Matthew Poole and continuators on 1 Corinthians 5:1

1 IT is commonly reported, that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles , that one should have his fathers wife .

The Apostle here giveth a reason of the question which he propounded in the former Chapter, Whether they would be willing that when he came to them, he should come unto them with a rod? because such horrid wickedness was committed amongst them, as he being an Apostle to whom Christ had intrusted the Government of his Church, could not pass over without correction: he instanceth here in one, which he calleth Fornication; by which word is often in Scripture to be understood, all species of uncleanness, though in strict speaking we by fornication understand the uncleanness of a single person, as by Adultery we understand the uncleanness of a person married, and by Incest the uncleanness of a person with some near relation, as a mother, a sister: in strict speaking the [illegible: 1 letter]in here reflected on was Incest; but the Scripture by this word comprehends all species of unlawful mixtures.

This sin he aggravates by saying, That the Gentiles by the light of Nature discerned and declined such an abomination, by whom is not to be understood the more brutish part, but the more civilized part of the Heathen, such as the Romans, &c. were.

By having his fathers wife in this place is not to be understood, the marrying his fathers wife, his father being dead, but the using of his fathers wife, as his wife, while his father was yet alive (as some judicious Interpreters think) because hardly any Nation would have endured a son openly to have married the widow of his father. And in 2 Cor. 7.12. there is mention made not only of one that [illegible: 1 letter]ad done, but of another that had suffered the wrong; which latter must be the father himself, so as there was both Incest and Whoredom in this fact

Marginal references: Lev. 18.8. Deut. 27.20.