Galatians 4:24

Gal_4:24-25

Which things are an allegory: for they are the two covenants.

Which things are an allegory

I. The two women.

1. Sarah, the type of the covenant of grace, was the original wife of Abraham. This covenant is the original one.

2. Though Sarah was the elder wife, Hagar bore the first son.

3. Hagar was not intended to be a wife, and ought never to have been anything but a handmaid to Sarah. The law was meant to be a handmaid to grace.

4. Hagar wished to be mistress, so was driven out. The law is a good servant, but when it usurps the mastership it must be expelled.

5. Hagar never was a freewoman, Sarah never a slave. So with the law and grace.

6. Hagar was cast out as well as her son, but Sarah never was. So the law has ceased to be a covenant, and it and all who trust in it are now driven out by Christ.

II. The two sons.

1. Ishmael was the elder--so the legalist is older than the Christian.

2. Where was the difference between them?

(1) None as to ordinances; both were circumcised.

(2) Nor, probably, as to character.

(3) It was that one was of the flesh, the other of the Spirit.

III. Israels conduct to Isaac. He mocked him--so the legalist is irritated by the doctrine of free grace, and mocks at it.

IV. What became of the two sons.

1. Isaac had all the inheritance and Ishmael none. Not that he had nothing, but no spiritual inheritance. The legalist gets respect and honour, and has his reward.

2. Ishmael was sent away; Isaac was kept at home. (Spurgeon.)

The two covenants

I. The covenant of works propounds the bare justice of God without mercy; the covenant of grace reveals both the justice and the mercy of God.

II. The law requires of us perfect righteousness both for nature and action; the gospel propounds to us an imputed righteousness in the person of the Mediator.

III. The law promises life on the condition of works; the gospel, remission of sins and life everlasting on the condition of faith.

IV. The law was written on tables of stone; the gospel on the fleshy tables of the heart (Jer_31:33; 2Co_3:3).

V. The law was in nature by creation; the gospel is above nature, was revealed after the full.

VI. The law had Moses for a mediator (Deu_5:27); but Christ is the Mediator of the New Testament (Heb_8:5).

VII. The law was dedicated by the blood of beasts (Exo_24:5); the New Testament was confirmed by the blood of Christ (Heb_9:12). (W. Perkins.)

The lessons of the allegory

I. It teaches us what to expect in Gods word.

1. That Word is full of God, but--

2. It is full of man.

3. While, therefore, it is the medium of Divine thought, that thought is not expressed as by a flash of lightning, but through various minds and characters.

II. This makes our study of revelation the more difficult and responsible.

1. The wayfaring man, though a fool, shall not err in its general import; but a man will grievously err if he thinks he may read it like a fool--superficially, carelessly.

2. Each writer and book has its own peculiarities, which demand discrimination for profitable study.

III. The main principle of the bible is the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy, The Old Testament must be studied in the light of the New.

1. In its predictions of Christ.

2. In its analogies of spiritual life. (Dean Vaughan.)

The interpretation of the Old Testament

I. In the interpretation of Scripture our first duty is to hold fast the literal historical sense. Christianity is distinguished from other religions by the fact that it rests on a firm historical basis. Whatever else we are to learn from the story, we are to understand first of all that the persons really lived, the places existed, the events transpired.

II. From the intent for which Scripture was written we gather that it must contain deeper titan the merely historical lessons. It was written with reference--

1. To Christ. And hence apostles found in the Old Testament yearning and hopes and types which were fulfilled in Him.

2. To Christs people. So they found analogies of spiritual life in its historical events.

III. The general principle which should guide us in interpreting these types and analogies is their exposition in the New Testament. (Bishop Lynch-Cotton.)

The profitableness of Scripture

How fruitful are the seeming barren places of Scripture. Bad ploughmen they who make balks of such ground. Wheresoever the surface of Gods Word doth not laugh and sing with corn, then the heart thereof within is merry with wines, affording, where not plain matter, hidden mysteries. (T. Fuller.)

St. Paul allegorizing

Though the apostle does not disdain either Amoraic or Alexandrian methods of dealing with Scripture, he never falls into the follies or extravagances Of either. Treating the letter of Scripture with intense respect, he yet made the literal sense of it bend at will to the service of the spiritual consciousness. On the dead letter of Urim, which recorded the names of the lost tribes, he flashed a mystic ray, with made them gleam forth into Divine and hitherto un-dreamed-of oracles. The actual words of the sacred writers became but as the wheels and wings of the cherubim, and whithersoever the Spirit went they went. (Archdeacon Farrar)

The force of the allegory

There was a terrible severity in it meant to shock and exasperate his opponents; a withering contempt which we, with our feelings, can hardly comprehend. To make Hagar and Ishmael--the bondwoman and her slave child--a type of the Jew, and Sarah and Isaac of the Christian Gentiles, would seem to those pointed at by the parable as if a sacrilegious hand had torn down the vail of the temple, and exposed the holiest of all to the common gaze; or, rather, as if the unclean and uncircumcised had been introduced within the sacred precincts as their proper place, and the very priest of God thrust out. Consistently with this daring defiance of the national opinion, this contemptuous mocking of Jewish pretensions, put in the form of that allegorical logic in which St. Paul was so thorough a proficient, and the force of which on the Hebrew mind he knew so well,--in consistency with this, he even represents the believing Gentiles as the seed of Abraham; tells them that the blessing of Abraham comes on them; that theirs is the promise and the inheritance through faith; that circumcision is nothing, and may be worse than nothing; that the Israel of God is not now the concision, but those who walk according to the rule that neither circumcision availeth anything nor uncircumcision, but a new creature (Php_3:2-3). (T. Binney.)

Legitimate use of allegory

1. It is by no means affirmed that the history of Hagar and Sarah in Genesis had any original reference to the gospel. The account there is a plain historical narrative, not designed to have any such reference.

2. The narrative contains important principles that may be used as illustrating truth, and is so used by St. Paul. There are parallel points between the history and the truths of religion, where the one may be illustrated by the other.

3. The apostle does not use it at all in the way of argument, or as if that proved that the Galatians were not to submit to the Jewish rites and customs. It is an illustration of the comparative nature of servitude and freedom, and would therefore illustrate the difference between a servile compliance with Jewish rites and the freedom of the gospel.

4. This use of an historical fact by the apostle does not make it proper for us to turn the Old Testament into allegory, or even to make a very free use of this mode of illustrating truth. That an allegory may be used sometimes with advantage no one can doubt while the Pilgrims Progress shall exist. Nor can any one doubt that St. Paul has here derived, in this manner, an important and striking illustration of truth from the Old Testament. But no one acquainted with the history of interpretation can doubt that vast injury has been done by a fanciful mode of explaining the Old Testament, by making every fact in its history an allegory, and every pin and pillar of the tabernacle and the temple a type. Nothing is better fitted to bring the whole science of interpretation into contempt, nothing more dishonours the Bible than to make it a book of enigmas, and religion to consist in puerile conceits. The Bible is a book of sense, and all the doctrines essential to salvation are plainly revealed. (Albert Barnes, D. D.)

