Galatians 4
The Transition from Servitude to Sonship 1–7
Paul's Concern Over Returning to Bondage 8–11
Paul's Personal Appeal and Affection 12–20
The Allegory of Hagar and Sarah 21–31
Bible text: King James Version (1769 Blayney text) · Public domain
Study Notes for Galatians 4
Verse 1
the heir, as long as he is a child — Nepios, ‘child’, is a minor not yet of age: v.2 puts him ‘under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father’. The heir of 3:29, though ‘lord of all’ by right, ‘differeth nothing from a servant’ in those years, which is how Paul pictures the time under the law (3:23–25).
Verse 3
elements of the world — Stoicheion is a first principle or rudiment, as of learning (Heb 5:12, ‘the first principles of the oracles of God’); here the ‘we’ were ‘children’ under them. The same word returns in v.9 as ‘the weak and beggarly elements’, and in Col 2:8, 20, ‘the rudiments of the world’.
Verse 4
the fulness of the time — The time fixed by the Father in v.2 has arrived; ‘The time is fulfilled’ (Mark 1:15). ‘Made of a woman, made under the law’ uses one verb twice, and the first phrase answers the promise of ‘her seed’ (Gen 3:15). Exapostello, ‘sent forth’, opens v.6 as well: first the Son, then the Spirit of his Son.
Verse 5
the adoption of sons — Huiothesia, ‘placing as a son’, is found five times, all in Paul (Rom 8:15, 23; 9:4; Eph 1:5; here). The Son was ‘made under the law’ (v.4) ‘to redeem’ (exagorazo, as in 3:13) those under it; the purpose is that they receive sonship, which v.7 states as ‘no more a servant, but a son’.
Verse 6
Abba, Father — Abba is Aramaic for ‘father’, the word Christ prayed in Gethsemane (Mark 14:36); it occurs only three times in the New Testament, each time with ‘Father’ (also Rom 8:15). Here the Spirit is the one ‘crying’ in the heart, where in Rom 8:15 it is ‘we cry’. He is ‘sent forth’ as the Son was (v.4).
Verse 8
by nature are no gods — Physis, ‘nature’: what they served were not gods in their own nature. ‘Did service’ is douleuo, to serve as a slave, the verb of ‘in bondage’ in v.9. Paul describes the same turning in 1 Thess 1:9: ‘ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God’.
Verse 9
known of God — Paul corrects himself, ‘or rather are known of God’: the initiative was God’s, as in 1 Cor 8:3, ‘if any man love God, the same is known of him’. The ‘weak and beggarly elements’ repeat v.3’s stoicheion; ‘weak’ (asthenes) shares its root with the verb of Rom 8:3, ‘what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh’.
Verse 10
days, and months, and times, and years — Parateroumai, ‘to observe closely’, is the verb of those who ‘watched’ Jesus (Mark 3:2). The list matches the law’s calendar of sabbaths, feasts and the seventh year (Lev 23; 25:4), which Col 2:16–17 calls ‘a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ’.
Verse 12
be as I am — Paul had counted his own standing under the law as loss for Christ (Phil 3:7). He asks them to stand where he stands, free of it, for he is ‘as ye are’: among those ‘without law’ he lived ‘as without law’ (1 Cor 9:21). ‘Ye have not injured me’ (adikeo, to wrong) leads into their welcome of him in vv.13–15.
Verse 13
infirmity of the flesh — Astheneia, ‘weakness’ or ‘sickness’, is the word of 1 Cor 2:3, ‘I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling’, and of 2 Cor 12:9, ‘my strength is made perfect in weakness’. The ailment is not named here; v.14 calls it ‘my temptation which was in my flesh’.
Verse 14
my temptation which was in my flesh — Peirasmos is a trial or testing, here lying ‘in my flesh’. ‘Rejected’ is ekptyo, literally ‘to spit out’, found only here. They received him ‘as an angel of God’ (angelos, messenger) and ‘even as Christ Jesus’, as Christ said, ‘he that receiveth you receiveth me’ (Matt 10:40).
Verse 17
zealously affect you — Zeloo, to be zealous for or to court, is repeated in ‘that ye might affect them’: the false teachers seek the Galatians’ devotion for themselves, ‘but not well’. ‘Exclude’ is ekkleio, to shut out, found only here and Rom 3:27, ‘Where is boasting then? It is excluded.’
Verse 19
until Christ be formed in you — Morphoo, ‘to form’, occurs only here; it shares its root with morphe, ‘form’, and Rom 8:29 gives the same aim, ‘conformed to the image of his Son’. ‘Travail in birth’ (odino) returns in v.27 of the one ‘that travailest not’. ‘Little children’ (teknion) is used by Paul only here.
Verse 21
do ye not hear the law? — Those who ‘desire to be under the law’ are sent to its own pages: the history of Abraham’s two sons (Gen 16; 21), which Paul takes up in vv.22–30, quoting Genesis in v.30 and Isa 54:1 in v.27. The law is to be heard as Scripture before anyone chooses to be ‘under’ it.
Verse 24
an allegory — Allegoreo, ‘to say one thing and mean another’, occurs only here. The history is what ‘is written’ (v.22), and Hagar and Sarah are made figures of ‘the two covenants’, one ‘from the mount Sinai’. ‘Agar’ is Hagar, who ‘bare Abram a son’ (Gen 16:15); she is named only here and in v.25 in the New Testament.
Verse 25
Agar is mount Sinai — Systoicheo, ‘answereth to’, is ‘to stand in the same line with’, found only here. ‘Jerusalem which now is’ stands in line with Hagar, ‘in bondage with her children’. ‘In bondage’ is douleuo, the verb of vv.8–9, and ‘children’ (teknon) is the word of v.28, ‘children of promise’.
Verse 26
Jerusalem which is above — It is set against ‘Jerusalem which now is’ (v.25). Heb 12:22 names it: ‘the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem’. Its freedom answers the bondage of v.25, and v.27 supplies its children from Isa 54:1, ‘break forth into singing… for more are the children of the desolate’.
Verse 28
children of promise — Isaac was born ‘by promise’ (v.23), on the word ‘Sarah thy wife shall have a son’ (Gen 18:10). Rom 9:7–9 argues the same: ‘In Isaac shall thy seed be called… the children of the promise are counted for the seed’. ‘Brethren’ joins the Galatians to Isaac’s line by promise, not by birth after the flesh.
Verse 29
persecuted him that was born after the Spirit — Genesis names only Ishmael’s ‘mocking’ (Gen 21:9); Paul calls it dioko, ‘persecuted’, the word he uses for his own former work (1:13, 23). ‘Even so it is now’ points to those who press circumcision to avoid ‘persecution for the cross of Christ’ (6:12; cf. 5:11).
Verse 30
Cast out the bondwoman and her son — Quoted from Gen 21:10, Sarah’s words, which God endorsed: ‘in all that Sarah hath said unto thee, hearken unto her voice’ (Gen 21:12). That is why Paul says ‘the scripture’ speaks. ‘Heir’ is kleronomeo, to inherit, tied to the ‘heir’ of 3:29 and 4:1, 7.
Verse 31
not children of the bondwoman, but of the free — The conclusion turns on ‘free’ (eleutheros), used of Sarah in v.30 and of the Jerusalem above in v.26. It leads into 5:1, ‘Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free’, and John 8:36, ‘If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.’