Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Galatians 4:24
Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which engendereth to bondage, which is Hagar.
24. which things are an allegory ] Rather, ‘Now all these things may be regarded as an allegory’. The facts are historical, but they are types (1Co 10:11) calculated and intended to teach great spiritual truths, and they have their counterparts in the facts (equally historical) of the Gospel dispensation. We generally regard an allegory as a fictitious narrative. It may be so, as Bunyan’s Pilgrims’ Progress; but there is no indication in St Paul’s language that he dissented from the common belief among the Jews that the narrative in Genesis was historical [29] .
[29] Dr Johnson defines an allegory as ‘a figurative discourse in which something other is intended than is contained in the words literally taken’. By the examples which he gives he seems to confound it with ‘a metaphor’.
for these are the two covenants ] Rather, ‘for these (women) are two covenants (or dispensations)’.
the one from the mount Sinai ] ‘one from Mount Sinai’. We should have expected, ‘and the other from Mount Sion, answering to the heavenly Jerusalem, bearing children into liberty, and this is Sara’; but the explanatory clauses which follow interrupt the construction, which is resumed in Gal 4:26, ‘but Jerusalem which is above &c.’
which gendereth to bondage ] Better, bearing children into bondage.
which is Agar ] ‘and this is (typified by) Hagar’.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Which things – The different accounts of Ishmael and Isaac.
Are an allegory – May be regarded allegorically, or as illustrating great principles in regard to the condition of slaves and freemen; and may therefore be used to illustrate the effect of servitude to the Law of Moses compared with the freedom of the gospel. He does not mean to say that the historical record of Moses was not true, or was merely allegorical; nor does he mean to say that Moses meant this to be an allegory, or that he intended that it should be applied to the exact purpose to which Paul applied it. No such design is apparent in the narrative of Moses, and it is evident that he had no such intention. Nor can it be shown that Paul means to be understood as saying that Moses had any such design, or that his account was not a record of a plain historical fact. Paul uses it as he would any other historical fact that would illustrate the same principle, and he makes no more use of it than the Saviour did in his parables of real or fictitious narratives to illustrate an important truth, or than we always do of real history to illustrate an important principle.
The word which is used here by Paul ( allegoreo) is derived from allos, another, and agoreuo, to speak, to speak openly or in public – Passow. It properly means to speak anything otherwise than it is understood (Passow); to speak allegorically; to allegorize. The word does not occur elsewhere in the New Testament, nor is it found in the Septuagint, though it occurs often in the classic writers. An allegory is a continued metaphor; see Blairs Lectures, xv. It is a figurative sentence or discourse, in which the principal object is described by another subject resembling it in its properties and circumstances – Webster. Allegories are in words what hieroglyphics are in painting. The distinction between a parable and an allegory is said to be, that a parable is a supposed history to illustrate some important truth, as the parable of the good Samaritan, etc.; an allegory is based on real facts.
It is not probable, however, that this distinction is always carefully observed. Sometimes the allegory is based on the resemblance to some inanimate object, as in the beautiful allegory in Ps. 80. Allegories, parables, and metaphors abound in the writings of the East. Truth was more easily treasured up in this way, and could be better preserved and transmitted when it was connected with an interesting story. The lively fancy of the people of the East also led them to this mode of communicating truth; though a love for it is probably founded in human nature. The best sustained allegory of any considerable length in the world is, doubtless, Bunyans Pilgrims Progress; and yet this is among the most popular of all books. The ancient Jews were exceedingly fond of allegories, and even turned a considerable part of the Old Testament into allegory. The ancient Greek philosophers also were fond of this mode of teaching.
Pythagoras instructed his followers in this manner, and this was common among the Greeks, and was imitated much by the early Christians – Calmet. Many of the Christian fathers, of the school of Origen, made the Old Testament almost wholly allegorical, and found mysteries in the plainest narratives. The Bible became thus with them a book of enigmas, and exegesis consisted in an ingenious and fanciful accommodation of all the narratives in the scriptures to events in subsequent times. The most fanciful, and the most ingenious man, on this principle, was the best interpreter; and as any man might attach any hidden mystery which he chose to the scriptures, they became wholly useless as an infallible guide. Better principles of interpretation now prevail; and the great truth has gone forth, never more to be recalled, that the Bible is to be interpreted on the same principle as all other books; that its language is to be investigated by the same laws as language in all other books; and that no more liberty is to be taken in allegorizing the scriptures than may be taken with Herodotus or Livy. It is lawful to use narratives of real events to illustrate important principles always. Such a use is often made of history; and such a use, I suppose, the apostle Paul makes here of an important fact in the history of the Old Testament.
For these are – These may be used to represent the two covenants. The apostle could not mean that the sons of Sarah and Hagar were literally the two covenants; for this could not be true, and the declaration would be unintelligible. In what sense could Ishmael be called a covenant? The meaning, therefore, must be, that they furnished an apt illustration or representation of the two covenants; they would show what the nature of the two covenants was. The words are and is are often used in this sense in the Bible, to denote that one thing represents another. Thus in the institution of the Lords supper; Take, eat, this is my body Mat 26:26; that is, this represents my body. The bread was not the living body that was then before them. So in Gal 4:28; This is my blood of the new covenant; that is, this represents my blood. The wine in the cup could not be the living blood of the Redeemer that was then flowing in his veins; see the note at that place; compare Gen 41:26.
The two covenants – Margin, Testaments. The word means here, covenants or compacts; see the note at 1Co 11:25. The two covenants here referred to, are the one on Mount Sinai made with the Jews, and the other that which is made with the people of God in the gospel. The one resembles the condition of bondage in which Hagar and her son were; the other the condition of freedom in which Sarah and Isaac were.
The one from the Mount Sinai – Margin, Sina. The Greek is Sina, though the word may be written either way.
Which gendereth to bondage – Which tends to produce bondage or servitude. That is, the laws are stern and severe; and the observance of them costly, and onerous like a state of bondage; see the note at Act 15:10.
Which is Agar – Which Hagar would appropriately represent. The condition of servitude produced by the Law had a strong resemblance to her condition as a slave.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Gal 4:24-25
Which things are an allegory: for they are the two covenants.
Which things are an allegory
I. The two women.
1. Sarah, the type of the covenant of grace, was the original wife of Abraham. This covenant is the original one.
2. Though Sarah was the elder wife, Hagar bore the first son.
3. Hagar was not intended to be a wife, and ought never to have been anything but a handmaid to Sarah. The law was meant to be a handmaid to grace.
4. Hagar wished to be mistress, so was driven out. The law is a good servant, but when it usurps the mastership it must be expelled.
5. Hagar never was a freewoman, Sarah never a slave. So with the law and grace.
6. Hagar was cast out as well as her son, but Sarah never was. So the law has ceased to be a covenant, and it and all who trust in it are now driven out by Christ.
II. The two sons.
1. Ishmael was the elder–so the legalist is older than the Christian.
2. Where was the difference between them?
(1) None as to ordinances; both were circumcised.
(2) Nor, probably, as to character.
(3) It was that one was of the flesh, the other of the Spirit.
III. Israels conduct to Isaac. He mocked him–so the legalist is irritated by the doctrine of free grace, and mocks at it.
IV. What became of the two sons.
1. Isaac had all the inheritance and Ishmael none. Not that he had nothing, but no spiritual inheritance. The legalist gets respect and honour, and has his reward.
2. Ishmael was sent away; Isaac was kept at home. (Spurgeon.)
The two covenants
I. The covenant of works propounds the bare justice of God without mercy; the covenant of grace reveals both the justice and the mercy of God.
II. The law requires of us perfect righteousness both for nature and action; the gospel propounds to us an imputed righteousness in the person of the Mediator.
III. The law promises life on the condition of works; the gospel, remission of sins and life everlasting on the condition of faith.
IV. The law was written on tables of stone; the gospel on the fleshy tables of the heart (Jer 31:33; 2Co 3:3).
V. The law was in nature by creation; the gospel is above nature, was revealed after the full.
VI. The law had Moses for a mediator (Deu 5:27); but Christ is the Mediator of the New Testament (Heb 8:5).
VII. The law was dedicated by the blood of beasts (Exo 24:5); the New Testament was confirmed by the blood of Christ (Heb 9:12). (W. Perkins.)
The lessons of the allegory
I. It teaches us what to expect in Gods word.
1. That Word is full of God, but–
2. It is full of man.
3. While, therefore, it is the medium of Divine thought, that thought is not expressed as by a flash of lightning, but through various minds and characters.
II. This makes our study of revelation the more difficult and responsible.
1. The wayfaring man, though a fool, shall not err in its general import; but a man will grievously err if he thinks he may read it like a fool–superficially, carelessly.
2. Each writer and book has its own peculiarities, which demand discrimination for profitable study.
III. The main principle of the bible is the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy, The Old Testament must be studied in the light of the New.
1. In its predictions of Christ.
2. In its analogies of spiritual life. (Dean Vaughan.)
The interpretation of the Old Testament
I. In the interpretation of Scripture our first duty is to hold fast the literal historical sense. Christianity is distinguished from other religions by the fact that it rests on a firm historical basis. Whatever else we are to learn from the story, we are to understand first of all that the persons really lived, the places existed, the events transpired.
II. From the intent for which Scripture was written we gather that it must contain deeper titan the merely historical lessons. It was written with reference–
1. To Christ. And hence apostles found in the Old Testament yearning and hopes and types which were fulfilled in Him.
2. To Christs people. So they found analogies of spiritual life in its historical events.
III. The general principle which should guide us in interpreting these types and analogies is their exposition in the New Testament. (Bishop Lynch-Cotton.)
The profitableness of Scripture
How fruitful are the seeming barren places of Scripture. Bad ploughmen they who make balks of such ground. Wheresoever the surface of Gods Word doth not laugh and sing with corn, then the heart thereof within is merry with wines, affording, where not plain matter, hidden mysteries. (T. Fuller.)