The children of promise

The hidden truth here spoken of--which things are an allegory--the apostle tells us, is that of the two covenants; the one from the Mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar. For this Agar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all. By the two covenants I do not think we are to understand what are generally described as the covenant of works and the covenant of grace. It would take us a long time to enter into that argument; but, in the first place, the covenant of works was certainly not made with Moses--if made at all, it was made with Adam; and, therefore, we cannot suppose that it is here referred to. There appears rather to be an allusion to the national covenant that was made with Israel, which is contrasted with the new and better covenant made with all Gods believing people. The first covenant here spoken of is one which gendereth to bondage, and if we go back to the Israelitish covenant we find it beginning with the painful rite of circumcision, and connected with a multitude, I might almost say an innumerable multitude, of sacrifices, burdensome to the mind and conscience of the people of God, and with the killing letter of the law. But the other covenant refers to the state of the gospel Church--that gospel Church state in which all believers have a part. If you look again at the context, you find that one of these children was born to the bondmaid and the other to the freewoman; and the character of the birth of these two children exactly answers to the difference which exists between Israelites according to the flesh and the spiritual Israel, who are really Gods children by promise. The child that was born to Hagar, Ishmael, was born in the common course of nature; the child that was born to Sarah, Isaac, was born by promise, and was therefore eminently distinguished from the other. In the one case, we see that the child that was born of the bondmaid was not, so to speak, a free child; and so it is with all who are born by nature; they are all naturally born under bondage to the law. But the child that was born by promise, when it was contrary to all expectation that Abraham and Sarah should have a child, was born by the direct interference of God, and became the heir of special privileges, of which Ishmael was not allowed to be a partaker. The one, therefore, may be spoken of in plain terms, as having been born--the other may be more correctly spoken of, or at least compared with those who are new born. I have, therefore, in opening up the subject further, first to draw your attention to the persons who are partakers of the promised privileges; because we read at the twenty-eighth verse--Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise. In other words, the apostle intends to teach us that what was figured under Ishmael and Isaac has a direct bearing upon ourselves. The Galatians were a Gentile Church; we then, as Gentiles, have an interest in the promise, and, like Isaac, who was the child of promise, are partakers of special blessings. It is very clear from this passage, first, that these blessings do not belong to those who are only nominally the people of God. We know that the Israelites were in a peculiar manner Gods people; but they were not, nationally, to be the inheritors of all the promised blessings which come down to us under the new covenant. Our Lord, in His parable of the husbandmen and the vineyard, illustrates this, when, after having spoken of those wicked husbandmen putting to death the son of the proprietor of the land, He draws the conclusion that the vineyard shall be taken away from them and given to others--in other words, that those who were first Gods chosen people were not to continue His chosen people for ever, in a spiritual sense, and that others were to be admitted to the privileges which they had abused. Then, if we have ascertained that the promises do not refer to those who are merely nominally belonging to God, we may say that they do belong to those who are partakers of Gods sovereign grace. They are, therefore, the persons who are brought to the Lord Jesus Christ; they are those who through faith in Christ, simply trusting to His merit, are introduced into the glorious liberty of the children of God. They are those, therefore, who not only belong to God as an outward and visible Church, but as the true invisible Church, which shall be made manifest unto all men, not in our day, but in the great day of the Lord. These, then, are the parties described. They are born not of a bondmaid, but of a freewoman; or, as we read here--We, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise; and in the concluding verse--So, then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free. Now, if this be the case, the moment that we are thus under grace, and partakers of the promised blessings, we are free from ceremonial bondage; we are not looking to any mere outward act or ceremony, but we are made free by the Son of God, and those whom He makes free are free indeed. But we are not only free from the ceremonial law, but we are free from the terrorism connected with the judgment to come. We are taught, indeed, in the Epistle to the Ephesians, that we have access by one Spirit unto the Father through Jesus Christ; for He came and preached peace to us who were afar off, and to them that were nigh. See, therefore, what our privileges are if we are real believers under the new covenant; see what freedom we enjoy. But though we may all take this joyful view of a believers privileges, yet we are not to think that the believer has no crosses or trials. Let us turn again to the context, for that which happened to Ishmael and to Isaac is again an illustration of what will happen to believers when brought into contact with the world. The twenty-ninth verse says--As then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now. We are not to expect that if a man desires to walk blameless, or to carry out such an exhortation as that in the second chapter of the Epistle to the Philippians, to be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world, holding forth the Word of life--we are not to expect that he will be left alone. The very fact of his being a light in the midst of a dark world, one who desires constantly to carry out into practice the doctrines he professes to believe, will draw attention to him, be he where he may. And what will be the result? He will be exposed to those very things against which we are taught to pray in our Litany--the envy, hatred, and malice which abound in the world. You will see this happening over and over again in every-clay life; and when they cannot catch believers halting, they will try to entangle them in their talk. And why should we expect all this? Because our Lord has told us that we must expect it--that the disciple is not above his Master--and in that striking chapter, the fifteenth of St. Johns Gospel, our Lord has said, If the world hate you, ye know that it hated Me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own; but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Persecution, misrepresentation, therefore, must be expected by the Lords people. As Ishmael mocked and ridiculed Isaac, so we must expect the Ishmaelites of this day to attack and ridicule and persecute you and me, if we are really on the Lords side. Let us never, then, be surprised for a moment to find that we must experience that which the Word of God has laid down in unmistakable terms--Through much tribulation we must enter the kingdom. The Jews have always shown their hatred to the gospel. We have seen, then, who are to be partakers of the privilege; we have not blinded our eyes--I trust I have not, and you have not--to the treatment we may expect in the world; and now let us see the encouragement which is held out in this portion. We are the children of promise; we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free. The persecuted, then, shall be known, and the persecutors shall be known. There is no overlooking any one, high or low, rich or poor, in the eye of the Lord; His eye is in every place, beholding the evil and the good. My brethren, if you look at the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians, you will find the apostle saying, We ourselves glory in you in the Churches of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that ye endure: Which is a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God, that ye may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which ye also suffer: seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you; and to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels. Gods eye, therefore, is in every place. The first covenant that was looked to was a national covenant--the covenant that is now looked to is an individual covenant; it is with each one of us personally. The whole passage, therefore, upon which we have been speaking is intended to make every single soul, high or low, rich or poor, cut off all idea of salvation by works, and cultivate a hope of salvation by grace--this is the whole purport of the passage--to lead us to see our own individual interest in the covenant of grace. What a blessing it would be, brethren, if one inspired by Gods Holy Spirit could indeed make use of the language of this passage, and standing here address you and me, and say to each person in this congregation--Ye are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free! And why should it not be said of us? (H. M. Villiers, M. A.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Gal 4:24. Which things are an allegory — That is, a figurative speech, wherein one thing is expressed, and another intended. Or, as Macknight explains the expression more at large: “Properly, an allegory is, when persons and events, present or near at hand, with their qualities and circumstances, are considered as types or representations of persons and events more remote, to which they have a resemblance. Of this kind were the histories of some persons and events recorded in the Old Testament. For the qualities and circumstances of these persons were, it seems, so ordered by God, as to be apt representations of such future persons and events as God intended should attract the attention of mankind. This, however, is to be laid down as a fixed rule, that no ancient history is to be considered as allegorical but those which God himself, or persons inspired by him, have interpreted allegorically. Wherefore, since the apostle tells us that what Moses hath written concerning the wives of Abraham is an allegorical representation of the two covenants by which men are made the church and people of God, and that his sons, by these wives, represent the persons born under the two covenants, together with the treatment they are to receive from God, he must be believed, on account of the inspiration by which he wrote; especially as, in Gal 4:27, he hath appealed to the prophet Isaiah, as giving the same account of these matters, Isa 54:1. And seeing the prophet, as well as the apostle, (Gal 4:26,) considers Sarah as the mother of all true believers, may we not suppose she was made to conceive her son supernaturally, that she might be a type of the covenant under which believers are regenerated by the power of God; and that her son might be a type of all who by regeneration become members of the true church of God, called, (Gal 4:26,) the Jerusalem above, which is free, both from the bondage and from the curse of the law? In like manner, Abraham’s son, by Hagar the bond-maid, may have been begotten by the natural strength of his parents, and born in bondage, that he might be a proper representation of such of Abraham’s children as are God’s visible church merely by being his children according to the flesh; consequently a type, or allegorical representation of the Jerusalem which existed when the apostle wrote, or of the then present Jewish church, which was in bondage to the law.” For these two persons — Hagar and Sarah; are — That is, may well be considered as representing the two covenants — Or the two dispensations of the law and gospel, the tenor of which is so different: the one covenant given from mount Sinai, which beareth children to bondage — That is, by this covenant the Israelites were made the visible church of God, and put in bondage to the law, and were, by its curse, excluded from the heavenly inheritance, if they had no other relation to Abraham than that of natural descent; which covenant is typified by Agar. — “The Jews are very properly said to have been brought forth into bondage by the covenant from Sinai, because the worship enjoined in that covenant was extremely troublesome and expensive; particularly their frequent separations on account of uncleanness, their purifications and washings, their numerous sacrifices, and especially their three annual journeys to Jerusalem;” all which things were the more grievous, in that they did not obtain for them justification before God, or peace of conscience; but with whatever anxious care and trouble the Jews that were piously disposed performed these things, their sense of sin and dread of punishment remained as great as before, Heb 9:9-10; Heb 10:1-3. “Besides, the covenant from Sinai rendered all that were under it slaves, by the rigour of its precepts, and the terror of its curse. But the covenant or law, which went forth from mount Zion, (Isa 2:3,) the gospel covenant, by abolishing these ineffectual rites of worship, and by erecting the Christian Church with its spiritual worship, makes all its members freemen and sons, who obey God from love, and who can address him with confidence by the endearing appellation of Father.”

