How to read this page

An Intertextuality Pair — one connection between two passages, shown as linked verse cards: the Later text and the Earlier text it quotes, alludes to or echoes. The Significance essay explains why the link matters and where it points in Christ.

Reference Type— how explicit the link is: Quotation, Allusion, or Echo
Connection Method(s)— how it carries meaning: e.g. Typology, Promise-Fulfillment, Analogy, Longitudinal Theme
Found via— where the connection was identified, e.g. the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge or an Anchor-Text Network

Graph View — tap the constellation icon in the top bar to see this page's connections as a web of light: gold points are passages, and the coloured threads are the connection types. Click any type in the graph's own legend to filter it in or out, and use the expand control for the full-screen night sky.

New to a term? The Glossary explains every abbreviation and term on the site in plain words.

Intertextuality Pair

1 Corinthians 10:22 → Deuteronomy 32:21

Allusion

Later text

1 Corinthians 10:22BSB

Are we trying to provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than He?

Earlier text

Deuteronomy 32:21BSB

They have provoked My jealousy by that which is not God; they have enraged Me with their worthless idols. So I will make them jealous by those who are not a people; I will make them angry by a nation without understanding.

Walk the Square · a single-voice walk of this pair around the Clowney square13:50

Significance

Paul alludes to Deuteronomy 32:21 in 1 Corinthians 10:22 by echoing the language of provoking God to jealousy (parazelōmen ton kyrion), drawn from the Song of Moses where Israel provoked God's jealousy (parazēlōsan me) through idol worship. Paul's rhetorical question — "Shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than He?" — warns the Corinthians that participation in idol feasts constitutes the same covenant unfaithfulness that brought judgment on Israel in the wilderness. The divine jealousy (qin'ah/zēlos) is not petty emotion but righteous covenantal exclusivity: God demands undivided loyalty from His people. Paul has already established the wilderness generation as a typological warning (10:1-11); this allusion to the Song of Moses intensifies the warning by invoking the judicial consequences of idolatry. The second question ("Are we stronger than He?") echoes the Song's depiction of God's overwhelming power in judgment (Deut 32:39-42).

Found via: Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Reference Type: Allusion
Connection Method(s): Analogy + Longitudinal Theme