Galatians 4

Galatians 4:3

So was it with us children of Abraham and of God, we were obliged to observe those first rudi- ments of the worship of God in the Jews’ religion, (see note [b] Col. ii.) with which God would have men brought up, and exercised to the more sublime pure way of serving him.

4, 5. But when that time was come, ver. 2, wherein God saw it fit to remove the guardian of the heir, that is, to lay the Mosaical law aside, then God sent his own Son in human flesh, who submitted to and performed the whole law, to redeem us out of that slavery of Mosaical performances, and to receive us into participation of the promises made to Abraham, that is, to justification, without those legal observ-

Galatians 4:6

And that you are sons appears by this, that God hath sent his Spirit into your hearts, giving you power and authority to call upon God and make your addresses to him, not only as your God, but your Father, the gospel assuring you that ye are no longer in that servile condition, bound to legal obediences, but that God will deal with you according to the promises made to Abraham and his seed, justify you upon the gospel terms of faith, without the deeds of the law.

Galatians 4:7

So that you are no longer enslaved to those Mosaical performances, but are put into the state of sons, and consequently through faith in Christ you are sure of justification, according to the promises made to Abraham.

Galatians 4:8

In time of your heathenism, before your conversion to Christianity, ye served idols, and were far from thinking yourselves obliged to the Mosaical law, knowing and consequently heeding nothing of it:

Galatians 4:9

But now that you have converted to Christ, or rather are prevented by God, and called to this sonship when you were not a looking after it, but lay immersed in idolatry, what reason is there, or how comes it to pass, that now being Christians, and so obliged to no part of the Jewish law, whose proselytes ye are not, ye should make another change so extremely to the worse for yourselves, in falling to the Mosaical performances, from which Christian religion hath freed those which were before obliged to them, that is, the Jews themselves, (and which, now Christ is come, the substance of those shadows, have nothing in them for which they should be valued,) and resolving to be servants still, in despite of that liberty of sons that Christ hath given you?

Galatians 4:10

Ye observe the Mosaical ceremonies, (see note [a] ch. iii.) sabbaths, and new moons, and solemn feasts, and anniversary feasts, or those that return every seventh and every fiftieth year, sabbatical years, or jubilees, after the same manner that the Jews before Christ thought themselves obliged to observe them.

Galatians 4:11

These practices of yours make me fear that the gospel by me preached will soon be lost among you.

Galatians 4:12

I pray follow my example—for I did once place my trust in the law for justification: and I beseech you do not think that it is out of any ill affection that I write this; I have not been at all provoked by you, nor consequently is it imaginable that I should mean you malice, or desire to bring on you persecutions to no purpose (the avoiding of which is the only bait which the Gnostics make use of to seduce you).

Galatians 4:13

Nay, why should this fear so trouble you now, more than formerly it did? You know, and cannot but remember, that when I formerly preached unto you, I was persecuted for my doctrine.

[a] infirmity of the flesh] What ἀσθένεια σαρκὸς, infirmity of the flesh, here signifies, will appear by the ordinary use of ἀσθένεια for afflictions. So 2 Cor. xii. εὐδοκῶ ἐν ἀσθενείαις, I take pleasure in infirmities, that is, afflictions, of which the several sorts follow, contumelies, necessities, persecutions, distresses for Christ. The same as before, ver. 6. I will not rejoice but in mine infirmities, that is, afflictions, (as elsewhere he resolves not to rejoice but in the cross of Christ.) and so ver. 9, when he prays for deliverance from the thorn in the flesh, that is, afflictions, (see note on that place,) he saith God’s answer was, My strength is perfected ἐν ἀσθενείᾳ, in weakness, that is, in the afflictions that befall my servants, the giving them strength to bear those is an act of the greatest power and mercy. So 1 Cor. xi. 30. πολλοὶ ἀσθενεῖς, many weak, may signify afflicted, as that notes pressures on their estates, because for diseases on the body, they follow in the ἄρρωστοι, sick; though elsewhere it is manifest that ἀσθένεια is used particularly for disease, as James vi. 14 and 15. (see note [m] on Rom. viii.) So 1 Cor. ii. 3. I was among you ἐν ἀσθενείᾳ, in weakness, that is, persecution, as it follows, and in fear, and much trembling. So 2 Cor. xi. 29. Τίς ἀσθενεῖ, καὶ οὐκ ἀσθενῶ; who, is weak, and I am not weak, that is, afflicted? for it follows,