St. Paul allegorizing
Though the apostle does not disdain either Amoraic or Alexandrian methods of dealing with Scripture, he never falls into the follies or extravagances Of either. Treating the letter of Scripture with intense respect, he yet made the literal sense of it bend at will to the service of the spiritual consciousness. On the dead letter of Urim, which recorded the names of the lost tribes, he flashed a mystic ray, with made them gleam forth into Divine and hitherto un-dreamed-of oracles. The actual words of the sacred writers became but as the wheels and wings of the cherubim, and whithersoever the Spirit went they went. (Archdeacon Farrar)
The force of the allegory
There was a terrible severity in it meant to shock and exasperate his opponents; a withering contempt which we, with our feelings, can hardly comprehend. To make Hagar and Ishmael–the bondwoman and her slave child–a type of the Jew, and Sarah and Isaac of the Christian Gentiles, would seem to those pointed at by the parable as if a sacrilegious hand had torn down the vail of the temple, and exposed the holiest of all to the common gaze; or, rather, as if the unclean and uncircumcised had been introduced within the sacred precincts as their proper place, and the very priest of God thrust out. Consistently with this daring defiance of the national opinion, this contemptuous mocking of Jewish pretensions, put in the form of that allegorical logic in which St. Paul was so thorough a proficient, and the force of which on the Hebrew mind he knew so well,–in consistency with this, he even represents the believing Gentiles as the seed of Abraham; tells them that the blessing of Abraham comes on them; that theirs is the promise and the inheritance through faith; that circumcision is nothing, and may be worse than nothing; that the Israel of God is not now the concision, but those who walk according to the rule that neither circumcision availeth anything nor uncircumcision, but a new creature (Php 3:2-3). (T. Binney.)
Legitimate use of allegory
1. It is by no means affirmed that the history of Hagar and Sarah in Genesis had any original reference to the gospel. The account there is a plain historical narrative, not designed to have any such reference.
2. The narrative contains important principles that may be used as illustrating truth, and is so used by St. Paul. There are parallel points between the history and the truths of religion, where the one may be illustrated by the other.
3. The apostle does not use it at all in the way of argument, or as if that proved that the Galatians were not to submit to the Jewish rites and customs. It is an illustration of the comparative nature of servitude and freedom, and would therefore illustrate the difference between a servile compliance with Jewish rites and the freedom of the gospel.
4. This use of an historical fact by the apostle does not make it proper for us to turn the Old Testament into allegory, or even to make a very free use of this mode of illustrating truth. That an allegory may be used sometimes with advantage no one can doubt while the Pilgrims Progress shall exist. Nor can any one doubt that St. Paul has here derived, in this manner, an important and striking illustration of truth from the Old Testament. But no one acquainted with the history of interpretation can doubt that vast injury has been done by a fanciful mode of explaining the Old Testament, by making every fact in its history an allegory, and every pin and pillar of the tabernacle and the temple a type. Nothing is better fitted to bring the whole science of interpretation into contempt, nothing more dishonours the Bible than to make it a book of enigmas, and religion to consist in puerile conceits. The Bible is a book of sense, and all the doctrines essential to salvation are plainly revealed. (Albert Barnes, D. D.)
The children of promise
The hidden truth here spoken of–which things are an allegory–the apostle tells us, is that of the two covenants; the one from the Mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar. For this Agar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all. By the two covenants I do not think we are to understand what are generally described as the covenant of works and the covenant of grace. It would take us a long time to enter into that argument; but, in the first place, the covenant of works was certainly not made with Moses–if made at all, it was made with Adam; and, therefore, we cannot suppose that it is here referred to. There appears rather to be an allusion to the national covenant that was made with Israel, which is contrasted with the new and better covenant made with all Gods believing people. The first covenant here spoken of is one which gendereth to bondage, and if we go back to the Israelitish covenant we find it beginning with the painful rite of circumcision, and connected with a multitude, I might almost say an innumerable multitude, of sacrifices, burdensome to the mind and conscience of the people of God, and with the killing letter of the law. But the other covenant refers to the state of the gospel Church–that gospel Church state in which all believers have a part. If you look again at the context, you find that one of these children was born to the bondmaid and the other to the freewoman; and the character of the birth of these two children exactly answers to the difference which exists between Israelites according to the flesh and the spiritual Israel, who are really Gods children by promise. The child that was born to Hagar, Ishmael, was born in the common course of nature; the child that was born to Sarah, Isaac, was born by promise, and was therefore eminently distinguished from the other. In the one case, we see that the child that was born of the bondmaid was not, so to speak, a free child; and so it is with all who are born by nature; they are all naturally born under bondage to the law. But the child that was born by promise, when it was contrary to all expectation that Abraham and Sarah should have a child, was born by the direct interference of God, and became the heir of special privileges, of which Ishmael was not allowed to be a partaker. The one, therefore, may be spoken of in plain terms, as having been born–the other may be more correctly spoken of, or at least compared with those who are new born. I have, therefore, in opening up the subject further, first to draw your attention to the persons who are partakers of the promised privileges; because we read at the twenty-eighth verse–Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise. In other words, the apostle intends to teach us that what was figured under Ishmael and Isaac has a direct bearing upon ourselves. The Galatians were a Gentile Church; we then, as Gentiles, have an interest in the promise, and, like Isaac, who was the child of promise, are partakers of special blessings. It is very clear from this passage, first, that these blessings do not belong to those who are only nominally the people of God. We know that the Israelites were in a peculiar manner Gods people; but they were not, nationally, to be the inheritors of all the promised blessings which come down to us under the new covenant. Our Lord, in His parable of the husbandmen and the vineyard, illustrates this, when, after having spoken of those wicked husbandmen putting to death the son of the proprietor of the land, He draws the conclusion that the vineyard shall be taken away from them and given to others–in other words, that those who were first Gods chosen people were not to continue His chosen people for ever, in a spiritual sense, and that others were to be admitted to the privileges which they had abused. Then, if we have ascertained that the promises do not refer to those who are merely nominally belonging to God, we may say that they do belong to those who are partakers of Gods sovereign grace. They are, therefore, the persons who are brought to the Lord Jesus Christ; they are those who through faith in Christ, simply trusting to His merit, are introduced into the glorious liberty of the children of God. They are those, therefore, who not only belong to God as an outward and visible Church, but as the true invisible Church, which shall be made manifest unto all men, not in our day, but in the great day of the Lord. These, then, are the parties described. They are born not of a bondmaid, but of a freewoman; or, as we read here–We, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise; and in the concluding verse–So, then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free. Now, if this be the case, the moment that we are thus under grace, and partakers of the promised blessings, we are free from ceremonial bondage; we are not looking to any mere outward act or ceremony, but we are made free by the Son of God, and those whom He makes free are free indeed. But we are not only free from the ceremonial law, but we are free from the terrorism connected with the judgment to come. We are taught, indeed, in the Epistle to the Ephesians, that we have access by one Spirit unto the Father through Jesus Christ; for He came and preached peace to us who were afar off, and to them that were nigh. See, therefore, what our privileges are if we are real believers under the new covenant; see what freedom we enjoy. But though we may all take this joyful view of a believers privileges, yet we are not to think that the believer has no crosses or trials. Let us turn again to the context, for that which happened to Ishmael and to Isaac is again an illustration of what will happen to believers when brought into contact with the world. The twenty-ninth verse says–As then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now. We are not to expect that if a man desires to walk blameless, or to carry out such an exhortation as that in the second chapter of the Epistle to the Philippians, to be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world, holding forth the Word of life–we are not to expect that he will be left alone. The very fact of his being a light in the midst of a dark world, one who desires constantly to carry out into practice the doctrines he professes to believe, will draw attention to him, be he where he may. And what will be the result? He will be exposed to those very things against which we are taught to pray in our Litany–the envy, hatred, and malice which abound in the world. You will see this happening over and over again in every-clay life; and when they cannot catch believers halting, they will try to entangle them in their talk. And why should we expect all this? Because our Lord has told us that we must expect it–that the disciple is not above his Master–and in that striking chapter, the fifteenth of St. Johns Gospel, our Lord has said, If the world hate you, ye know that it hated Me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own; but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Persecution, misrepresentation, therefore, must be expected by the Lords people. As Ishmael mocked and ridiculed Isaac, so we must expect the Ishmaelites of this day to attack and ridicule and persecute you and me, if we are really on the Lords side. Let us never, then, be surprised for a moment to find that we must experience that which the Word of God has laid down in unmistakable terms–Through much tribulation we must enter the kingdom. The Jews have always shown their hatred to the gospel. We have seen, then, who are to be partakers of the privilege; we have not blinded our eyes–I trust I have not, and you have not–to the treatment we may expect in the world; and now let us see the encouragement which is held out in this portion. We are the children of promise; we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free. The persecuted, then, shall be known, and the persecutors shall be known. There is no overlooking any one, high or low, rich or poor, in the eye of the Lord; His eye is in every place, beholding the evil and the good. My brethren, if you look at the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians, you will find the apostle saying, We ourselves glory in you in the Churches of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that ye endure: Which is a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God, that ye may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which ye also suffer: seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you; and to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels. Gods eye, therefore, is in every place. The first covenant that was looked to was a national covenant–the covenant that is now looked to is an individual covenant; it is with each one of us personally. The whole passage, therefore, upon which we have been speaking is intended to make every single soul, high or low, rich or poor, cut off all idea of salvation by works, and cultivate a hope of salvation by grace–this is the whole purport of the passage–to lead us to see our own individual interest in the covenant of grace. What a blessing it would be, brethren, if one inspired by Gods Holy Spirit could indeed make use of the language of this passage, and standing here address you and me, and say to each person in this congregation–Ye are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free! And why should it not be said of us? (H. M. Villiers, M. A.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 24. Which things are an allegory] They are to be understood spiritually; more being intended in the account than meets the eye.
Allegory, from , another, and , or , to speak, signifies a thing that is a representative of another, where the literal sense is the representative of a spiritual meaning; or, as the glossary expresses it, , “where the thing is to be understood differently in the interpretation than it appears in the reading.”
Allegories are frequent in all countries, and are used by all writers. In the life of Homer, the author, speaking of the marriage of Jupiter and Juno, related by that poet, says: , – , “It appears that these things are to be understood allegorically; for Juno means the air, Jupiter the aether.” Plutarch, in his treatise De Iside et Osir., says: “As the Greeks allegorize Cronos (Saturn) into Chronos (Time.)” It is well known how fond the Jews were of allegorizing. Every thing in the law was with them an allegory. Their Talmud is full of these; and one of their most sober and best educated writers, Philo, abounds with them. Speaking (De Migrat. Abrah., page 420) of the five daughters of Zelophehad, he says: “which, allegorizing, we assert to be the five senses!”
It is very likely, therefore, that the allegory produced here, St. Paul had borrowed from the Jewish writings; and he brings it in to convict the Judaizing Galatians on their own principles; and neither he nor we have any thing farther to do with this allegory than as it applies to the subject for which it is quoted; nor does it give any license to those men of vain and superficial minds who endeavour to find out allegories in every portion of the sacred writings, and, by what they term spiritualizing, which is more properly carnalizing, have brought the testimonies of God into disgrace. May the spirit of silence be poured out upon all such corrupters of the word of God!
For these are the two covenants] These signify two different systems of religion; the one by Moses, the other by the Messiah.
The one from the Mount Sinai] On which the law was published; which was typified by Hagar, Abraham’s bond maid.
