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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comRobertson Word Pictures - Galatians 4:3 - 4:3
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
When we were children (hote ēmen nēpioi). Before the epoch of faith came and we (Jews and Gentiles) were under the law as paedagogue, guardian, steward, to use all of Paul’s metaphors.
We were held in bondage (hēmeis ēmetha dedoulōmenoi). Periphrastic past perfect of douloō, to enslave, in a permanent state of bondage.
Under the rudiments of the world (hupo ta stoicheia tou kosmou). Stoichos is row or rank, a series. So stoicheion is any first thing in a stoichos like the letters of the alphabet, the material elements in the universe (2Pe 3:10), the heavenly bodies (some argue for that here), the rudiments of any act (Heb 5:12; Act 15:10; Gal 5:1; Gal 4:3, Gal 4:9; Col 2:8, Col 2:20). The papyri illustrate all the varieties in meaning of this word. Burton has a valuable excursus on the word in his commentary. Probably here (Lightfoot) Paul has in mind the rudimentary character of the law as it applies to both Jews and Gentiles, to all the knowledge of the world (kosmos as the orderly material universe as in Col 2:8, Col 2:20). See note on Mat 13:38; note on Act 17:24; note on 1Co 3:22. All were in the elementary stage before Christ came.