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Gal_4:10. Facts which vouch the ἐπιστρέφετε πάλιν κ . τ . λ . just expressed.
The interrogative view, which Griesbach, Koppe, Lachmann, Tischendorf, Hilgenfeld, following Battier (Bibl. Brem. VI. p. 104), take, has been again abandoned by Usteri, Schott, and Wieseler; and Hofmann prefers the sense of sorrowful exclamation. But the continuance of the reproachful interrogative form (Gal_4:9) corresponds better to the increasing pitch of surprise and amazement, and makes Gal_4:11 come in with greater weight.
παρατηρεῖσθε ] Do ye already so far realize your θέλετε ? Ye take care, sedulo vobis observatis, namely, to neglect nothing which is prescribed in the law for certain days and seasons. Comp. Joseph. Antt. iii. 5. Galatians 5 : παρατηρεῖν τὰς ἑβδομάδας ; also Dio Cass. liii. 10 (of the observance of a law). The idea superstitiose (Winer, Bretschneider, Olshausen, and others) is not implied in παρα , nor the praeter fidem which Bengel finds in it.
ἡμέρας ] Sabbaths, fast and feast days. Comp. Rom_14:5-6
μῆνας ] is usually referred to the new moons. But these, the feast-days at the beginning of each month, come under the previous category of ἡμέρας . In keeping with the other points, παρατηρεῖσθαι μῆνας must be the observance of certain months as pre-eminently sacred months. Thus the seventh month (Tisri), as the proper sabbatical month, was specially sacred (see Ewald, Alterth. p. 469 f.; Keil, Archäol. I. p. 368 ff.); and the fourth, fifth, seventh, and tenth months were distinguished by special fasts.
καιρούς ] îåÉòÂãÄéí , Lev_23:4. The holy festal seasons, such as those of the Passover, Pentecost, and the Feast of Tabernacles, are meant; “quibus hoc aut illud fas erat aut nefas,” Erasmus.
ἐνιαυτούς ] applies to the sabbatical years (see, as to these, Ewald, p. 488 ff.; Keil, p. 371 ff.), which occurred every seventh year, but not to the jubilee years, which had, at least after the time of Solomon, fallen into abeyance (Ewald, p. 501). But that the Galatians were at that time in some way actually celebrating a sabbatical year (Wieseler), cannot be certainly inferred from ἐνιαυτ ., which has in reality its due warrant as belonging to the consistency and completeness of the theory. On the whole passage, comp. Col_2:16, and Philo, de septenar. p. 286.
From our passage, moreover, we see how far, and within what limits, the Galatians had already been led astray.[190] They had not yet adopted circumcision, but were only in danger of being brought to it (Gal_5:2-3; Gal_5:12, Gal_6:12-13). Nothing at all is said in the epistle as to any distinction of meats (comp. Col. l.c), except so far as it was implied in the observance of days, etc. Usteri (comp. Rückert) is of opinion that Paul did not mention circumcision and the distinction of meats, because he desired to represent the present religious attitude of his readers as analogous to their heathen condition. But, according to the comprehensive idea of the στοιχεῖα τοῦ κόσμου , even the mention of circumcision and the distinctions of meats would have been in no way inappropriate to the πάλιν ἄνωθεν . Olshausen quite arbitrarily asserts that the usages mentioned stand by synecdoche for all.
[190] De Wette very arbitrarily considers that the present tense denotes, not the reality then present, but only the necessary consequence of the ἐπιετρ . and δουλ . θέλετε , conceived as being already present.