Which gendereth to bondage] For as the bond maid or slave could only gender-bring forth her children, in a state of slavery, and subject also to become slaves, so all that are born and live under those Mosaic institutions are born and live in a state of bondage-a bondage to various rites and ceremonies; under the obligation to keep the whole law, yet, from its severity and their frailness, obliged to live in the habitual breach of it, and in consequence exposed to the curse which it pronounces.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Which things are an allegory: that is called an allegory, when one thing is learned out of another, or something is mystically signified and to be understood further than is expressed. The Scripture hath a peculiar kind of allegories, wherein one thing is signified by and under another thing. The thing here signifying, was Abrahams wife and concubine, Sarah and Hagar.
For these are the two covenants; the apostle saith, these signified the two covenants, for that is the meaning of are: so as here we have one text more where the verb substantive is put for signifieth; and it will be hard to assign a reason why it should not be so interpreted in the institution of the Lords supper, notwithstanding the papists and Lutherans so earnest contending to the contrary. The very word is here used, , that is used in the institution of the Lords supper. Here it is,
these are the two covenants or testaments; there, this is the new covenant. The apostle calls them two covenants, ( whereas they were but one), with reference to the time of their exhibition, and manner of their administration, in which they much differed. Nor must we understand the apostle as signifying to us by these words, that Moses wrote the history of Sarah and Hagar with such a design and intention; but only that that history is very applicable to the two covenants, and we shall find, Gal 4:27, the apostle justifying this application from the authority of the prophet Isaiah. And hereto he complied with the general sense of the Jews, who judged that there was not only a literal, but a mystical sense also, of those histories of the patriarchs.
The one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar: the one covenant was that of the law delivered from mount Sinai, this was like Hagar; for as Hagar was herself a bondwoman, and so her child did partake of the condition of the mother, and Hagar bare a bondman or servant; so the law (which he calls a covenant, because of the stipulation of obedience from the people to the will of God revealed and declared) left those that were under it in a state of bondage or servitude.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
24. are an allegoryrather,”are allegorical,” that is, have another besides theliteral meaning.
these are the twocovenants“these [women] are (that is, mean; omit’the’ with all the oldest manuscripts) two covenants.” As amongthe Jews the bondage of the mother determined that of the child, thechildren of the free covenant of promise, answering to Sarah, arefree; the children of the legal covenant of bondage are not so.
one fromthat is,taking his origin from Mount Sinai. Hence, it appears,he is treating of the moral law (Ga3:19) chiefly (Heb 12:18).Paul was familiar with the district of Sinai in Arabia (Ga1:17), having gone thither after his conversion. At the gloomyscene of the giving of the Law, he learned to appreciate, bycontrast, the grace of the Gospel, and so to cast off all his pastlegal dependencies.
which gendereththatis, bringing forth children unto bondage. Compare the phrase(Ac 3:25), “children ofthe covenant which God made . . . saying unto Abraham.”
Agarthat is, Hagar.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Which things are an allegory,…. Or “are allegorized”: so Sarah and Hagar were allegorized by Philo the Jew p, before they were by the apostle. Sarah he makes to signify virtue, and Hagar the whole circle of arts and sciences, which are, or should be, an handmaid to virtue; but these things respecting Hagar and Sarah, the bondwoman and the free, and their several offspring, are much better allegorized by the apostle here. An allegory is a way of speaking in which one thing is expressed by another, and is a continued metaphor; and the apostle’s meaning is, that these things point at some other things; have another meaning in them, a mystical and spiritual one, besides the literal; and which the Jews call
, “Midrash”, a name they give to the mystical and allegorical sense of Scripture, in which they greatly indulge themselves. An allegory is properly a fictitious way of speaking; but here it designs an accommodation of a real history, and matter of fact, to other cases and things, and seems to intend a type or figure; and the sense to be, that these things which were literally true of Hagar and Sarah, of Ishmael and Isaac, were types and figures of things to come; just as what befell the Israelites were types and figures of things that would be under the Gospel dispensation, 1Co 10:11
for these are the two covenants, or “testaments”; that is, these women, Hagar and Sarah, signify, and are figures of the two covenants; not the covenant of works, and the covenant of grace. Hagar was no figure of the covenant of works, that was made and broke before she was born; besides, the covenant she was a figure of was made at Mount Sinai, whereas the covenant of works was made in paradise: moreover, the covenant of works was made with Adam, and all his posterity, but the covenant which Hagar signified was only made with the children of Israel; she represented Jerusalem, that then was with her children. Nor was Sarah a figure of the covenant of grace, for this was made long before she had a being, even from everlasting; but they were figures of the two administrations of one and the same covenant, which were to take place in the world successively; and which following one the other, are by the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews called the first and the second, the old and the new covenants. Now these are the covenants or testaments, the old and the new, and the respective people under them, which were prefigured by these two women, and their offspring.
The one from the Mount Sinai; that is, one of these covenants, or one of the administrations of the covenant, one dispensation of it, which is the first, and now called old, because abolished, took its rise from Mount Sinai, was delivered there by God to Moses, in order to be communicated to the people of Israel, who were to be under that form of administration until the coming of the Messiah. And because the whole Mosaic economy was given to Moses on Mount Sinai, it is said to be from thence: hence, in Jewish writings, we read, times without number, of , a rite, custom, constitution, or appointment given to Moses “from Mount Sinai”, the same phrase as here. Sinai signifies “bushes”, and has its name from the bushes which grew upon if, q; in one of which the Lord appeared to Moses; for Horeb and Sinai are one and the same mount; one signifies waste and desolate, the other bushy; as one part of the mountain was barren and desert, and the other covered with bushes and brambles; and may fitly represent the condition of such that are under the law.
Which gendereth to bondage; begets and brings persons into a state of bondage, induces on them a spirit of bondage to fear, and causes them to be all their lifetime subject to it; as even such were that were under the first covenant, or under the Old Testament dispensation:
which is Agar; or this is the covenant, the administration of it, which Hagar, the bondwoman, Sarah’s servant, represented.
p De Cherubim, p. 108, 109. q Pirke Eliezer, c. 41.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Which things contain an allegory ( ). Literally, “Which things are allegorized” (periphrastic present passive indicative of ). Late word (Strabo, Plutarch, Philo, Josephus, ecclesiastical writers), only here in N.T. The ancient writers used to speak in riddles. It is compounded of , another, and , to speak, and so means speaking something else than what the language means, what Philo, the past-master in the use of allegory, calls the deeper spiritual sense. Paul does not deny the actual historical narrative, but he simply uses it in an allegorical sense to illustrate his point for the benefit of his readers who are tempted to go under the burden of the law. He puts a secondary meaning on the narrative just as he uses in 1Co 10:11 of the narrative. We need not press unduly the difference between allegory and type, for each is used in a variety of ways. The allegory in one sense is a speaking parable like Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, the Prodigal Son in Lu 15, the Good Shepherd in Joh 10. But allegory was also used by Philo and by Paul here for a secret meaning not obvious at first, one not in the mind of the writer, like our illustration which throws light on the point. Paul was familiar with this rabbinical method of exegesis (Rabbi Akiba, for instance, who found a mystical sense in every hook and crook of the Hebrew letters) and makes skilful use of that knowledge here. Christian preachers in Alexandria early fell victims to Philo’s allegorical method and carried it to excess without regard to the plain sense of the narrative. That startling style of preaching survives yet to the discredit of sound preaching. Please observe that Paul says here that he is using allegory, not ordinary interpretation. It is not necessary to say that Paul intended his readers to believe that this allegory was designed by the narrative. He illustrates his point by it.
For these are ( ). Allegorically interpreted, he means.
From Mount Sinai ( ). Spoken from Mount Sinai.
Bearing (). Present active participle of , to beget of the male (Mt 1:1-16), more rarely as here to bear of the female (Luke 1:13; Luke 1:57).
Which is Hagar ( H). Allegorically interpreted.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Are an allegory [ ] . N. T. o. Lit. are allegorised. From allo another, ajgoreuein to speak. Hence, things which are so spoken as to give a different meaning from that which the words express. For parable, allegory, fable, and proverb, see on Mt 13:3.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “Which things are an Allegory,” (atina estin alleg-oroumena) “Which things are being (herewith) allegorized;” for purposes of historical truth and clarity.
2) “For these are the two covenants,” (hautai gar eisin duo diathekai) “For these exist as two covenants;” the Law covenant and the New Testament church covenant, Mat 16:18-19; Mat 28:18-20.
3) “The one from the Mount Sinai,” (mai men apo orous Sina) “one indeed from Mount Sinai;” where the law was given, in Arabia, Exo 20:1-26.
4) ‘Which gendereth to bondage,” (eis douleian gennosa) “bringeth forth unto slavery;” slavery or bondage to the law.
5) “Which is Agar,” (hetis estin Hagar) ‘Which is (exists as) Hagar, as a person a bondwoman, She was cast out and found a home for herself and her children in Arabia. Hagar was a provincial name for Sinai.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
24. These are the two covenants. I have thought it better to adopt this translation, in order not to lose sight of the beauty of the comparison; for Paul compares the two διαθὢκαι, to two mothers, and to employ testamentum, (a testament,) which is a neuter noun, for denoting a mother, would be harsh. The word pactio (a covenant) appears to be, on that account, more appropriate; and indeed the desire of obtaining perspicuity, as well as elegance, has led me to make this choice. (76)
The comparison is now formally introduced. As in the house of Abraham there were two mothers, so are there also in the Church of God. Doctrine is the mother of whom we are born, and is twofold, Legal and Evangelical. The legal mother, whom Hagar resembles, gendereth to bondage. Sarah again, represents the second, which gendereth to freedom; though Paul begins higher, and makes our first mother Sinai, and our second, Jerusalem. The two covenants, then, are the mothers, of whom children unlike one another are born; for the legal covenant makes slaves, and the evangelical covenant makes freemen.
But all this may, at first sight, appear absurd; for there are none of God’s children who are not born to freedom, and therefore the comparison does not apply. I answer, what Paul says is true in two respects; for the law formerly brought forth its disciples, (among whom were included the holy prophets, and other believers,) to slavery, though not to permanent slavery, but because God placed them for a time under the law as “a schoolmaster.” (77) (Gal 3:25.) Under the vail of ceremonies, and of the whole economy by which they were governed, their freedom was concealed: to the outward eye nothing but slavery appeared. “Ye have not,” says Paul to the Romans, “received the spirit of bondage again to fear.” (Rom 8:15.) Those holy fathers, though inwardly they were free in the sight of God, yet in outward appearance differed nothing from slaves, and thus resembled their mother’s condition. But the doctrine of the gospel bestows upon its children perfect freedom as soon as they are born, and brings them up in a liberal manner.