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

4:24-25 Paul connects Abraham’s human attempt to fulfill God’s promises (4:23) with the human attempt in Galatia and elsewhere to attain salvation by keeping the law. Hagar’s status as a slave-wife corresponds with Israel’s enslaved status under the law. This status contrasts with the status of those who have faith in Christ (4:26-27).

4:24 serve as an illustration (literally are being allegorized): In allegorical writing, every character and event is symbolic of a deeper meaning. Allegorical interpretations often ignore the historical meaning of the text and invent fanciful meanings. Here, by contrast, Paul understood the story correctly in its historical context and recognized the story as history. But he interpreted the characters of the historical story as symbolizing the current situation. Paul’s opponents were apparently also using allegorical methods of interpretation, so Paul refuted faulty allegory with true allegory (cp. 1 Cor 9:22). • God’s two covenants: The old covenant was formed through Moses; the new covenant came through Jesus Christ. • Hagar represents Mount Sinai: Just as Hagar was a slave-wife who represents human effort, Mount Sinai brought slavery to following the law.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Gal 4:24. Ἀλληγορούμενα) is compounded of ἄλλος and ἀγορέω, to say; so that an allegory is, when one thing is said, another more excellent is signified, for example, in mythology; see Eustathius, or at least the index to his work. This scheme will assist the comparison:—

SUBJECTS.

HISTORICALLY, THE TWO SONS OF ABRAHAM.

Hagar, the Bond-maid:

The Son of the Bond-maid:

Isaac, the son of the Free Woman.

allegorically, the two covenants.

She who has a husband:

Those who are from Mount Sinai:

Those who are of the promise.

The Mountain (that is now):

She who is upwards (that shall be afterwards).

Jerusalem, which now is:

Jerusalem, which is above.

The Flesh:

The Spirit.

predicates.

The Mother: brings forth slaves.

The Offspring, abundant at first:

more abundant afterwards.

persecutes:

suffers persecution.

is cast out:

rejoices in the inheritance.

But the language of Paul is of the most extensive application, so that his discourse may comprehend the doctrine both of the Law and the Gospel, and the Old and New Dispensations; and not only all these things together in the abstract, but also the people belonging to each doctrine and dispensation, as if they were two families, with their respective mothers, in the concrete. Hence that declaration, Agar is the covenant from Mount Sinai, to which we is opposed, Gal 4:28. Hence, by parity of reasoning, the quick passing from the one to the other in the allegory.—μία μὲν, the one indeed) But (δὲ), in Gal 4:26, corresponds to this indeed (μὲν); and there follows at Gal 4:28, express mention of the promise, as an antithesis to Sinai or the law; and the same term, promise, swallows up the expression, the other covenant, which would seem to be required in the Apodosis.—Σινᾶ, Sinai) Therefore Paul chiefly treats of the moral law; comp. Gal 3:19; Heb 12:18, etc.—εἰς δουλείαν γεννῶσα, which gendereth to bondage) For she has children, and those too at first numerous.—ἥτις, which) The predicate. Hagar is the subject,[39] if the enunciation be considered within the context; on the other hand, without the context, it is the predicate, as is the case in the allegorical discourse, Mat 13:37-38.brings forth free-born children.The Desolate.The Free Woman.

[39] Beng. thus translates it, “Which Hagar is,” not “Which is Hagar.”—ED.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Gal_4:24. Ἅτινα] quippe quae, quae quidem, taking up the recorded facts under the point of view of a special quality.

