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Gal_4:9. Γνόντες Θεόν ] After ye have known God through the preaching of the gospel. Olshausen’s opinion, that εἰδότες denotes more the merely external knowledge that God is, while γνόντες signifies the inward essential cognition, is shown to be an arbitrary fancy by passages such as Joh_7:37; Joh_8:55; 2Co_5:16.
μᾶλλον δέ ] imo vero, a corrective climax (Rom_8:34; Eph_5:11; Jacobs, ad Ach. Tat. II. p. 955; Kühner, ad Xen. Mem. iii. 13. 6; Grimm, on Wis_8:19), in order to give more startling prominence to the following πῶς ἐπιστρέφετε κ . τ . λ ., as indicating not a mere falling away from the knowledge of God, but rather a guilty opposition to Him.
γνωσθέντες ὑπὸ Θεοῦ ] after ye have been known by God. This is the saving knowledge, of which on God’s part men become the objects, when He interests Himself on their behalf to deliver them. Into the experience of having been thus graciously known by God the Galatians were brought by means of the divine work which had taken place in them, anticipating their own volition and endeavour—the work of their calling, enlightenment, and conversion;[188] so that they therefore, when they knew God, became in that very knowledge aware of their being known by God,—the one being implied in the other—through their divinely bestowed admission into the fellowship of Christ.[189] See on 1Co_8:3; 1Co_13:12; also Mat_7:23. Hofmann desires the condition of the acceptance of grace to be mentally supplied; but this is arbitrary in itself, and is also incorrect, because those, who are the objects of God’s gracious knowledge, are already known to Him by means of His πρόγνωσις as the credituri and are ordained by Him to salvation (see on Rom_8:29 f.). But the literal sense cognoscere is not to be altered either into approbare, amare (Grotius and others), or into agnoscere suos (Wetstein, Vater, Winer, Rückert, Usteri, Schott, Baumgarten-Crusius, and others); nor is it to be understood in the sense of Hophal: brought to the knowledge (Beza, Er. Schmidt, Cornelius a Lapide, Wolf, Nösselt, Koppe, Flatt, and others); nor can we, with Olshausen, turn it into the being penetrated with the love wrought by God, which only follows upon the being known by God, 1Co_8:3. Lastly, there has been introduced, in a way entirely un-Pauline, the idea of the self-recognition of the Divine Spirit in us (Matthies), or of the consciousness of the identity of the human and the divine knowing (Hilgenfeld). On the deliberate change from the active to the passive, γνόντες , γνωσθέντες , comp. Php_3:12. Luther, moreover, appropriately remarks, “non ideo cognoscuntur quia cognoscunt, sed contra quia cogniti sunt, ideo cognoscunt.”
πῶς ] “interrogatio admirabunda” (Bengel), as in Gal_2:12.
πάλιν ] does not mean backwards (Flatt, Hofmann), as in Homer (see Duncan, Lex. ed. Rost, p. 886; Nägelsbach z. Ilias, p. 34, ed. 3),—a rendering opposed to the usage of the N.T. generally, and here in particular to the πάλιν ἄνωθεν which follows; it means iterum, and refers to the fact that the readers had previously been already in bondage to the στοιχεῖα , namely, most of them as heathen. Now they turn indeed ( ἐπιστρέφετε , present tense, as in i. 6) to the Jewish ordinances; but the heathen and Jewish elements (on the latter, see Heb_7:18 f.) are both included in the category of the στοιχεῖα τοῦ κόσμου (see on Gal_4:3), so that Paul is logically correct in using the πάλιν ; and the hypothesis of Nösselt (Opusc. I. p. 293 ff.; comp. Mynster in his kl. theol. Schr. p. 76; Credner, Einl., and Olshausen), that the greater part of the readers had been previously proselytes of the gate, is entirely superfluous, and indeed at variance with the description of the pre-Christian condition of the Galatians given in Gal_4:8; for according to Gal_4:8, the great mass of them must have been purely heathen before their conversion, because there is no mention of any intermediate condition between τότε and νῦν . According to Wieseler (comp. also Reithmayr), πάλιν is intended to point back to their conversion to Christ, so that the turning to the στοιχεῖα is designated as a second renewed conversion ( ἐπιστρέφετε ), namely, in pejus. This would yield an ironical contrast, but is rendered impossible by the words οἷς πάλιν ἄνωθεν δουλ . θέλετε . Wieseler is driven to adopt so artificial an explanation, because he understands the στοιχεῖα as referring to the law only; and this compels him afterwards to give an incorrect explanation of οἷς .
ἀσθενῆ κ . πτωχά ] because they cannot effect and bestow, what God by the sending of His Son has effected and bestowed (Gal_4:5). Comp. Rom_8:3; Rom_10:12; Heb_7:18.
πάλιν ἄνωθεν ] for those reverting to Judaism desired to begin again from the commencement the slave-service of the στοιχεῖα , which they had abandoned; ἀρχαῖς προτέραις ἑπόμενοι , Pind. Ol. x. 94. Comp. Wis_19:6. Not a pleonasm, as πάλιν ἐκ δευτέρου (Mat_26:42), πάλιν αὖτις (Hom. Il. i. 59), or δεύτερον αὖθις (Hom. Il. i. 513); but the repetition is represented as a new commencement of the matter, as ἐκ νέας αὖθις ἀρχῆς (Plut. solert. anim. p. 959), and πάλιν ἐξ ἀρχῆς (Barnab. Ep. 16). It is just the same in the instances in Wetstein. The οἷς is, however, the simple dative as in Gal_4:8 and usually with δουλεύειν ; it is not equivalent to ἐν οἷς (Wieseler), with δουλ . used absolutely.
θέλετε ] ye desire, ye have the wish and the longing for, this servitude! Comp. Gal_4:21.
[188] Hence in point of fact Theophylact (following Chrysostom) rightly explains: προσληφθέντες ὑπὸ Θεοῦ . Because of God’s knowing them they have known God; consequently not, “proprio Marte vel acumine sui ingenii vel industria, sed quia Deus misericordia sua eos praevenerit, quum nihil minus quam de ipso cogitarent,” Calvin.
[189] Comp. Ignat. ad Magnes. Interpol. Galatians 1 : διʼ οὗ (through Christ) ἔγνωτε Θεὸν , μᾶλλον δὲ ὑπʼ αὐτοῦ ἐγνώσθητε . Similarly, in an opposite sense, ad Smyrn. Galatians 5 : ὅν τινες ἁγνοοῦντες ἀρνοῦνται (abnegant), μᾶλλον δὲ ἠρνήθησαν (abnegati sunt) ὑπʼ αὐτοῦ (by Christ).