Paul does not, I acknowledge, speak of that kind of children, as the context will show. By the children of Sinai, it will afterwards be explained, are meant hypocrites, who are at length expelled from the Church of God, and deprived of the inheritance. What, then, is the gendering to bondage, which forms the subject of the present dispute? It denotes those who make a wicked abuse of the law, by finding in it nothing but what tends to slavery. Not so the pious fathers, who lived under the Old Testament; for their slavish birth by the law did not hinder them from having Jerusalem for their mother in spirit. But those who adhere to the bare law, and do not acknowledge it to be “a schoolmaster to bring them to Christ,” (Gal 3:24,) but rather make it a hinderance to prevent their coming to him, are the Ishmaelites born to slavery.
It will again be objected, why does the apostle say that such persons are born of God’s covenant, and are considered to belong to the Church? I answer, strictly speaking, they are not God’s children, but are degenerate and spurious, and are disclaimed by God, whom they falsely call their Father. They receive this name in the Church, not because they are members of it in reality, but because for a time they presume to occupy that place, and impose on men by the disguise which they wear. The apostle here views the Church, as it appears in this world: but on this subject we shall afterwards speak.
(76) To a Latin scholar the author’s meaning is obvious enough. But it may be proper to apprize the English reader, that pactio (a covenant) is a feminine noun, and, on that account, is pronounced to be more natural and graceful, in a metaphorical description of a mother, than testamentum , (a testament,) which, being a neuter noun, sounds harshly in this connection. In that point of view, the preference is little else than a matter of taste; but, on far higher grounds, “covenant” is a more faithful translation than “testament;” and a careful investigation of the meaning of διαθήκη would contribute greatly to elucidate many passages of Scripture. — Ed.
(77) “ C’est a dire, les conduisoit comme petits enfans.” “That is, treated them like little children.”
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(24) Which things are an allegory.Literally, Which things are allegorisedi.e., spoken in double sense,
Where more is meant than meets the ear.
The allegorical sense does not exclude the literal sense. but is added to it. In like manner St. Paul speaks of the events which happened to the Israelites in their wanderings in the wilderness as happening for our ensamples, or, more correctly, by way of types or figures (1Co. 10:11): though elsewhere a distinction is drawn between type and allegory, the first implying that the narrative on which it is based is true, the second that it is fictitious. St. Paul does not use the word here in this strict sense. The justification for the allegorical treatment of the patriarchal history may be expressed in the words of Calvin: As the house of Abraham was at that time the true Church, so there can be no doubt that the chief and most memorable events which happened in it are so many types for us. At the same time, the argumentative force of the passage evidently rests upon the apostolic assertion of Christian liberty, not upon the logical cogency of the inference from the details of the type to the thing typified.
These are the two covenants.These, i.e., these women, Hagar and Sarah. Are, in the sense of stand, for, typically represent, as in the interpretation of the parable of the tares: The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world (Mat. 13:39); or, in the words of the institution of the Lords Supper: this is my body . . . this is my blood (Mat. 26:26; Mat. 26:28), where the meaning is really as little doubtful as here. The two covenants should be simply two covenants. What covenants the Apostle goes on to explain. So, too, the one in the next clause should be rather one.
Which gendereth to bondage.Rather, bringing forth children unto bondagei.e., unto a state of bondage, so that from the moment they are born they are subject to bondage. The progeny of Hagar is a nation of bondsmen, like the Jews under the old covenant.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
24. Which things Not the Greek pronoun , which, but , which sort of things. The Old Testament histories of this kind. Christian verity underlies the whole old dispensation.
Are an allegory A literal history with a spiritual subsense. The Greek word , may signify either are spoken allegorically, or, are allegorized. The latter is the meaning here; implying that the literal history is by Christian truth thus spiritualized. This spiritualizing arises from the very relation of the new dispensation to the old; the latter infusing a new and grander import into the former.
These Hagar and Sarah.
Are That is, represent. Their position in the history assigns them that typism.
Two covenants That of law and works, and that of gospel and faith; yet the latter really underlying the former through the whole old history. See note on Rom 9:5-13.
From the mount Sinai For the decalogue is THE LAW; all the rest of the Old Testament, the ritual, the history, and the prophecy, being but adjuncts to give that law power and effect.
Gendereth to bondage As Hagar bore children to bondage, so does the Sinaitic covenant produce sons under circumcisional bondage to the heavy ritual. Under this bondage the Galatians are perversely ambitious to place themselves.
Which is Corresponds to.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘Which things contain an allegory. For these two women are two covenants. One from Mount Sinai, bearing children to bondage, which is Hagar. Now this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and answers to the Jerusalem that now is, for she is in bondage with her children. But the Jerusalem that is above is free, which is our mother.’
And this was to be seen as an allegory. Note that the allegory or parable is drawn from the facts stated above about the sons, and not vice versa. The facts are Scriptural, the allegory is illustrative. In understanding what follows we need to remember that Sarah was barren and seemingly could not bear, so a son was born to Abraham on her behalf through a slave wife who had had no difficulty in bearing. Then later Sarah did have a child, Isaac, as a result of the seemingly miraculous intervention of God (Gen 17:17; Gen 21:2; Gen 21:7).
By allegory the two women, slave and free, are like two covenants, the one enslaving, the other giving freedom. The covenant that enslaves is from Mount Sinai. This refers to the giving of the Law and its resulting covenant as outlined in Exodus to Deuteronomy, which brought the people ‘under the Law’. It also refers by allegory to the physical Jerusalem in Paul’s time whose inhabitants were also in bondage to the Law. It kept men in slavery. They strove to keep the Law, and added to it, so that they might somehow make themselves worthy of God. But they could not. They were slaves to sin and condemned by the Law. Like Ishmael they were children of the flesh.
The corollary is therefore that the free-woman represents God’s covenant with Abraham. And it also refers to the heavenly Jerusalem which is free. Under this covenant men are free and participate in the heavenly (Eph 1:19 to Eph 2:6). In the words of Jesus, they ‘worship the Father in Spirit and in truth’ (Joh 4:23), and like Isaac they are the true seed, children of the promise, reckoned as righteous by faith and born through the miraculous working of God.
The first significance of this lies in the fact that the Judaisers were seeking to take the Galatians back to the old covenant of bondage and submission to the Law. They wanted to make them bondslaves. They wanted to make them like Ishmael. But Paul is seeking to bring them to the covenant of promise under which they find freedom and contact with the heavenly through the promises and covenant of God. He wants them to be the true seed of Abraham.
But the message about Jerusalem also has a second significance and that is that the earthly Jerusalem is now replaced by the heavenly Jerusalem (compare Heb 12:22; Heb 11:9-10), and that the people of God no longer look to an earthly city but to a heavenly, for that is where freedom is found. They are citizens of Heaven (Php 3:20). And this new Jerusalem, this heavenly Jerusalem, is their ‘mother’. In other words bears them, cares for them and looks after them. They are born anew from Heaven. The earthly Jerusalem no more has any meaning for them. They look to the heavenly Jerusalem, the heavenly birth, the heavenly upbringing.
‘Mount Sinai in Arabia.’ Arabia is in the desert, and it was to the desert that Ishmael fled. It was away from the place where the promises were made under God’s covenant with Abraham. It was a place of barrenness.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
The explanation of the story:
v. 24. which things are an allegory; for these are the two covenants; the one from the Mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar.
v. 25. For this Agar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children.
v. 26. But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.
v. 27. For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not; for the desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband. Paul here, by the inspiration of God, gives a figurative or allegorical explanation of the story of Hagar and Sarah. In addition to the historical truth of the story of Ishmael and Isaac he finds here a spiritual truth which typifies the permanent relation between those that are under the Law and those that are under the promise. For these two women, he says, are two covenants; they represent the two religions, that of the Law and that of the Gospel. This distinction holds true for all times. For although there are many races and nations in the world, they can still be divided into but two parties, namely, such as attempt to be justified before God by their own works and merits, and such as place their trust in the merits and righteousness of Jesus Christ alone. The first class is represented by the bond-woman Hagar, the covenant which originates from, that is, on, Mount Sinai, and bears children unto bondage; for every one that still hopes to earn salvation by the works of the Law is a spiritual offspring of Hagar, the slave, and is by virtue of that fact in bondage.
The apostle continues his explanation: For Mount Sinai is in Arabia, The mountain on which the Law was given is in the same country which became the home of Hagar’s descendants, those that were children of bondage. And there is a further likeness in the fact that Hagar, as a bondswoman and the mother of a race in bondage, corresponded to, was in the same category with, the city of Jerusalem as it was when Paul wrote. Jerusalem was the capital of the Jewish race, if not of the Jewish nation; there dwelt the leaders of the people that continued to teach the necessity of keeping the Law in order to obtain salvation. As Hagar was thus in the state of bondage, so Jerusalem, the Jewish race, all that believed in the way of works and merits, are in the state of slavery, of spiritual bondage, knowing nothing of the liberty of the sons of God.
What a wonderful contrast, then: But the Jerusalem which is above is free, she is our mother. The apostle here speaks of the spiritual Jerusalem, or Zion, of the Church of Jesus Christ, that is, the total number of all believers that are scattered throughout the earth, who have the same Gospel, the same faith in Christ, the same Holy Spirit, and the same Sacraments, as Luther writes. This Church is the true mother of all believers; in her they have been regenerated unto new life, by her they are daily nourished; for God has given to His Church on earth the means of grace, to be used by all believers and dispensed to them day by day. In support of this apparently daring explanation the apostle cites Isa 54:1: Rejoice, thou barren one that bearest not; break forth and shout, thou that travailest not; for far more are the children of the desolate woman than of her that has a husband. This is a prophetic promise given to the Church of the New Covenant, to be fulfilled in the time of the Messiah. The contrast brought out by the prophet is that between the church of the Law, which was fertile and had many children, that is, that had the opinion that she alone was the real bride of the Lord, that her children alone were God’s peculiar people, and the Church of the Gospel, of the evangelical promise, which, as the true bride of Christ, has brought forth a great number of descendants of every people, nation, and tongue; that is, the communion of believers and saints. It is a prophecy which will remain in power until the end of time; for so long the Gospel will be preached, by the power of which people are born in a spiritual manner.
