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Gal_4:1. λέγω δέ ] Comp. Gal_3:17, Gal_5:16; Rom_15:8; 1Co_1:12 : now I mean, in reference to this κληρονομία brought in through Christ, the idea of which I have now more exactly to illustrate to you as for the first time realized in Christ. This illustration is derived by Paul from a comparison of the pre-Christian period to the period of the non-free, slave-like childhood of the heir-apparent.
ἐφʼ ὅσον χρόνον ] As in Rom_7:1; 1Co_7:39.
ὁ κληρονόμος ] The article as in ὁ μεσίτης , Gal_3:20 : the heir in any given case. Κληρ . is, however, to be conceived here, as in Mat_21:38, as the heir of the father’s goods, who is so not yet in actual personal possession, but de jure—the heir apparent, whose father is still alive. So Cameron, Neubour (Bibl. Brem. v. p. 40), Wolf, Baumgarten, Semler, Michaelis, and many others, including Winer, Schott, Wieseler, Reithmayr. But Rückert, Studer (in Usteri), Olshausen (undecided), Baumgarten-Crusius, de Wette, Hilgenfeld, Hofmann, following Chrysostom, Theodoret, and most of the older expositors, conceive the heir as one whose father is dead. Incorrectly, on account of Gal_4:2; for the duration of the guardianship (in which sense ὑπὸ ἐπιτρόπους , Gal_4:2, must then be understood) could not have been determined by the will of the father,[173] but would have depended on the law (Hermann, Staatsalterth. § 121). Hofmann thinks, indeed, that the point whether the father was bound by a law of majority is not taken into account, but only the fact, that it is the father himself who has made arrangements respecting his heir. But in this view the προθεσμία , as prescribed by the father, would be entirely illusory; the notice would be absurd, because the προθεσμία would be not τοῦ πατρός , but τοῦ νόμου .
νήπιος ] still in boyhood. Comp. 1Co_13:11. “Imberbis juvenis tandem custode remoto gaudet equis,” etc., Virg. Aen. ix. 649. Quite in opposition to the context, Chrysostom and Oecumenius refer it to mental immaturity (Rom_2:20; Hom. Il. v. 406, xvi. 46, et al.).
οὐδὲν διαφέρει δούλου ] because he is not sui juris. Comp. Liban. in Chiis, p. 11 D, in Wetstein.
κύριος πάντων ὤν ] although he is lord of all, namely de jure, in eventum, as the heir-apparent of all the father’s goods. Consequently neither this nor the preceding point is inconsistent with the hypothesis that the father is still alive (as Hofmann and others have objected). Comp. Luk_16:31.
The κληρονόμος νήπιος represents, not the people of Israel (Wieseler); but, according to the connection with Gal_3:29 (comp. Gal_4:3), the Christians as a body, regarded in their earlier pre-Christian condition. In this condition, whether Jewish or Gentile, they were the heir-apparent, according to the idea of the divine predestination (Rom_8:28 ff.; Eph_1:11; Joh_11:52), in virtue of which they were ordained to be the Israel of God (Gal_6:16), the true σπέρμα of Abraham.
[173] Baumgarten-Crusius, indeed, appeals to the proof adduced by Göttling (Gesch. d. Röm. Staatsverf. pp. 109, 517), that Gaius, I. 55. 65, 189, comp. Caes. Bell. Gall. vi. 19, mentions the existence of a higher grade of the patria potestas among the Galatians. But in this way it is by no means shown that the time of majority was, after the death of the father, dependent on the settlement which he had previously made.