ἐστιν ἀλληγορούμενα] are of allegorical import. The word ἀλληγορεῖν, not occurring elsewhere in the N.T., means ἄλλο ἀγορεύειν, so to speak (to set forth, to relate), that another sense is expressed than the words convey; which further meaning lies concealed behind the immediate meaning of what is said. Hesychius: ἀλληγορία ἄλλο τι παρὰ τὸ ἀκουόμενον ὑποδεικνύουσα. Comp. Quinctil. viii. 6; see Plut. Mor. p. 363 D, Athen. ii. p. 69 C; Philo, de migr. Abr. p. 420 B; Joseph. Antt. prooem. 4. In the passive: to have an allegorical meaning,[211] Schol. Soph. Aj. 186; Porph. Pyth. p. 185; Philo, de Cherub. I. p. 143; and see generally, Wetstein.[212] The understanding of the O.T. history in an allegoric sense was, as is well known, extremely prevalent among the later Jews. Synops. Sohar. p. 25. Galatians 1 : Quicunque dicit narrationes legis alium non habere sensum, quam illius tantum historiae, istius crepet spiritus. See generally, Döpke, Hermeneut. I. p. 104 ff.; Gfrörer, Gesch. d. Urchristenth. I. i. p. 68 ff. But on account of the Rabbinical training in which Paul had been brought up (comp. Tholuck in the Stud. u. Krit. 1835, p. 369 ff.; Weiss, bibl. Theol. p. 295 f.), and on account of his truthful character, nothing else can be assumed than that he himself was convinced that what he related contained, in addition to its historical sense, the allegorical import set forth by him; so that he did not intend to give a mere argumentum κατʼ ἄνθρωπον, but ascribed to his allegory the cogency of objective proof. Hence he has raised it into the keystone of his whole antinomistic reasoning, and has so earnestly introduced (Gal_4:21) and carried it out, that we cannot hold (with Schott) that it was intended to be an argumentum secundarium, quod insuper accederet. But in the view of a faith not associated with Rabbinical training, the argument wholly falls to the ground as a real proof (Luther says that it is too weak to stand the test);[213] while the thing proved is none the less established independent of the allegory, and is merely illustrated by it. Nothing can be more preposterous than the endeavours of interpreters to vindicate the argument of the apostle as one objectively true. Baur, Paulus, II. p. 312, ed. 2.

αὗται] namely, Hagar and Sarah; for see afterwards ἥτις ἐστὶν Ἄγαρ. Hence not equivalent to ταῦτα, sc. τὰ ἀλληγορούμενα (Calovius and others), as is assumed, in order not to admit here an εἶναι σημαντικόν.

εἰσι] namely, allegorically, and so far = signify. Comp. Mat_13:20; Mat_13:38, et al.

δύο διαθῆκαι] two covenants, not: institutions, declarations of will (Usteri), or generally arrangements connected with the history of salvation (Hofmann), any more than in Gal_3:15. The characteristic of a covenant, that there must be two parties, existed actually in the case of the διαθῆκαι (God and the men, who were subject to the law,

God and the men, who believe in Christ). Comp. 1Co_11:25

μία μὲν ἀπὸ ὄρους Σινᾶ] One proceeding from Mount Sinai, which was instituted on Mount Sinai, and therefore issues from it. Instead of ἀπό, the mere genitive might have been used (Bernhardy, p. 223), but the former is more definite and descriptive. The μέν is without any corresponding δέ (Kühner, II. p. 430), for in none of the cases where δέ subsequently occurs is it correlative to this μέν. In point of fact the contrast anticipated in μία μέν certainly follows in Gal_4:26, but not in conjunction with μέν; see what is said on Gal_4:26.

εἰς δουλείαν γεννῶσα] bringing forth unto bondage, that is, placing those who belong to this covenant, by means of their so belonging, in a state of bondage, namely, through subjection to the Mosaic law. See Gal_4:1 ff. The notion of a mother has caused the retention of the figurative expression γεννῶσα.

ἥτις ἐστὶν Ἄγαρ] ἥτις, quippe quae, is neither predicate (Bengel) nor attributive definition (as that διαθήκη, which Hagar is; so Hofmann), as if it were written Ἄγαρ οὖσα; but it is the subject, just as ἅτινα and αὗται, and also ἥτις in Gal_4:26. The name, not as yet expressed, is now emphatically added. The Sinaitic covenant is that which Hagar is in the history referred tois allegorically identical with Hagar.

[211] Not: to be the object of allegorical conception (Hofmann). The allegorical sense is à priori contained and given in the facts which stand recorded; they have, contained in them, the allegorical import which is only exhibited by the explanation. If ἐστιν ἀλληγ. were to be taken, not in the sense of being expressed, but in that of being conceived as such, which is certainly found in Plutarch, Synesius, and elsewhere, Paul must have written ἀλληγορεῖται, or the verbal adjective ἁλληγορητέος. Moreover, ἀλληγορεῖν is related to αἰνίττεσθαι as species to genus; but Hofmann arbitrarily asserts that the latter requires for its interpretation wit, the former understanding. Αἰνίττεσθαι includes every obscure or veiled discourse (Herod. v. 56; Plat. Rep. p. 332 B, and frequently; Soph. Aj. 1137; Eur. Ion. 430; Lucian, V. H. i. 2), whether it be in an allegorical form or not, and whether it require wit or not.

[212] In the older Greek, allegory was termed ὑπόνοια (see Plut. de aud. poet. p. 19 E), Plato, de Rep. p. 378 D; Xen. Symp. 3. 6; Ruhnk. ad Tim. p. 200 f.).