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
Gal 4:24. Which things are an allegory: The original may be rendered, Which things are allegorical, or have been allegorized. It seems to have been in compliance with the disposition of the Jewish Christians, who were fond of allegoric interpretations, that St. Paul, above all the other apostles, used that way. He seems to intimate as much, when, upon the allegory of Abraham’s two sons, he argues for the discharge of the believing Gentiles from the legal rites. He had, in his former chapter, offered them several good reasons in proof of their liberty, before he comes to this, which he introduces with the preface, “My little children, &c.” Gal 4:19-20. He goes on, “I will try what an allegory will do. Tell me, you who desire, &c.” St. Paul had no intention to prove by this allegory the truth of Christianity to the unbelievingJews;buttoshew the Christian exemption from Jewish rites, to Jews who professed themselves Christians. To such persons his arguments, built upon this passage in Moses’s writings, were very convincing, because they against whom he disputed approved of this sort of reasoning upon scripture history, and admitted the general principles upon which this and other allegorical principles were built. They had learned, that all things happened to their fathers in a figure, and that things in the law included a mystery relating to future times. And when an exact coincidence of all the circumstances in the history, and some after-event, was made out, it was to them a strong argument, because it suited their genius, and was a method of proof to which theyhad been accustomed. In Philo, we see this history allegorized to a moral sense; Sarah being put for virtue by that author, in his book of allegories: and Agar, for that knowledge of the sciences which ought to be subservient to virtue, or else to be expelled: and who can say that this history was not allegorized by others in St. Paul’s sense, especially as there is an obvious analogy between the family of Abraham, the father of the faithful, and the church of the faithful; which St. Paul might improve, in comparing all the parts of that history with the state of the present Christian and Jewish church, to accommodate the whole to the subject of their controversy. Be this as it may, the Galatians could not mistake him, as if he was about to impose a false sense of the law upon them, after he had forewarned them in what sense he interpreted that history. He does not give the least intimation that the words in Genesis literally signified the two covenants: on the contrary, he tells them, these things being allegorized, have this sense. And if they were allegorized, then they were transferred from their genuine signification to other things illustrated in the figure. The history did not predict, but figured the other by unforced accommodation.
These are the two covenants That is, These two persons, Hagar and Sarah, may well be considered as representing the two covenants, or dispensations, of the law and the gospel. This Hagar, I say, (Gal 4:25.) whose name signifies a rock, is a representation of those who are under the law, given from mount Sinai in Arabia, in the desarts of which the Hagarenes, who descended from Ishmael, were settled: and it answers in the allegory to the present state of the earthly Jerusalem, which, with her children, is in bondage under the law. The particle cannot have its illative force in Gal 4:25 since it would be very injurious to the Apostle to suppose that he meant to argue thus: “Mount Sinai is Agar; for this Agar is mount Sinai.” It must therefore signify the same with I say, and only introduce the repetition of a thought which the Apostle was desirous to inculcate; as it often does elsewhere.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Gal 4:24 . ] quippe quae, quae quidem , taking up the recorded facts under the point of view of a special quality .
] are of allegorical import . The word , not occurring elsewhere in the N.T., means , so to speak (to set forth, to relate), that another sense is expressed than the words convey; which further meaning lies concealed behind the immediate meaning of what is said. Hesychius: . Comp. Quinctil. viii. 6; see Plut. Mor . p. 363 D, Athen . ii. p. 69 C; Philo, de migr. Abr . p. 420 B; Joseph. Antt. prooem . 4. In the passive: to have an allegorical meaning , [211] Schol. Soph. Aj . 186; Porph. Pyth . p. 185; Philo, de Cherub . I. p. 143; and see generally, Wetstein. [212] The understanding of the O.T. history in an allegoric sense was, as is well known, extremely prevalent among the later Jews. Synops. Sohar . p. 25. Galatians 1 : “Quicunque dicit narrationes legis alium non habere sensum, quam illius tantum historiae, istius crepet spiritus.” See generally, Dpke, Hermeneut . I. p. 104 ff.; Gfrrer, Gesch. d. Urchristenth . I. i. p. 68 ff. But on account of the Rabbinical training in which Paul had been brought up (comp. Tholuck in the Stud. u. Krit . 1835, p. 369 ff.; Weiss, bibl. Theol . p. 295 f.), and on account of his truthful character, nothing else can be assumed than that he himself was convinced that what he related contained, in addition to its historical sense, the allegorical import set forth by him; so that he did not intend to give a mere argumentum , but ascribed to his allegory the cogency of objective proof. Hence he has raised it into the keystone of his whole antinomistic reasoning, and has so earnestly introduced (Gal 4:21 ) and carried it out, that we cannot hold (with Schott) that it was intended to be an argumentum secundarium, quod insuper accederet . But in the view of a faith not associated with Rabbinical training, the argument wholly falls to the ground as a real proof (Luther says that it is “too weak to stand the test ”); [213] while the thing proved is none the less established independent of the allegory, and is merely illustrated by it. “Nothing can be more preposterous than the endeavours of interpreters to vindicate the argument of the apostle as one objectively true.” Baur, Paulus , II. p. 312, Exo 2 .
] namely, Hagar and Sarah; for see afterwards . Hence not equivalent to , sc . (Calovius and others), as is assumed, in order not to admit here an .
] namely, allegorically, and so far = signify . Comp. Mat 13:20 ; Mat 13:38 , et al .
] two covenants , not: institutions , declarations of will (Usteri), or generally “arrangements connected with the history of salvation” (Hofmann), any more than in Gal 3:15 . The characteristic of a covenant, that there must be two parties, existed actually in the case of the (God and the men, who were subject to the law,
God and the men, who believe in Christ). Comp. 1Co 11:25
] One proceeding from Mount Sinai , which was instituted on Mount Sinai, and therefore issues from it. Instead of , the mere genitive might have been used (Bernhardy, p. 223), but the former is more definite and descriptive. The is without any corresponding (Khner, II. p. 430), for in none of the cases where subsequently occurs is it correlative to this . In point of fact the contrast anticipated in certainly follows in Gal 4:26 , but not in conjunction with ; see what is said on Gal 4:26 .
] bringing forth unto bondage , that is, placing those who belong to this covenant, by means of their so belonging, in a state of bondage , namely, through subjection to the Mosaic law. See Gal 4:1 ff. The notion of a mother has caused the retention of the figurative expression .
] , quippe quae , is neither predicate (Bengel) nor attributive definition ( as that , which Hagar is; so Hofmann), as if it were written ; but it is the subject , just as and , and also in Gal 4:26 . The name , not as yet expressed, is now emphatically added. The Sinaitic covenant is that which Hagar is in the history referred to is allegorically identical with Hagar.
[211] Not: to be the object of allegorical conception (Hofmann). The allegorical sense is priori contained and given in the facts which stand recorded; they have, contained in them, the allegorical import which is only exhibited by the explanation. If . were to be taken, not in the sense of being expressed , but in that of being conceived as such, which is certainly found in Plutarch, Synesius, and elsewhere, Paul must have written , or the verbal adjective . Moreover, is related to as species to genus; but Hofmann arbitrarily asserts that the latter requires for its interpretation wit , the former understanding . includes every obscure or veiled discourse (Herod. v. 56; Plat. Rep . p. 332 B, and frequently; Soph. Aj . 1137; Eur. Ion . 430; Lucian, V. H . i. 2), whether it be in an allegorical form or not, and whether it require wit or not.
[212] In the older Greek, allegory was termed (see Plut. de aud. poet . p. 19 E), Plato, de Rep . p. 378 D; Xen. Symp . 3. 6; Ruhnk. ad Tim . p. 200 f.).
[213] We must be on our guard against confounding the idea of the allegory with that of the type ( 1Co 10:6 ; 1Co 10:11 ; Rom 5:14 ; comp. Heb 9:24 ; 1Pe 3:21 ), as Calvin and many others have done: “a familia Abrahae similitudo ducitur ad ecclesiam; quemadmodum enim Abrahae domus tunc fuit vera ecclesia, ita minime dubium est, quin praecipui et prae aliis memorabiles eventus, qui in ea nobis contigerunt, nobis totidem sint typi .” Also Tholuck ( d. A. T. im N. T . p. 39, Exo 6 ) and Wieseler understand as equivalent to . But even Philo, de opif. m . I. p. 38. 10, puts the type not as equivalent, but only as similar to the allegory; and Josephus, Antt. prooem 4, speaks of Moses as speaking in a partly allegorical sense, without intimating that he intended historical types . The allegory and the type are contrasted on the one hand with that which is only , and on the other hand with that which is said (directly, expressly). But neither does a type necessarily rest on allegorical interpretation, nor does the allegory necessarily presuppose that what is so interpreted is a type; the two may be independent one of the other. Thus, e.g ., the allegory of the name of Hagar, in Philo, Alleg . II. p. 135. 29, is anything but typology. See the passages themselves in Wetstein. At any rate, the allegory has a much freer scope, and may be handled very differently by different people; “potest alius aliud et argutius fingere et veri cum similitudine suspicari; potest aliud tertius, potest aliud quartus, atque ut se tulerint ingeniorum opinantium qualitates, ita singulae res possunt infinitis interpretationibus explicari.” Arnobius. The type is a real divine preformation of a N.T. fact in the O. T. history. Comp. on Rom 5:14 ; also Tholuck, l.c . p. 47 ff. But one fact signifies another allegorically , when the ideal character of the latter is shown as figuratively presenting itself in the former; in which case the significant fact needs not to be derived from the O. T., and the interpretations may be very various. Comp. Kleinschmidt in the Mecklenb. theol. Zeitschr . 1861, p. 859. Matthias, in the interpretation of our passage, abides by the wider idea of “ figure; ” but this does not satisfy the strict idea of the allegorical , so far as this is the expression of an inner, deeper significance , of an .
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
24 Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar.
Ver. 24. Which things are an allegory ] That is, they signify or import an allegory, ; or they, being the things that they were, represented and typed out the things that they were not. So did the brazen serpent, the deluge, the Red Sea, &c. As for those allegories of Origen, and other wanton wits, luxuriant this way, what are they else but Scripturarum spuma, as one calleth them, Scripture froth?