Galatians 4:14

And you then were not at all moved by that discouragement to despise me or my preaching, but received me with all the respect and belief and cheerfulness imaginable.

Galatians 4:15

And then how happy did you think yourselves, that you had such an apostle! What would you not have parted with for our sakes, were it never so dear to you, though now you are so shy, and afraid of a little persecution? or what is now become of all that for which you were so taken notice of, and magnified among men, as the kindest and lovingest of any to your teachers, so kind, that I am able to bear you witness, that nothing was so precious to you but you would have parted with it for my sake? (Theophylact.)

Galatians 4:16

Am I then, who was at first so precious to you, now taken for an enemy of yours, for one that means you mischief, and am likely to bring persecution and pressures among you, (of which your new teachers, the Gnostic compliers, undertake to rid you,) for no other crime but only telling you my conscience, and revealing the truth of the gospel unto you? This is a little unhappy.

[d] Christ] The word Χριστὸς sometimes signifies Christ, considered as head of the church, together with the body annexed to it, that is, Christ and all believers, or Christians. So 1 Cor. xii. 12. As the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ. Where answerable to the body with many members in the first part is ὁ Χριστὸς, Christ, in the second, which must therefore signify the whole society of Christians. So 1 Pet. i. 11, when he speaks of the Spirit of Christ, that is, of prophecy, foretelling the sufferings which should befall Christ, and the glories after them, it signifies not personally to Christ, but in this greater latitude, the crucifixion of Christ, and the persecuting of Christians, and proportionably the resurrection of Christ, and the deliverance of the persecuted Christians by the destruction of their enemies. And so here the context makes it clear, that by Christ all Christians are to be understood, circumcised or not, Jews or Gentiles: so if ver. 17, the words εἰς Χριστὸν be to be retained, it must be understood of the whole body joined with the head, the Christians or all faithful people, with Abraham the father of all such; for to them was that covenant established, and those promises made. But those words are left out in the king’s MS.; and so it seems most probable they should be, and then the sense will be clear, that the covenant was established by God to Abraham.

Galatians 4:17

Their great zeal toward you is out of no sincere affection, or desire of your good, but that they may supplant me, and get all your affection to themselves, or that they may shut you out of the fold of Christ, that ye may follow them as your new pastors.

Galatians 4:18

But in a good cause ye ought to be constant, and

³ I was also as ye, κἀγὼ ὡς ὑμεῖς. ⁴ formerly, τὸ πρότερον. ⁵ What therefore is, or, was your happiness? Τίς οὖν ἦν ὁ μακαρισμὸς ὑμῶν; ⁶ woo you very earnestly, ζηλοῦσιν ὑμᾶς. ⁷ The King’s MS. reads ὑμᾶς, you, but other copies have ἡμᾶς, us. ⁸ woo them, ζηλοῦτε αὐτούς.

Galatians 4:19

My babes, which cost me the same pain now that you would if I were now to convert you anew, till I can hear that the doctrine and practice of the gospel be purely and perfectly received among you (thus great is my kindness to you),

Galatians 4:20

It was no want of care or kindness in me, that I was not with you before this. Many resolutions I have had to come to you, and to speak with (instead of writing to) you, and so to apply these remedies, sharper or milder, as should appear most convenient, being uncertain at this distance which is the best way of dealing with you.

Galatians 4:21

Certainly ye that stand for the necessity of legal performances to justification, may in the very law itself see yourselves confuted.