[213] We must be on our guard against confounding the idea of the allegory with that of the type (1Co_10:6; 1Co_10:11; Rom_5:14; comp. Heb_9:24; 1Pe_3:21), as Calvin and many others have done: a familia Abrahae similitudo ducitur ad ecclesiam; quemadmodum enim Abrahae domus tunc fuit vera ecclesia, ita minime dubium est, quin praecipui et prae aliis memorabiles eventus, qui in ea nobis contigerunt, nobis totidem sint typi. Also Tholuck (d. A. T. im N. T. p. 39, ed. 6) and Wieseler understand ἀλληγορούμενα as equivalent to τυπικῶς λεγόμενα. But even Philo, de opif. m. I. p. 38. 10, puts the type not as equivalent, but only as similar to the allegory; and Josephus, Antt. prooem 4, speaks of Moses as speaking in a partly allegorical sense, without intimating that he intended historical types. The allegory and the type are contrasted on the one hand with that which is only πλάσματα μύθων, and on the other hand with that which is said ἐξ εὐθείας (directly, expressly). But neither does a type necessarily rest on allegorical interpretation, nor does the allegory necessarily presuppose that what is so interpreted is a type; the two may be independent one of the other. Thus, e.g., the allegory of the name of Hagar, in Philo, Alleg. II. p. 135. 29, is anything but typology. See the passages themselves in Wetstein. At any rate, the allegory has a much freer scope, and may be handled very differently by different people; potest alius aliud et argutius fingere et veri cum similitudine suspicari; potest aliud tertius, potest aliud quartus, atque ut se tulerint ingeniorum opinantium qualitates, ita singulae res possunt infinitis interpretationibus explicari. Arnobius. The type is a real divine preformation of a N.T. fact in the O. T. history. Comp. on Rom_5:14; also Tholuck, l.c. p. 47 ff. But one fact signifies another allegorically, when the ideal character of the latter is shown as figuratively presenting itself in the former; in which case the significant fact needs not to be derived from the O. T., and the interpretations may be very various. Comp. Kleinschmidt in the Mecklenb. theol. Zeitschr. 1861, p. 859. Matthias, in the interpretation of our passage, abides by the wider idea of figure; but this does not satisfy the strict idea of the allegorical, so far as this is the expression of an inner, deeper significance,of an ἑτέρως νοούμενον.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Gal 4:24 . ἅτινά ἐστιν ἀλληγορούμενα . No doubt is thrown on the historical truth of the patriarchal history by classing the story of Ishmael with allegories: though an additional value is thereby claimed for it as embodying spiritual truth, and typifying the permanent relation between the two seeds. αὗται γάρ εἰσιν . The two women are identified with the two covenants, the Sinaitic and the Christian, which they typify: and the characteristic features of the two are declared to be slavery and freedom. γεννῶσα . This term is applied to the conception of the mother in Luk 1:13 ; Luk 1:57 also, though more often applied to the father.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

They are called two covenants, one of the old Testament, and another of the New: which were not two indeed, but in respect of the times, and the diversity of the government.

These do represent and shadow forth.

He maketh mention of Sinai, because that covenant was made in that mountain, of which mountain Hagar was a shadow.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

are an allegory--rather, "are allegorical," that is, have another besides the literal meaning.

these are the two covenants--"these [women] are (that is, mean; omit 'the' with all the oldest manuscripts) two covenants." As among the Jews the bondage of the mother determined that of the child, the children of the free covenant of promise, answering to Sarah, are free; the children of the legal covenant of bondage are not so.

one from--that is, taking his origin from Mount Sinai. Hence, it appears, he is treating of the moral law (Gal 3:19) chiefly (Heb 12:18). Paul was familiar with the district of Sinai in Arabia (Gal 1:17), having gone thither after his conversion. At the gloomy scene of the giving of the Law, he learned to appreciate, by contrast, the grace of the Gospel, and so to cast off all his past legal dependencies.

which gendereth--that is, bringing forth children unto bondage. Compare the phrase (Act 3:25), "children of the covenant which God made . . . saying unto Abraham."

Agar--that is, Hagar.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 24. Which things are an allegory] They are to be understood spiritually; more being intended in the account than meets the eye.

Allegory, from αλλος, another, and αγορεω, or αγοπευω, to speak, signifies a thing that is a representative of another, where the literal sense is the representative of a spiritual meaning; or, as the glossary expresses it, ἑτερως κατα μεταφρασιν νοουμενα, και ου κατα την αναγνωσιν· "where the thing is to be understood differently in the interpretation than it appears in the reading."

Allegories are frequent in all countries, and are used by all writers. In the life of Homer, the author, speaking of the marriage of Jupiter and Juno, related by that poet, says: δοκει ταυτα αλληγορεισθαι, ὁτι Ἡρα μεν νοειται ὁ αηρ-Ζευς δε, ὁ αιθηρ· "It appears that these things are to be understood allegorically; for Juno means the air, Jupiter the aether." Plutarch, in his treatise De Iside et Osir., says: ὡσπερ Ἑλληνες Κρονον αλληγορουσι τον χρονον· "As the Greeks allegorize Cronos (Saturn) into Chronos (Time.)" It is well known how fond the Jews were of allegorizing. Every thing in the law was with them an allegory. Their Talmud is full of these; and one of their most sober and best educated writers, Philo, abounds with them. Speaking (De Migrat. Abrah., page 420) of the five daughters of Zelophehad, he says: ἁς αλληγορουντες αισθησεις ειναι φαμεν· "which, allegorizing, we assert to be the five senses!"

It is very likely, therefore, that the allegory produced here, St. Paul had borrowed from the Jewish writings; and he brings it in to convict the Judaizing Galatians on their own principles; and neither he nor we have any thing farther to do with this allegory than as it applies to the subject for which it is quoted; nor does it give any license to those men of vain and superficial minds who endeavour to find out allegories in every portion of the sacred writings, and, by what they term spiritualizing, which is more properly carnalizing, have brought the testimonies of God into disgrace. May the spirit of silence be poured out upon all such corrupters of the word of God!

For these are the two covenants] These signify two different systems of religion; the one by Moses, the other by the Messiah.

The one from the Mount Sinai] On which the law was published; which was typified by Hagar, Abraham's bond maid.

Which gendereth to bondage] For as the bond maid or slave could only gender-bring forth her children, in a state of slavery, and subject also to become slaves, so all that are born and live under those Mosaic institutions are born and live in a state of bondage-a bondage to various rites and ceremonies; under the obligation to keep the whole law, yet, from its severity and their frailness, obliged to live in the habitual breach of it, and in consequence exposed to the curse which it pronounces.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

24. These are the two covenants. I have thought it better to adopt this translation, in order not to lose sight of the beauty of the comparison; for Paul compares the two διαθὢκαι, to two mothers, and to employ testamentum, (a testament,) which is a neuter noun, for denoting a mother, would be harsh. The word pactio (a covenant) appears to be, on that account, more appropriate; and indeed the desire of obtaining perspicuity, as well as elegance, has led me to make this choice.

The comparison is now formally introduced. As in the house of Abraham there were two mothers, so are there also in the Church of God. Doctrine is the mother of whom we are born, and is twofold, Legal and Evangelical. The legal mother, whom Hagar resembles, gendereth to bondage. Sarah again, represents the second, which gendereth to freedom; though Paul begins higher, and makes our first mother Sinai, and our second, Jerusalem. The two covenants, then, are the mothers, of whom children unlike one another are born; for the legal covenant makes slaves, and the evangelical covenant makes freemen.