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
24 .] which things (on and see Ellic.’s note: here seems to enlarge the allegory beyond the mere births of the two sons to all the circumstances attending them) are allegorical : i.e. to be understood otherwise than according to their literal sense. So Suidas: , , , . : Heysch., , : and gloss. N. T., , , . The word is often used, as the thing signified by it is exemplified, by Philo. It was the practice of the Rabbinical Jews to allegorize the O. T. history. “Singula fere gesta qu narrantur, allegorice quoque et mystice interpretantur. Neque hac in parte labores ipsorum plane possumus contemnere. Nam cadem Paulus habet, qualia sunt de Adamo primo et secundo, de cibo et potu spirituali, de Hagare, etc. Sic Joannes memorat Sodomum et gyptum mysticam, plagas item gyptias per revelationem hostibus Ecclesi immittendas prdicit,” Schttgen. How various persons take this allegorical comment of the Apostle, depends very much on their views of his authority as a Scripture interpreter. To those who receive the law as a great system of prophetic figures, there can be no difficulty in believing the events by which the giving of the law was prepared to have been prophetic figures also: not losing thereby any of their historic reality, but bearing to those who were able to see it aright, this deeper meaning. And to such persons, the fact of St. Paul and other sacred writers adducing such allegorical interpretations brings no surprise and no difficulty, but only strong confirmation of their belief that there are such deeper meanings lying hid under the O. T. history. That the Rabbis and the Fathers, holding such deeper senses, should have often missed them, and allegorized fancifully and absurdly, is nothing to the purpose: it is surely most illogical to argue that because they were wrong, St. Paul cannot be right. The only thing which really does create any difficulty in my mind, is, that Commentators with spiritual discernment, and appreciation of such a man as our Apostle, should content themselves with quietly casting aside his Scripture interpretation wherever, as here, it passes their comprehension. On their own view of him, it would be at least worth while to consider whether his knowledge of his own Scriptures may not have surpassed ours. But to those who believe that he had the Spirit of God, this passage speaks very solemnly; and I quite agree with Mr. Conybeare in his note, edn. 2, vol. ii. p. 178, “The lesson to be drawn from this whole passage, as regards the Christian use of the O. T., is of an importance which can scarcely be overrated.” Of course no one, who reads, marks, learns, and inwardly digests the Scriptures, can subscribe to the shallow and indolent dictum of Macknight, ‘This is to be laid down as a fixed rule, that no ancient history is to be considered as allegorical, but that which inspired persons have interpreted allegorically : but at the same time, in allegorizing Scripture, he will take care to follow the analogy of the faith, and proceed soberly, and in dependence on that Holy Spirit, who alone can put us in possession of His own mind in His word.’ Calvin’s remarks here are good: “Quemadmodum Abrah domus tunc fuit vera Ecclesia: ita minime dubium est quin prcipui et pr aliis memorabiles eventus qui in ea contigerunt, nobis totidem sint typi. Sicut ergo in circumcisione, in sacrificiis, in toto sacerdotio levitico allegoria fuit: sicuti hodie est in nostris sacramentis, ita etiam in domo Abrah fuisse dico. Sed id non facit ut a literali sensu recedatur. Summa perinde est ac si diceret Paulus, figuram duorum testamentorum in duabus Abrah uxoribus, et duplicis populi in duobus filiis, veluti in tabula, nobis depictam.” As to the objection of Luther, repeated by De Wette, that this allegory shews misapprehension of the history ( die Allegorie von Sara und Hagar, welche zum Stich zu schwach ist, denn sie weichet ab vom historischen Verstand. Luth., cited by De W.), because Ishmael had nothing to do with the law of Moses, the misapprehension is entirely on the side of the objectors. Not the bare literal historical fact is in question here, but the inner character of God’s dealings with men, of which type, and prophecy, and the historical fact itself, are only so many exemplifications. The difference between the children of the bond and the free, of the law and the promise, has been shewn out to the world before, by, and since the covenant of the law. See an excellent note of Windischmann’s ad loc., exposing the shallow modern critical school. See also Jowett’s note, on the other side: and while reading it, and tracing the consequences which will follow from adopting his view, bear in mind that the question between him and us is not affected by any thing there said on the similarity between St. Paul and the Alexandrians as interpreters of Scripture, but remains as it was before, was the O. T. dispensation a system of typical events and ordinances, or is all such typical reference fanciful and delusive? For these (women ( ), not as Jowett, Ishmael and Isaac, which would confuse the whole: the mothers are the covenants; the sons, the children of the covenants) are (import in the allegory, see reff.) two covenants (not ‘ revelations ,’ but literally covenants between God and men): one (covenant) indeed from Mount Sina (taking its origin from, or having Mount Sina as its centre, as ) gendering (bringing forth children: De W. compares , Act 3:25 ) unto (with a view to) bondage, which one is (identical in the allegory with) Agar .
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Gal 4:24 . . No doubt is thrown on the historical truth of the patriarchal history by classing the story of Ishmael with allegories: though an additional value is thereby claimed for it as embodying spiritual truth, and typifying the permanent relation between the two seeds. . The two women are identified with the two covenants, the Sinaitic and the Christian, which they typify: and the characteristic features of the two are declared to be slavery and freedom. . This term is applied to the conception of the mother in Luk 1:13 ; Luk 1:57 also, though more often applied to the father.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
an allegory. Literally allegorized. Greek. allegereo. Only here. Compare: 1Co 10:11
these. Supply the Ellipsis by “two women are, i.e. represent. Figure of speech Metaphor, App-6. Compare Joh 6:35; Joh 10:9.
covenants. Greek. diatheke. Seo Mat 26:28.
the one = one indeed.
from. Greek. apo. App-104.
Sinai. See Exo 16:1.
gendereth = heareth children. Greek. gennao, as Gal 4:23.
to. Greek. eis, as: Gal 4:6, Gal 4:11.
bondage. Greek. douleia, App-190.
Agar = Hagar. In Arabic, Hagar (a stone) is a name for Mt. Sinai.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
24.] which things (on and see Ellic.s note: here seems to enlarge the allegory beyond the mere births of the two sons to all the circumstances attending them) are allegorical: i.e. to be understood otherwise than according to their literal sense. So Suidas: , , , . : Heysch., , : and gloss. N. T., , , . The word is often used, as the thing signified by it is exemplified, by Philo. It was the practice of the Rabbinical Jews to allegorize the O. T. history. Singula fere gesta qu narrantur, allegorice quoque et mystice interpretantur. Neque hac in parte labores ipsorum plane possumus contemnere. Nam cadem Paulus habet, qualia sunt de Adamo primo et secundo, de cibo et potu spirituali, de Hagare, etc. Sic Joannes memorat Sodomum et gyptum mysticam, plagas item gyptias per revelationem hostibus Ecclesi immittendas prdicit, Schttgen. How various persons take this allegorical comment of the Apostle, depends very much on their views of his authority as a Scripture interpreter. To those who receive the law as a great system of prophetic figures, there can be no difficulty in believing the events by which the giving of the law was prepared to have been prophetic figures also: not losing thereby any of their historic reality, but bearing to those who were able to see it aright, this deeper meaning. And to such persons, the fact of St. Paul and other sacred writers adducing such allegorical interpretations brings no surprise and no difficulty, but only strong confirmation of their belief that there are such deeper meanings lying hid under the O. T. history. That the Rabbis and the Fathers, holding such deeper senses, should have often missed them, and allegorized fancifully and absurdly, is nothing to the purpose: it is surely most illogical to argue that because they were wrong, St. Paul cannot be right. The only thing which really does create any difficulty in my mind, is, that Commentators with spiritual discernment, and appreciation of such a man as our Apostle, should content themselves with quietly casting aside his Scripture interpretation wherever, as here, it passes their comprehension. On their own view of him, it would be at least worth while to consider whether his knowledge of his own Scriptures may not have surpassed ours. But to those who believe that he had the Spirit of God, this passage speaks very solemnly; and I quite agree with Mr. Conybeare in his note, edn. 2, vol. ii. p. 178, The lesson to be drawn from this whole passage, as regards the Christian use of the O. T., is of an importance which can scarcely be overrated. Of course no one, who reads, marks, learns, and inwardly digests the Scriptures, can subscribe to the shallow and indolent dictum of Macknight, This is to be laid down as a fixed rule, that no ancient history is to be considered as allegorical, but that which inspired persons have interpreted allegorically: but at the same time, in allegorizing Scripture, he will take care to follow the analogy of the faith, and proceed soberly, and in dependence on that Holy Spirit, who alone can put us in possession of His own mind in His word. Calvins remarks here are good: Quemadmodum Abrah domus tunc fuit vera Ecclesia: ita minime dubium est quin prcipui et pr aliis memorabiles eventus qui in ea contigerunt, nobis totidem sint typi. Sicut ergo in circumcisione, in sacrificiis, in toto sacerdotio levitico allegoria fuit: sicuti hodie est in nostris sacramentis, ita etiam in domo Abrah fuisse dico. Sed id non facit ut a literali sensu recedatur. Summa perinde est ac si diceret Paulus, figuram duorum testamentorum in duabus Abrah uxoribus, et duplicis populi in duobus filiis, veluti in tabula, nobis depictam. As to the objection of Luther, repeated by De Wette, that this allegory shews misapprehension of the history (die Allegorie von Sara und Hagar, welche zum Stich zu schwach ist, denn sie weichet ab vom historischen Verstand. Luth., cited by De W.), because Ishmael had nothing to do with the law of Moses, the misapprehension is entirely on the side of the objectors. Not the bare literal historical fact is in question here, but the inner character of Gods dealings with men, of which type, and prophecy, and the historical fact itself, are only so many exemplifications. The difference between the children of the bond and the free, of the law and the promise, has been shewn out to the world before, by, and since the covenant of the law. See an excellent note of Windischmanns ad loc., exposing the shallow modern critical school. See also Jowetts note, on the other side: and while reading it, and tracing the consequences which will follow from adopting his view, bear in mind that the question between him and us is not affected by any thing there said on the similarity between St. Paul and the Alexandrians as interpreters of Scripture,-but remains as it was before,-was the O. T. dispensation a system of typical events and ordinances, or is all such typical reference fanciful and delusive? For these (women (), not as Jowett, Ishmael and Isaac, which would confuse the whole: the mothers are the covenants;-the sons, the children of the covenants) are (import in the allegory, see reff.) two covenants (not revelations, but literally covenants between God and men): one (covenant) indeed from Mount Sina (taking its origin from,-or having Mount Sina as its centre, as ) gendering (bringing forth children: De W. compares , Act 3:25) unto (with a view to) bondage, which one is (identical in the allegory with) Agar.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Gal 4:24. ) is compounded of and , to say; so that an allegory is, when one thing is said, another more excellent is signified, for example, in mythology; see Eustathius, or at least the index to his work. This scheme will assist the comparison:-
SUBJECTS.
HISTORICALLY, THE TWO SONS OF ABRAHAM.
Hagar, the Bond-maid:
The Son of the Bond-maid: Isaac, the son of the Free Woman.
allegorically, the two covenants.
She who has a husband:
Those who are from Mount Sinai: Those who are of the promise.
The Mountain (that is now): She who is upwards (that shall be afterwards).
Jerusalem, which now is: Jerusalem, which is above.
The Flesh: The Spirit.
predicates.
The Mother: brings forth slaves.
The Offspring, abundant at first: more abundant afterwards.
persecutes: suffers persecution.
is cast out:rejoices in the inheritance.
