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Gal_4:21, without any connecting link, leads most energetically ( λέγετέ μοι : “urget quasi praesens,” Bengel) at once in mediam rem. On the λέγετέ μοι , so earnestly intensifying the question, comp. Bergler, ad Aristoph. Acharn. 318.
οἱ ὑπὸ νόμον κ . τ . λ .] Ye who wish to be under the law. This refers to the Judaistically inclined readers, who, partly Gentiles and partly Jewish Christians, led astray by the false teachers (Gal_1:7), supposed that in faith they had not enough for salvation, and desired to be subject to the law (Gal_4:9), towards which they had already made a considerable beginning (Gal_4:10). Chrysostom aptly remarks: καλῶς εἶπεν · οἱ θέλοντες , οὐ γὰρ τῆς τῶν πραγμάτων ἀκολουθίας , ἀλλὰ τῆς ἐκείνων ἀκαίρου φιλονεικίας τὸ πρᾶγμα ἦν .
τὸν νόμον οὐκ ἀκούετε ;] Hear ye not the law? Is it not read in your hearing? Comp. Joh_12:34; 2Co_3:14. The public reading of the venerated divine Scriptures of the law and the prophets, after the manner of the synagogues (Rom_2:15; Act_15:21; Luk_4:16), took place in the assemblies for worship of the Christian churches both of Jewish and of Gentile origin: they contained, in fact, the revelation of God, of which Christianity is the fulfilment, and an acquaintance with them was justly considered as a source of the Christian knowledge of salvation; for its articles of faith (1Co_15:3 f.) and rules of life (Rom_13:8-10; Rom_15:4) were to be κατὰ τὰς γραφάς . Now the hearing of the law must necessarily have taught the Galatians how much they were in error. Hence this question expressive of astonishment,[210] which is all the stronger and consequently all the more appropriate, the more simply we allow ἀκούετε to retain its primary literal signification. Hence we must neither explain it (with Winer; comp. Matthies) as audisse, i. e. nosse, notum habere (see Heind. ad Plat. Gorg. p. 503 C; Ast, ad Plat. Legg. i. p. 9; Spohn, Lectt. Theocr. i. p. 25); nor, with Jerome and many others, including Morus, Koppe, Rosenmüller, Borger, Flatt, Schott, Olshausen, as to understand (comp. on 1Co_14:2), which Paul conceives as the hearing of the πνεῦμα speaking behind the γράμμα (so Holsten, z. Evang. d. Paul. u. Petr. p. 382); nor, with Erasmus, de Wette, Ewald, Wieseler, Hofmann, as ἀκούειν τινος , to give attention, that is, to bestow moral consideration (rather, to have an ear for, as 1Co_14:2; Mat_10:14; Joh_8:47).
νόμος is used here in a twofold sense (comp. Rom_3:19): it means, in the first place, the institute of the law; and secondly, the Pentateuch, according to the division of the Old Test. into Law, Prophets, and Hagiographa. See on Luk_24:44. The repetition of the word gives emphasis.
[210] Hofmann (comp. also his Schriftbew. II. 2, p. 57) deals with our passage in an unwarrantable and intolerably violent manner by writing οἳ (as relative), but makes the summons (tell me, ye who, wishing to be under the law, do not hear the law) to be only prepared for by ver. 22 ff., and that which Paul had in view in the λέγετέ μοι of ver. 21 to follow at length in ver. 30. The address runs on simply and appropriately, and affords no occasion for any such intricacy.