Chizuk Emunah (Pt 2) Under the Microscope: Chapter 86

1 Corinthians 10:8, "Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed, and fell in one day three and twenty thousand."

In this brief passage there is an error, which in every other work might pass unnoticed. A book, which assumes to be dictated by inspiration, ought to be accurate in every particular. In Numbers 25, we read that four and twenty thousand, and not three and twenty thousand, fell by the visitation of pestilence.

One might think that this is another difference between the Masoretic Text and the Septuagint, but in this case, both say Twenty four thousand were killed. Paul says twenty-three thousand were killed, and this issue is known in Biblical Studies circles as the case of the missing thousand.

A simple explanation is that if twenty four thousand were killed, then twenty three thousand were also killed, so this is not really an error. The question still remains: why didn't Paul just say twenty four thousand?

One might propose a solution that Paul uses the number of Levites in the census of Numbers 26, but that seems unlikely that Paul would do that without further explanation.

Philo, Josephus, the Targums, and the Talmud all draw a distinction between those killed by human hands due to the Baal Peor incident, and those killed by the plague. For example, Josephus seems to think that 10,000 were killed and 14,000 died of the plague. The Talmud puts the figure of those executed by human hands to be 157,200.

Likely, Paul was drawing a similar distinction between those killed by the plague and those killed by human hands. The passage itself lends credence to this distinction.

While Israel lived in Shittim, the people began to whore with the daughters of Moab. These invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods. So Israel yoked himself to Baal of Peor. And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel. And the LORD said to Moses, “Take all the chiefs of the people and hang them in the sun before the LORD, that the fierce anger of the LORD may turn away from Israel.” And Moses said to the judges of Israel, “Each of you kill those of his men who have yoked themselves to Baal of Peor.” (Numbers 25:1-5)

 A. Lukyn Williams has a different take:

The discrepancy is plain; the Pentateuch says twenty-four, St. Paul twenty-three. Of course explanations have been given. One is that only twenty-three thousand died of the plague, and the rest were slain judicially by Moses (see Num 25:4). But we are expressly told in verse 9 that twenty-four thousand "died by the plague." Another way of getting out of the difficulty is to lay stress on the phrase, "in one day," and thus to suggest that although twenty-three thousand died on one day, the rest died on the preceding or following days. But it is useless to deceive ourselves with quibbles such as these. The number as it stands is an error, and we possess no means of explaining it. Yet suppose St. Paul did make a mistake in a number, of what possible importance is it? No one to-day imagines that any single writer of either the Old or the New Testament was necessarily preserved from mistakes in trivial matters. We Christians, at any rate, are quite willing to grant that the Apostle may have made an error. Yet, after conceding this, we may not forget another possibility. For knowing what we do know of the Apostle's methods in referring to Scripture we may reasonably suspect that there was a Jewish tradition bearing on the point, and existing in his time, which has not come down to us. On the whole this is the most probable solution of the difficulty, but the whole question is of infinitesimal importance. 

 For those who like academic publications, here is a novel solution to the missing thousand problem.