But the language of Paul is of the most extensive application, so that his discourse may comprehend the doctrine both of the Law and the Gospel, and the Old and New Dispensations; and not only all these things together in the abstract, but also the people belonging to each doctrine and dispensation, as if they were two families, with their respective mothers, in the concrete. Hence that declaration, Agar is the covenant from Mount Sinai, to which we is opposed, Gal 4:28. Hence, by parity of reasoning, the quick passing from the one to the other in the allegory.- , the one indeed) But (), in Gal 4:26, corresponds to this indeed (); and there follows at Gal 4:28, express mention of the promise, as an antithesis to Sinai or the law; and the same term, promise, swallows up the expression, the other covenant, which would seem to be required in the Apodosis.-, Sinai) Therefore Paul chiefly treats of the moral law; comp. Gal 3:19; Heb 12:18, etc.- , which gendereth to bondage) For she has children, and those too at first numerous.-, which) The predicate. Hagar is the subject,[39] if the enunciation be considered within the context; on the other hand, without the context, it is the predicate, as is the case in the allegorical discourse, Mat 13:37-38.brings forth free-born children.The Desolate.The Free Woman.
[39] Beng. thus translates it, Which Hagar is, not Which is Hagar.-ED.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Gal 4:24
Gal 4:24
Which things contain an allegory:-Allegory means a description of one thing under the figure of another, so that the real or intended meaning differs from the obvious sense of the words.
for these women are two covenants;-They represent the two covenants.
one from mount Sinai, bearing children unto bondage, which is Hagar.-Hagar represents the covenant and law of mount Sinai.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Agar
Hagar.
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
an allegory: Eze 20:49, Hos 11:10, Mat 13:35, 1Co 10:11,*Gr: Heb 11:19
for: Gal 4:25, Luk 22:19, Luk 22:20, 1Co 10:4
the two: Gal 3:15-21, Heb 7:22, Heb 8:6-13, Heb 9:15-24, Heb 10:15-18, Heb 12:24, Heb 13:20
covenants: or, testament
Sinai: Gr. Sina
which: Gal 5:1, Rom 8:15
Agar: Gen 16:3, Gen 16:4, Gen 16:8, Gen 16:15, Gen 16:16, Gen 21:9-13, Gen 25:12, Hagar
Reciprocal: Exo 19:2 – camped Lev 25:1 – General Lev 27:34 – in mount Deu 9:9 – the tables Mat 26:26 – this Heb 8:9 – the covenant
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Gal 4:24. -which things, which class of things, or all those things are allegorized-quae sunt per allegoriam dicta, Vulgate. The meaning of the clause is not, which things have been allegorized already-namely, by the prophet Isaiah in the quotation made afterwards from Isa 54:1 (Brown after Vitringa, Peirce, and Macknight). For the quotation comes in as part of the illustration, not as an instance or example. A formal reference to an allegory framed by Isaiah, or to one found in his prophecies, would have necessitated a past participle; but the use of the present participle describes the allegory as at the moment under his hand. brings together not the persons simply, but in their peculiar relations; not the births merely, but their attendant circumstances. The verb – is to express another sense than the words in themselves convey. Wycliffe renders: the whiche thingis ben seide bi anothir understondinge. Suidas thus defines : , . The verb signifies either to speak in an allegory (Joseph. Ant. Introd. iv.), or to interpret an allegory. Plutarch, Op. Mor. p. 489, D, vol. iv. ed. Wittenbach; Clem. Alex. Strom. 5.11, p. 563. An allegory is not, as it has been sometimes defined, a continued metaphor; for a metaphor asserts one thing to be another, whereas an allegory only implies it. To be allegorized, then, is to be interpreted in another than the literal sense. The simple historical facts are not explained away as if they had been portions of a mere allegory, like the persons and events in Bunyan’s Pilgrim; but these facts are invested with a new meaning as portraying great spiritual truths, and such truths they were intended and moulded to symbolize. But to say that a portion of early history is allegorized is very different from affirming that it is an allegory, or without any true historical basis. Luther says that Paul was a marvellous cunning workman in the handling of allegories, and he admits that to use allegories is often a very dangerous thing,-adding: Allegories do not strongly persuade in divinity; but, like pictures, they beautify and set out the matter. . . . It is a seemly thing to add an allegory when the foundation is well laid and the matter thoroughly proved. The allegory used by the apostle here is quite distinct from the in 1Co 10:11, where certain historical events are adduced as fraught with example and warning to other men and ages which might fall into parallel temptations. Yet Chrysostom says, Contrary to usage, he calls a type an allegory; but adds correctly: ; This history not only declares what appears on the face of it, but announces somewhat further, whence it is called an allegory.
The allegory is here adduced not as a formal or a prominent proof, but as an illustrative argument in favour of what had been already proved, and one fitted to tell upon those whose modes of interpreting Scripture were in harmony with it. Ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law? Prefaced by this personal appeal, it starts up as a vindication on their own principles, the justness of which would be recognised by the apostle’s Judaistic opponents. His early rabbinical education, and some familiarity, too, with the peculiarities of the Alexandrian school of thought and theosophy, may have suggested to him this form of discussion as an argumentum ad hominem; but it would be rash to say that the apostle invented this allegory to suit his purpose. It is not as if he had said, Those things may be turned to good account in a discussion of this nature; but his inspiration being admitted, his meaning is, they were intended to convey those spiritual lessons. Such an allegorical interpretation is therefore warranted, apart from his employment of it in the present instance. It is not wholly the fruit of subjective ingenuity-ein blosses Spiel seiner Phantasie (Baur)-or an accommodation to rabbinical prepossession. The history by itself, indeed, affords no glimpse into such hidden meanings. But Abraham and his household bore a close historical and typical connection with the church of all lands and ages, and God’s dealings with them in their various relations foreshadowed His dealings with their successors, as well the children by natural descent and under bondage to the law-Hagar, Ishmael-as those after the Spirit and in the possession of spiritual freedom-believers-blessed in Abraham, along with believing Abraham, and heirs through promise. Faith and not blood is the bond of genetic union; but the natural progeny still hates and persecutes the spiritual seed, as at that time in Galatia. God repeats among the posterity what He did among their ancestors; the earlier divine procedure becomes a picture of the later, and may therefore on this true basis be allegorized. To take out the lasting lessons from the history of Abraham’s family, and the divine actings in it and toward it, is to say in the apostle’s words, which things are an allegory. The migration from Ur is somewhat similarly treated, though not in the same form, in Heb 11:14-16. If the outlines of such allegorical treatment were current in the apostle’s days,-if it was an acknowledged method of exposition,-then one may conjecture that the favourite allegory among Jewish teachers would be to picture Isaac as the Jewish church, and Ishmael as the Gentiles; but the apostle affirms the reverse, and makes Hagar’s child the Jewish representative.
Philo allegorizes those points in Abraham’s history which are selected here for the same purpose by the apostle. But a comparison will show that the process and aim of the two writers are widely different. According to various assertions met with in Philo’s Treatises, Abram is the soul in its advance toward divine knowledge; the very name, which means high father, being suggestive, for the soul reaches higher and higher, through various spheres of study, to the investigation of God Himself. Salvation implies change of abode; therefore Abraham left his native country, kindred, and father’s house,-that country being the symbol of the body, his kindred of the outward senses, and his father’s house denoting speech. A somewhat different explanation is given in his De Mut. Nom. Abram signifies high father, but Abraham elect-father of sound,-sound being equivalent to speech, father the same as mind, and elect a special quality of the wise man’s soul. Sarai, signifying my princess, stands for the virtue which rules over my soul; but she does not as yet bring forth for Abraham-divine virtue is barren to him for a time. He must first cohabit with Hagar; there must be a preparatory connection with the handmaiden; and she represents the encyclical knowledge of wisdom and logic, grammar and geography, rhetoric and astronomy, all of which are mastered by an initiatory course of mental discipline. Philo describes at length the various elements of this intermediate instruction. Hagar, in her race, name, and social position, is profoundly symbolic; for she is of Egypt, the land of science, her name means emigration, and she is slave to the princess. The same relation that a mistress has to her handmaidens, or a wife to a concubine, Sarah or wisdom has to Hagar or worldly education. Hagar at once bears a son; that son is Ishmael, who represents sophistry. Abraham then returns to Sarah, and she too at length bears a son: her son is Isaac, who typifies wisdom; and this is happiness, for the name Isaac signifies laughter. That is to say, the mind, after previous initiation and discipline, enters profitably on higher prolific study; or when Sarai, my authority, is changed into Sarah, my princess = generic and imperishable virtue, then will arise happiness or Isaac. Then, too, the rudimentary branches of instruction, which bear the name of Hagar and her sophistical child called Ishmael, will be cast out. And they shall suffer eternal exile; God Himself confirming their expulsion, when He orders the wise man to obey the word spoken by Sarah. It is good to be guided by virtue when it teaches such lessons as this.-De Cherub. p. 2, vol. ii. Op. ed. Pfeiffer. Thus Philo and Paul have in their allegory little in common, save the selection of the same historical points. In the hands of Philo the incidents become fantastic, unreal, and shadowy-fragments of a dim and blurred outline of spiritual and intellectual elevation and progress. The allegory of Clement is similar to that of Philo. Strom. p. 284, ed. Sylburg. But the apostle’s treatment, on the other hand, is distinct and historical, without any tinge of metaphysical mysticism. In a word, the difference between Paul’s allegorizing and that of Philo and of the Christian fathers, such as Clement and Origen, is greatly more than Jowett asserts it to be-is greatly more than a difference of degree. For there is on the part of the apostle a difference of style and principle in the structure of it, and there is a cautious and exceptional use of it. It never resembles the of the Jewish doctors, or the dreamy theosophy of the Cabbala. See Maimonides, Moreh Nevochim, 3.43. See Professor Lightfoot’s note.
The Old Testament has many historical facts which surely involve spiritual lessons, and pre-intimate them as distinctly, though not so uniformly, as the Aaronic ritual typifies the great facts of redemption, it being , , . The prospective connection of the old economy with the new is its great characteristic-the connection of what is outer and material with what is inner and spiritual in nature. But this connection must be of divine arrangement and forecast, otherwise it could not furnish such illustrations as are presented in this paragraph. While this is the case, every one knows that allegorization has been a prevailing vice in biblical exposition-that the discovery of occult meanings, and of typical persons and things, has done vast damage to sound commentary. There is scarcely an event, person, or act, that has not been charged with some hidden sense, often obscure and often ludicrous, the analogy being frequently so faint that one wonders how it could ever have been suggested. Amidst such confusion and absurdity which defy hermeneutical canons and apostolical example, it is surely extreme in Dean Alford to characterize as a shallow and indolent dictum, that no ancient history is to be considered allegorical but that which inspired persons have treated allegorically. We may at least be content with the unfoldings of the New Testament; and he who reads, marks, learns, and inwardly digests the Scriptures will be under little impulse to handle the word of God so fancifully as to be accused of handling it deceitfully.