But all this may, at first sight, appear absurd; for there are none of God’s children who are not born to freedom, and therefore the comparison does not apply. I answer, what Paul says is true in two respects; for the law formerly brought forth its disciples, (among whom were included the holy prophets, and other believers,) to slavery, though not to permanent slavery, but because God placed them for a time under the law as “a schoolmaster.” (Galatians 3:25.) Under the vail of ceremonies, and of the whole economy by which they were governed, their freedom was concealed: to the outward eye nothing but slavery appeared. “Ye have not,” says Paul to the Romans, “received the spirit of bondage again to fear.” (Romans 8:15.) Those holy fathers, though inwardly they were free in the sight of God, yet in outward appearance differed nothing from slaves, and thus resembled their mother’s condition. But the doctrine of the gospel bestows upon its children perfect freedom as soon as they are born, and brings them up in a liberal manner.

Paul does not, I acknowledge, speak of that kind of children, as the context will show. By the children of Sinai, it will afterwards be explained, are meant hypocrites, who are at length expelled from the Church of God, and deprived of the inheritance. What, then, is the gendering to bondage, which forms the subject of the present dispute? It denotes those who make a wicked abuse of the law, by finding in it nothing but what tends to slavery. Not so the pious fathers, who lived under the Old Testament; for their slavish birth by the law did not hinder them from having Jerusalem for their mother in spirit. But those who adhere to the bare law, and do not acknowledge it to be “a schoolmaster to bring them to Christ,” (Galatians 3:24,) but rather make it a hinderance to prevent their coming to him, are the Ishmaelites born to slavery.

It will again be objected, why does the apostle say that such persons are born of God’s covenant, and are considered to belong to the Church? I answer, strictly speaking, they are not God’s children, but are degenerate and spurious, and are disclaimed by God, whom they falsely call their Father. They receive this name in the Church, not because they are members of it in reality, but because for a time they presume to occupy that place, and impose on men by the disguise which they wear. The apostle here views the Church, as it appears in this world: but on this subject we shall afterwards speak.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(24) Which things are an allegory.—Literally, Which things are allegorised—i.e., spoken in double sense,—

“Where more is meant than meets the ear.”

The allegorical sense does not exclude the literal sense. but is added to it. In like manner St. Paul speaks of the events which happened to the Israelites in their wanderings in the wilderness as happening “for our ensamples,” or, more correctly, “by way of types or figures” (1Co_10:11): though elsewhere a distinction is drawn between “type” and “allegory,” the first implying that the narrative on which it is based is true, the second that it is fictitious. St. Paul does not use the word here in this strict sense. The justification for the allegorical treatment of the patriarchal history may be expressed in the words of Calvin: “As the house of Abraham was at that time the true Church, so there can be no doubt that the chief and most memorable events which happened in it are so many types for us.” At the same time, the argumentative force of the passage evidently rests upon the apostolic assertion of Christian liberty, not upon the logical cogency of the inference from the details of the type to the thing typified.

These are the two covenants.—“These,” i.e., these women, Hagar and Sarah. “Are,” in the sense of stand, for,” “typically represent,” as in the interpretation of the parable of the tares: “The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world” (Mat_13:39); or, in the words of the institution of the Lord’s Supper: “this is my body . . . this is my blood” (Mat_26:26; Mat_26:28), where the meaning is really as little doubtful as here. “The two covenants” should be simply “two covenants.” What covenants the Apostle goes on to explain. So, too, “the one” in the next clause should be rather one.

Which gendereth to bondage.—Rather, bringing forth children unto bondage—i.e., unto a state of bondage, so that from the moment they are born they are subject to bondage. The progeny of Hagar is a nation of bondsmen, like the Jews under the old covenant.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

24. which things are an allegory] Rather, ‘Now all these things may be regarded as an allegory’. The facts are historical, but they are types (1Co_10:11) calculated and intended to teach great spiritual truths, and they have their counterparts in the facts (equally historical) of the Gospel dispensation. We generally regard an allegory as a fictitious narrative. It may be so, as Bunyan’s Pilgrims’ Progress; but there is no indication in St Paul’s language that he dissented from the common belief among the Jews that the narrative in Genesis was historical[29].

[29] Dr Johnson defines an allegory as ‘a figurative discourse in which something other is intended than is contained in the words literally taken’. By the examples which he gives he seems to confound it with ‘a metaphor’.

for these are the two covenants] Rather, ‘for these (women) are two covenants (or dispensations)’.

the one from the mount Sinai] ‘one from Mount Sinai’. We should have expected, ‘and the other from Mount Sion, answering to the heavenly Jerusalem, bearing children into liberty, and this is Sara’; but the explanatory clauses which follow interrupt the construction, which is resumed in Gal_4:26, ‘but Jerusalem which is above &c.’

which gendereth to bondage] Better, bearing children into bondage.

which is Agar] ‘and this is (typified by) Hagar’.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

For this Agar is Mount Sinai in Arabia,.... The Arabic version, instead of Arabia, reads "Balca". The Syriac version makes Hagar to be a mountain, reading the words thus, "for Mount Hagar is Sinai, which is in Arabia": and some have been of opinion that Sinai was called Hagar by the Arabians. It is certain, that which may be pronounced Hagar, does signify in the Arabic language a stone or rock; and that one part of Arabia is called Arabia Petraea, from the rockiness of it; the metropolis of which was or "Agara", and the inhabitants Agarenes; and Hagar was the name of the chief city of Bahrein, a province of Arabia (r): and it may be observed, that when Hagar, with her son, was cast out, they dwelt in the wilderness of Paran, Gen 21:21 which was near to Sinai, as appears from

Num 10:12 so that it is possible that this mount might be so called from her, though there is no certainty of it; and near to it, as Grotius observes, was a town called Agra, mentioned by Pliny (s) as in Arabia. However, it is clear, that Sinai was in Arabia, out of the land of promise, where the law was given, and seems to be mentioned by the apostle with this view, that it might be observed, and teach us that the inheritance is not of the law. It is placed by Jerom (t) in the land of Midian; and it is certain it must be near it, if not in it, as is clear from Exo 3:1. And according to Philo the Jew (u), the Midianites, as formerly called, were a very populous nation of the Arabians: and Madian, or Midian, is by (w) Mahomet spoken of as in Arabia; and it may be observed, that they that are called Midianites in Gen 37:36 are said to be Ishmaelites,

Gen 39:1 the name by which the Arabians are commonly called by the Jews. The apostle therefore properly places this mountain in Arabia. But after all, by Agar, I rather think the woman is meant: and that the sense is, that this same Agar signifies Mount Sinai, or is a figure of the law given on that mount.

And answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children; that is, agrees with and resembles the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and of all the cities and towns in Judea; and she, being a bondwoman, represented that state of bondage the Jews were in, when the apostle wrote this, who were in a state of civil, moral, and legal bondage; in civil bondage to the Romans, being tributaries to the empire of Rome, and under the jurisdiction of Caesar; in moral bondage to sin, to Satan, to the world and the lusts of it, whose servants they in general were; and in legal bondage to the ceremonial law, which was a yoke of bondage: they were in bondage under the elements or institutions of it, such as circumcision, a yoke which neither they, nor their forefathers could bear, because it bound them over to keep the whole law; the observance of various days, months, times, and years, and the multitude of sacrifices they were obliged to offer, which yet could not take away sin, nor free their consciences from the load of guilt, but were as an handwriting of ordinances against them; every sacrifice they brought declaring their sin and guilt, and that they deserved to die as the creature did that was sacrificed for them; and besides, this law of commandments, in various instances, the breach of it was punishable with death, through fear of which they were all their life long subject to bondage: they were also in bondage to the moral law, which required perfect obedience of them, but gave them no strength to perform; showed them their sin and misery, but not their remedy; demanded a complete righteousness, but did not point out where it was to be had; it spoke not one word of peace and comfort, but all the reverse; it admitted of no repentance; it accused of sin, pronounced guilty on account of it, cursed, condemned, and threatened with death for it, all which kept them in continual bondage: and whereas the far greater part of that people at that time, the Jerusalem that then was, the Scribes, Pharisees, and generality of the nation, were seeking for justification by the works of the law, this added to their bondage; they obeyed it with mercenary views, and not from love but fear; and their comforts and peace rose and fell according to their obedience; and persons in such a way must needs be under a spiritual bondage.

(r) Castel. Lex. Polyglot. col. 804. (s) Nat. Hist. l. 6. c. 28. (t) De locis Hebraicis, fol. 96. H. (u) De Fortitudine, p. 741. (w) Koran, c. 7. p. 126.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

24 Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar.

Ver. 24. Which things are an allegory] That is, they signify or import an allegory, αλληγορουμενα; or they, being the things that they were, represented and typed out the things that they were not. So did the brazen serpent, the deluge, the Red Sea, &c. As for those allegories of Origen, and other wanton wits, luxuriant this way, what are they else but Scripturarum spuma, as one calleth them, Scripture froth?

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Which things - The different accounts of Ishmael and Isaac.

Are an allegory - May be regarded allegorically, or as illustrating great principles in regard to the condition of slaves and freemen; and may therefore be used to illustrate the effect of servitude to the Law of Moses compared with the freedom of the gospel. He does not mean to say that the historical record of Moses was not true, or was merely allegorical; nor does he mean to say that Moses meant this to be an allegory, or that he intended that it should be applied to the exact purpose to which Paul applied it. No such design is apparent in the narrative of Moses, and it is evident that he had no such intention. Nor can it be shown that Paul means to be understood as saying that Moses had any such design, or that his account was not a record of a plain historical fact. Paul uses it as he would any other historical fact that would illustrate the same principle, and he makes no more use of it than the Saviour did in his parables of real or fictitious narratives to illustrate an important truth, or than we always do of real history to illustrate an important principle.

The word which is used here by Paul (ἀλληγορέω allēgoreō) is derived from ἄλλος allos, another, and ἀγορεύω agoreuō, to speak, to speak openly or in public - Passow. It properly means to speak anything otherwise than it is understood (Passow); to speak allegorically; to allegorize. The word does not occur elsewhere in the New Testament, nor is it found in the Septuagint, though it occurs often in the classic writers. An allegory is a continued metaphor; see Blair’s Lectures, xv. It is a figurative sentence or discourse, in which the principal object is described by another subject resembling it in its properties and circumstances - Webster. Allegories are in words what hieroglyphics are in painting. The distinction between a parable and an allegory is said to be, that a parable is a supposed history to illustrate some important truth, as the parable of the good Samaritan, etc.; an allegory is based on real facts.

It is not probable, however, that this distinction is always carefully observed. Sometimes the allegory is based on the resemblance to some inanimate object, as in the beautiful allegory in Ps. 80. Allegories, parables, and metaphors abound in the writings of the East. Truth was more easily treasured up in this way, and could be better preserved and transmitted when it was connected with an interesting story. The lively fancy of the people of the East also led them to this mode of communicating truth; though a love for it is probably founded in human nature. The best sustained allegory of any considerable length in the world is, doubtless, Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress; and yet this is among the most popular of all books. The ancient Jews were exceedingly fond of allegories, and even turned a considerable part of the Old Testament into allegory. The ancient Greek philosophers also were fond of this mode of teaching.

Pythagoras instructed his followers in this manner, and this was common among the Greeks, and was imitated much by the early Christians - Calmet. Many of the Christian fathers, of the school of Origen, made the Old Testament almost wholly allegorical, and found mysteries in the plainest narratives. The Bible became thus with them a book of enigmas, and exegesis consisted in an ingenious and fanciful accommodation of all the narratives in the scriptures to events in subsequent times. The most fanciful, and the most ingenious man, on this principle, was the best interpreter; and as any man might attach any hidden mystery which he chose to the scriptures, they became wholly useless as an infallible guide. Better principles of interpretation now prevail; and the great truth has gone forth, never more to be recalled, that the Bible is to be interpreted on the same principle as all other books; that its language is to be investigated by the same laws as language in all other books; and that no more liberty is to be taken in allegorizing the scriptures than may be taken with Herodotus or Livy. It is lawful to use narratives of real events to illustrate important principles always. Such a use is often made of history; and such a use, I suppose, the apostle Paul makes here of an important fact in the history of the Old Testament.

For these are - These may be used to represent the two covenants. The apostle could not mean that the sons of Sarah and Hagar were literally the two covenants; for this could not be true, and the declaration would be unintelligible. In what sense could Ishmael be called a covenant? The meaning, therefore, must be, that they furnished an apt illustration or representation of the two covenants; they would show what the nature of the two covenants was. The words “are” and “is” are often used in this sense in the Bible, to denote that one thing represents another. Thus in the institution of the Lord’s supper; “Take, eat, this is my body” Mat 26:26; that is, this represents my body. The bread was not the living body that was then before them. So in Gal 4:28; “This is my blood of the new covenant;” that is, this represents my blood. The wine in the cup could not be the living blood of the Redeemer that was then flowing in his veins; see the note at that place; compare Gen 41:26.

The two covenants - Margin, “Testaments.” The word means here, covenants or compacts; see the note at 1Co 11:25. The two covenants here referred to, are the one on Mount Sinai made with the Jews, and the other that which is made with the people of God in the gospel. The one resembles the condition of bondage in which Hagar and her son were; the other the condition of freedom in which Sarah and Isaac were.

The one from the Mount Sinai - Margin, “Sina.” The Greek is “Sina,” though the word may be written either way.

Which gendereth to bondage - Which tends to produce bondage or servitude. That is, the laws are stern and severe; and the observance of them costly, and onerous like a state of bondage; see the note at Act 15:10.

