Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comVincent Word Studies - Galatians 4:24 - 4:24
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Are an allegory (ἐστιν ἀλληγορούμενα)
N.T.o. Lit. are allegorised. From ἄλλο another, ἀγορεύειν 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 Mat 13:3. An allegory is to be distinguished from a type. An O.T. type is a real prefiguration of a N.T. fact, as the Jewish tabernacle explained in Hebrews 9, or the brazen serpent, Joh 3:14. Comp. Rom 5:14; 1Co 10:6, 1Co 10:11. An allegory exhibits figuratively the ideal character of a fact. The type allows no latitude of interpretation. The allegory lends itself to various interpretations. This passage bears traces of Paul's rabbinical training. At the time of Christ, Scripture was overlaid with that enormous mass of rabbinic interpretation which, beginning as a supplement to the written law, at last superseded and threw it into contempt. The plainest sayings of Scripture were resolved into another sense; and it was asserted by one of the Rabbis that he that renders a verse of Scripture as it appears, says what is not true. The celebrated Akiba assumed that the Pentateuch was a continuous enigma, and that a meaning was to be found in every monosyllable, and a mystical sense in every hook and flourish of the letters. The Talmud relates how Akiba was seen by Moses in a vision, drawing from every horn of every letter whole bushels of decisions. The oral laws, subsequently reduced to writing in the Talmud, completely overshadowed and superseded the Scriptures, so that Jesus was literally justified in saying: “Thus have ye make the commandment of God of none effect through your tradition.”
Paul had been trained as a Rabbi in the school of Hillel, the founder of the rabbinical system, whose hermeneutic rules were the basis of the Talmud. As Jowett justly says: “Strange as it may at first appear that Paul's mode of interpreting the Old Testament Scriptures should not conform to our laws of logic or language, it would be far stranger if it had not conformed with the natural modes of thought and association in his own day.” His familiarity with this style of exposition gave him a real advantage in dealing with Jews.
It is a much-mooted question whether, in this passage, Paul is employing an argument or an illustration. The former would seem to be the case. On its face, it seems improbable that, as Dr. Bruce puts it: “it is poetry rather than logic, meant not so much to convince the reason as to captivate the imagination.” Comp. the argument in Gal 3:16, and see note. It appears plain that Paul believed that his interpretation actually lay hidden in the O.T. narrative, and that he adduced it as having argumentative force. Whether he regarded the correspondence as designed to extend to all the details of his exposition may be questioned; but he appears to have discerned in the O.T. narrative a genuine type, which he expanded into his allegory. For other illustrations of this mode of treatment, see Rom 2:24; Rom 9:33; 1Co 2:9; 1Co 9:9, 1Co 9:10; 1Co 10:1-4.
For these are
Hagar and Sarah are, allegorically. Signify. Comp. Mat 13:20, Mat 13:38; Mat 26:26, Mat 26:28; 1Co 10:4, 1Co 10:16.
The one
Covenant.
From Mount Sinai (ἀπὸ ὄρους Σινά)
The covenant emanating from Sinai: made on that mountain. The old covenant. See 2Co 3:14.
Which gendereth to bondage (εἰς δουλείαν γεννῶσα)
That is, the Sinaitic covenant places its children in a condition of bondage; note the personification and the allegorical blending of fact and figure.
Which is Hagar (ἥτις ἐστὶν Ἅραβίᾳ)
The Sinaitic covenant is that which, in Abraham's history, is Hagar: which is allegorically identified with Hagar the bondmaid.