The apostle now unfolds the allegory-
-for these women are two covenants. The article before the last noun is omitted on the preponderant authority of all the uncials, though it occurs in 1, but not in 3. The are the two mothers Hagar and Sarah, not Ishmael and Isaac (Jowett), nor is for (Balduin, Schmoller); and in the allegory they represent two covenants, not revelations (Usteri). The construction is as in Mat 13:39; Mat 26:26-28, 1Co 10:4, Rev 1:20.
, , -one indeed from Mount Sinai, bearing children into bondage, which, or, and this is Hagar. The local indicates place or origin-this covenant originated or took its rise from Mount Sinai. The particle , solitarium, is followed by no corresponding , as the other point of the comparison is not brought into immediate prominence, but passes away into the general statement. Winer, 63, 2. For , see Luk 1:13; Luk 1:57; Xen. De Rep. Lac. 1.3. The last words are for bondage, or into a state of bondage; the children of the bond-mother according to law inherit her condition. Hofmann connects the words from Mount Sinai closely with the participle bearing children. The pronoun , quippe quaedam, is a contextual reference. The Sinaitic covenant is thus represented by Hagar.
What the apostle says in the following verse has given rise to numerous differences of opinion, and there is also conflict about its various readings. The Received Text has-
Fuente: Commentary on the Greek Text of Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians and Phillipians
Verse 24. Allegory is another word for illustration or figure. The events concerning these two women were literal and actually happened, but. Paul is showing how the facts illustrate some other truths pertaining to God’s dispensations of religion among mankind. An illustration does not prove a point under discussion unless it has been selected by some acknowledged authority. That is what Paul has done in the present case, for he cites Isa 54:1-6, where the context plainly shows that a spiritual use is made of the experience of Sarah. And this was an appropriate authority to quote, for the Judaizers professed to have great respect for the prophets. The two covenants means the law of Moses and the Gospel. In the illustration the apostle connects Agar (Hagar) with the law of Moses. Gendereth to bondage means to bring forth children who are destined to bondage under rites and ceremonies of the law.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Gal 4:24. Which things are allegorized, allegorically expounded, have an allegorical signification. The story of Hagar and Sarah has another (namely, a figurative, typical) meaning, besides (not, instead of) the literal or historical. Paul does not deny the fact, but makes it the bearer of a general idea, which was more fully expressed in two covenants. He uses allegorical here in a sense similar to the word typical in 1Co 10:11 (Greek). See the Excursus. Allegory means a description of one thing under the figure of another, so that the real or intended meaning differs from the obvious sense of the words; the verb to allegorize (only used here in the New Testament) means, (1) to speak in an allegory or figuratively, that is so as to intend another sense than the words express; (2) to interpret as an allegory, and in the passive mood: to have an allegorical meaning. So here.
For these (two women, Hagar and Sarah) are two covenants. They are allegorically, that is, they represent or signify, two covenants. Comp. Mat 13:39; Mat 26:26-28; 1Co 10:4.
One (of them) from Mount Sinai, bringing forth (or bearing children) unto bondage; and this is Hagar. The regular antithesis would be: the other from Mount Sion (which corresponds to the upper Jerusalem), bearing children unto freedom; and this is Sarah. This is substantially expressed in Gal 4:26, but owing to the intervening explanatory parenthesis, Gal 4:25, the grammatical form melts away in the general structure. Besides the parallel is not quite complete; for Sarah was the mother not only of the true spiritual children of Abraham, but also of those carnal Jews who are no better than the children of Hagar, who strictly speaking stood outside of the Sinaitic covenant and became through her illegitimate son Ishmael the mother of a bastard Judaism (the religion of Mohammed).
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Here the apostle makes an allegorical and spiritual application of the foregoing history of Sarah and Hagar, of Isaac and Ishmael; and the mystery he tells us is this, “The two mothers, Sarah and Hagar, are types of the two covenants, the one of works, the other of grace; the two sons, Isaac and Ishmael, are a type of two sorts of men living in the church, the one proceeding from the first, the other from the second covenant; the one regenerate, the other unregenerate men. All regenerate men are under the covenant of grace, and freemen; for every man’s freedom depends upon the covenant under which he stands. Ishmael is the son of the bond-woman, and points at Jerusalem which then was, and the people of the Jews, as they then stood affected, seeking justification, and expecting eternal salvation, by the works of the law; but now behold in Isaac, a son of the free-woman, an emblem of the gospel church, which dares not depend upon the righteousness of the Mediator; and this points out Jerusalem above, which is free, and the mother of us all.
Learn hence, That all unregenerate men, who continue in a state of nature, are under the first covenant, or covenant of works. Ishmael is a type of all unregenerate men. Mankind is bound to God by a double bond: First, by a bond of creation: secondly, by a bond of stipulation. The one is natural, and the other is a voluntary, obligation; by the former we are bound to God, by the latter he is bound to us. The covenant made with man in his state of innocency, was Faedus Amicitae, a covenant of friendship; the covenant made with us since the fall, is Faedus Misericordiae, a covenant of reconciliation; the former made with the first Adam, the latter with Christ the second Adam.
The first covenant was made not barely with the person, but with the nature of Adam, with the whole race of mankind; for God dealt with Adam, not as a single person, but as Caput Gentis, as the root and representative of mankind; and, consequently, this covenant was not abolished by the fall, but stands still in force; not to give life, because it is become weak through our flesh: we are become weak to that, not that weak to us; but it commands duty as it did before, namely, perfect, personal, and perpetual obedience; and, in case of failure, denounces the curse.
Lord! awaken every natural and unregenerate man, who, bearing only Adam’s image, is also under Adam’s covenant; he is a bond-man now, as was Ishmael of old, in bondage to sin, in bondage to Satan, in bondage to the law, in bondage to his own fears, in bondage to the world.
O rest not, till by grace you are delivered from this bondage, by being translated into the kingdom of God’s dear Son, and heartily submitted to the terms and conditions of the second covenant, which propoundeth repentance, and promiseth pardon and acceptance upon repentance!
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
Gal 4:24. Which things are an allegory That is, a figurative speech, wherein one thing is expressed, and another intended. Or, as Macknight explains the expression more at large: Properly, an allegory is, when persons and events, present or near at hand, with their qualities and circumstances, are considered as types or representations of persons and events more remote, to which they have a resemblance. Of this kind were the histories of some persons and events recorded in the Old Testament. For the qualities and circumstances of these persons were, it seems, so ordered by God, as to be apt representations of such future persons and events as God intended should attract the attention of mankind. This, however, is to be laid down as a fixed rule, that no ancient history is to be considered as allegorical but those which God himself, or persons inspired by him, have interpreted allegorically. Wherefore, since the apostle tells us that what Moses hath written concerning the wives of Abraham is an allegorical representation of the two covenants by which men are made the church and people of God, and that his sons, by these wives, represent the persons born under the two covenants, together with the treatment they are to receive from God, he must be believed, on account of the inspiration by which he wrote; especially as, in Gal 4:27, he hath appealed to the prophet Isaiah, as giving the same account of these matters, Isa 54:1. And seeing the prophet, as well as the apostle, (Gal 4:26,) considers Sarah as the mother of all true believers, may we not suppose she was made to conceive her son supernaturally, that she might be a type of the covenant under which believers are regenerated by the power of God; and that her son might be a type of all who by regeneration become members of the true church of God, called, (Gal 4:26,) the Jerusalem above, which is free, both from the bondage and from the curse of the law? In like manner, Abrahams son, by Hagar the bond-maid, may have been begotten by the natural strength of his parents, and born in bondage, that he might be a proper representation of such of Abrahams children as are Gods visible church merely by being his children according to the flesh; consequently a type, or allegorical representation of the Jerusalem which existed when the apostle wrote, or of the then present Jewish church, which was in bondage to the law. For these two persons Hagar and Sarah; are That is, may well be considered as representing the two covenants Or the two dispensations of the law and gospel, the tenor of which is so different: the one covenant given from mount Sinai, which beareth children to bondage That is, by this covenant the Israelites were made the visible church of God, and put in bondage to the law, and were, by its curse, excluded from the heavenly inheritance, if they had no other relation to Abraham than that of natural descent; which covenant is typified by Agar. The Jews are very properly said to have been brought forth into bondage by the covenant from Sinai, because the worship enjoined in that covenant was extremely troublesome and expensive; particularly their frequent separations on account of uncleanness, their purifications and washings, their numerous sacrifices, and especially their three annual journeys to Jerusalem; all which things were the more grievous, in that they did not obtain for them justification before God, or peace of conscience; but with whatever anxious care and trouble the Jews that were piously disposed performed these things, their sense of sin and dread of punishment remained as great as before, Heb 9:9-10; Heb 10:1-3. Besides, the covenant from Sinai rendered all that were under it slaves, by the rigour of its precepts, and the terror of its curse. But the covenant or law, which went forth from mount Zion, (Isa 2:3,) the gospel covenant, by abolishing these ineffectual rites of worship, and by erecting the Christian Church with its spiritual worship, makes all its members freemen and sons, who obey God from love, and who can address him with confidence by the endearing appellation of Father.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Which things contain an allegory: for these women are two covenants; one from mount Sinai, bearing children unto bondage, which is Hagar.
Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)
Verse 24
An allegory; that is, may be regarded as such.–These are the two covenants; may be considered as representing the two covenants.
Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament
4:24 Which things are an allegory: for {z} these are the {a} two covenants; the one from the mount {b} Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar.
(z) These represent and symbolize.
(a) They are called two covenants, one of the Old Testament, and another of the New: which were not two indeed, but in respect of the times, and the diversity of the manner of ruling.
(b) He makes mention of Sinai, because that covenant was made in that mountain, of which mountain Hagar was a symbol.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
The allegorical interpretation 4:24-27
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Paul then interpreted these events figuratively. Note that he said the story "contained" an allegory, not "was" an allegory (lit. "which things are allegorized"). [Note: See Robertson, 4:306-7.] He acknowledged the historicity of the events. Paul saw in this story an illustration of the conflict between Judaism and Christianity, nomism and spirituality. He was calling allegory what we refer to as analogy. An "allegory," as we use that term today, is a story in which the events are not historical.
"Since the kind of OT exegesis found in this passage is by no means generally characteristic of Paul, the natural inference is that there was a special reason for its use here. The reason is not far to seek: if the Judaizers in Galatia were using a similar kind of argument to persuade the Christians that sonship to Abraham entailed circumcision and observance of the law, it would be especially appropriate for Paul to turn his opponents’ own weapons against them." [Note: Fung, p. 219.]
"The gospel is the fulfillment of the promise made to Abraham that in him and his offspring all nations would be blessed (cf. Gal 3:8; Gal 3:16). The law, which was given later, was a parenthetical dispensation introduced by God for a limited purpose; its validity continued only until the promise to Abraham was fulfilled in Christ, and even while it was valid it did not modify the terms of the promise (cf. Gal 3:17-25)." [Note: Bruce, p. 219.]