Galatians 4:22

For of the two children that Abraham had, the one of Hagar, which denotes the law, the other of Sarah, which denotes the gospel, without legal performances,

Galatians 4:23

It is apparent that one, viz. Hagar’s child, was born after an ordinary manner; but Sarah’s child was not by the ordinary course of nature, but above it, by the power of God, and by virtue of the promise made to Abraham.

Galatians 4:24

And these two mothers are figurative expressions, and allegorically denote the first and second covenant, (see note on the title of these books,) the law and the gospel: Hagar denotes the law given from Sinai, and that brings nothing with it but servitude and strict observances, and yet thereby helps no man to the condition of sons, to justification.

[b] an allegory] The word ἀλληγορία signifies a figure, expressing one thing by another, from ἄλλος, and ἀγορέω, enuntiō; and here the verb medium must be in the active sense; so ἀτινά ἐστιν ἀλληγορούμενα will be best rendered which things do express, enuntiate, one thing δι’ ἄλλον, by another; for, as it follows, these are two covenants, that is, signify two covenants.

Galatians 4:25

For the name of Hagar signifies the mount where the law was given; and this is answerable to the present state of the Jews, these Hagarens and all that spring from Ismael being by their own laws bound to be circumcised, and observe the Mosaical law like the Jews, and so they, like Hagar their mother, are in a servile condition still.

[c] answereth to] Συστοιχεῖ is by Theophylact interpreted γειτνιάζει, ἄπτεται, mount Sinai being not far from Jerusalem, but, as he acknowledgeth also, it signifies originally to walk along with, and being metaphorically used of things compared one to another, it signifies to be parallel, answerable, or proportionable to another; and accordingly here in the comparison begun ver. 12, Hagar is made parallel to Jerusalem, the then present state of the Jews: and the parallel consisted in two things; 1st, that as the people of the Hagarens bound themselves to circumcision, and the observation of the Mosaical law in many particulars, so the present Judaizers did; and, 2dly, that as in this respect these Hagarens were just as their mother had been, in a servile estate, so these Judaizers kept themselves and all their disciples in a mere servile condition, opposite to the liberty of the gospel. Of the Hagarens or Ismaelites being circumcised, Josephus gives clear testimony, l. 1. c. 12. Ἄραβες περιτέμνουσι μετὰ ἔτος τρισκαιδεκατον, Ἰσμαήλος γὰρ ὁ κτιστὴς αὐτῶν τοῦ ἴθνους, Ἀβράμου γενόμενος ἐκ τῆς παλλακῆς, ἐν τούτῳ περιτέμνεται τῷ χρόνῳ, “The Arabians are circumcised at thirteen years old. For Ismael, the founder of that nation, being the son of Abraham by the handmaid, was circumcised at that time.” So Origen in Φιλοκαλία, shewing the ridiculousness of them that ascribe all to the σχηματισμὸς ἐπὶ τῆς γενείας, “the position of the stars at their birth,” professes not to imagine how they can assign the circumcision of all the Jews (and so the wounding, and want of a physician’s help) on the eighth day (constantly) after they are born, to any such position: τῶν δὲ ἐν Ἰσμαηλίταις τοῖς κατὰ τὴν Ἀραβίαν τοιόνδε, ὡς πάντας περιτέμνεσθαι τρισκαιδεκαετεῖς τοῦτο γὰρ ἱστόρηται περὶ αὐτῶν, “and on the other side, that the position of the stars at the nativity of all the Ismaelites in Arabia shall be such as shall cause them to be circumcised when they are thirteen years old; for so,” saith he, “it is storied of them.”

Galatians 4:30

[d] be heir with the son of] The explication of this depends on the Jewish matrimonial laws, or the nature of concubinate, viz. when a servant or a Gentile woman was taken in by a Jew to be (his wife she was not to be by law, but) his concubine, upon agreement first made concerning her dowry. For such a person as this is among them improperly called a wife, though far from any ill character of a whore, or any unlawful copulation, any further than will be affirmed of polygamy, which yet we know was allowed among the Jews, and practised by the