cannot share in the Lord's table and the table of demons.“Partakers” here is from the same Greek word family as the word in 10:18, rooted in κοινός (koinos), “common, shared.” The next verse sharpens the connection: sharing a table means participating in what that table represents.
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