Which is Agar - Which Hagar would appropriately represent. The condition of servitude produced by the Law had a strong resemblance to her condition as a slave.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Which things are an allegory: that is called an allegory, when one thing is learned out of another, or something is mystically signified and to be understood further than is expressed. The Scripture hath a peculiar kind of allegories, wherein one thing is signified by and under another thing. The thing here signifying, was Abraham’s wife and concubine, Sarah and Hagar.

For these are the two covenants; the apostle saith, these signified the two covenants, for that is the meaning of are: so as here we have one text more where the verb substantive is put for signifieth; and it will be hard to assign a reason why it should not be so interpreted in the institution of the Lord’s supper, notwithstanding the papists’ and Lutherans’ so earnest contending to the contrary. The very word is here used, διαθηκαι, that is used in the institution of the Lord’s supper. Here it is,

these are the two covenants or testaments; there, this is the new covenant. The apostle calls them two covenants, ( whereas they were but one), with reference to the time of their exhibition, and manner of their administration, in which they much differed. Nor must we understand the apostle as signifying to us by these words, that Moses wrote the history of Sarah and Hagar with such a design and intention; but only that that history is very applicable to the two covenants, and we shall find, Gal 4:27, the apostle justifying this application from the authority of the prophet Isaiah. And hereto he complied with the general sense of the Jews, who judged that there was not only a literal, but a mystical sense also, of those histories of the patriarchs.

The one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar: the one covenant was that of the law delivered from mount Sinai, this was like Hagar; for as Hagar was herself a bondwoman, and so her child did partake of the condition of the mother, and Hagar bare a bondman or servant; so the law (which he calls a covenant, because of the stipulation of obedience from the people to the will of God revealed and declared) left those that were under it in a state of bondage or servitude.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

24. Which things—Not the Greek pronoun α, which, but ατινα, which sort of things. The Old Testament histories of this kind. Christian verity underlies the whole old dispensation.

Are an allegory—A literal history with a spiritual subsense. The Greek word αλληγορουμενα, may signify either are spoken allegorically, or, are allegorized. The latter is the meaning here; implying that the literal history is by Christian truth thus spiritualized. This spiritualizing arises from the very relation of the new dispensation to the old; the latter infusing a new and grander import into the former.

These—Hagar and Sarah.

Are—That is, represent. Their position in the history assigns them that typism.

Two covenants—That of law and works, and that of gospel and faith; yet the latter really underlying the former through the whole old history. See note on Rom_9:5-13.

From the mount Sinai—For the decalogue is THE LAW; all the rest of the Old Testament, the ritual, the history, and the prophecy, being but adjuncts to give that law power and effect.

Gendereth to bondage—As Hagar bore children to bondage, so does the Sinaitic covenant produce sons under circumcisional bondage to the heavy ritual. Under this bondage the Galatians are perversely ambitious to place themselves.

Which is— Corresponds to.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Which things are an allegory (atina ejstin ajllhgoroumena); which things are written (or, expounded) with a further meaning. The relative atina, as distinguished from a, probably means "which facts, being of this description, are," etc., or, "things, which are of such a sort that they are," etc. (comp. Col_2:23 in the Greek) The apostle, perhaps, intimates that the particulars just recited by him belong to a class of objects distinguished among other objects presented to us in the Old Testament by having a further sense than the literal historical one; the literal historical sense, however, by no means being thereby superseded. Comp. poi, 1Co_10:11, "Now these things happened unto them (tu or tupikwv) as figures or, "by way of figure"." The verb ajllhgorein, is shown by lexicons, Liddell and Scott"s and others, to mean, either to speak a thing allegorically or to expound a thing as allegorical. Bishops Ellicott and Lightfoot furnish passages illustrative of both meanings, particularly of the second; and the latter adds the observation that it is possible that the apostle uses the verb here in the sense of being allegorically expounded, "referring to some recognized mode of interpretation." St. Paul did at times refer to authority extrinsical to his own (Eph_3:5; 1Co_11:16 1Co_15:11) But whichever of the two possible senses of the verb ajllhgoreisqai was the one here intended by the apostle, there is no improbability in the supposition that not now for the first time was the narrative of Hagar and Ishmael thus applied: it is quite supposable, for instance, that it had been so applied at Antioch, in the animated discussions in which Paul, Barnabas, and Silas encountered the Judaists in that Church. At all events, it is not merely supposable, but in a high degree probable, that at least some of the historical personages, institutions, and events of the Old Testament Scriptures were wont to be allegorically treated by leaders of Christian thought of the highest authority. We cannot acquiesce in the position adopted by some critics, that such allegorizing is to be relegated to the region of mere Jewish rabbinism, now to be regarded as exploded. And we need not here insist upon the consideration that a rabbinical origin would constitute no valid objection to our acceptance of such allegorizing treatment of Scripture, because that the results of rabbinical exegesis and of rabbinical investigations in theology were in many cases of the highest value a fact which those who are acquainted, for example, with Professor Reuss"s "Histoire de la Theologie Cbretienne" will not be disposed to question. For we resist the attempt to thrust us back upon the schools of the rabbins, as if it were from them only that St. Paul derived this allegorical method of Scripture exposition. Those schools may have made him acquainted with it, it is true; but altogether independently of rabbinical instruction, the leading teachers of the Church, even before Paul"s conversion, "unlearned men," idiwtai, as the rabbinists regarded them, had, as we cannot doubt, learnt thus to apply Scripture in the school of Jesus. Christ himself, not only before his passion, but also, and we may believe with greater definiteness and particularity, after his resurrection (Luk_24:27, Luk_24:45; Act_1:3) had imparted to his apostles and other disciples some expositions of historical facts of the Old Testament, which must have been of this description, and which would suggest the legitimate application of the same method in other analogous instances. And those men were not only disciples, pupils of Jesus, but were likewise especial, though not the exclusive, organs of the Holy Spirit"s teaching in the Church (Joh_16:12-15; Eph_3:5 Eph_4:11) Particular allegorical expositions, therefore, received amongst those apostles and prophets of Christ, came clothed with the highest authority, emanating as they well might have done from Christ"s own oral teaching, or from an immediate special leading of his Spirit. And, further, we feel ourselves entitled to believe that the supreme Revealer of spiritual truth to mankind might well think fit to appoint, not only words or ceremonial institutions as means of imparting religious instruction or of prophetical indication, but historical incidents as well; not merely so ordering the manner in which his inspired organs framed their narratives of certain occurrences as to make those narratives prophetical, but also in his disposal of human affairs so ordering the occurrences themselves as that they should be prophetical; furnishing (so to speak) tableaux vivants, in which the faith of his servants should read, ff not spiritual facts which were as yet future, at least spiritual facts after they had come to pass, the prophetical adumbration of which, now recognized by them, would serve to confirm their belief in them and their comprehension of them. The fact that Christ repeatedly and most pointedly referred to the strange experiences of Jonah as prophetical of his own passion and resurrection proves to a certainty that events might be predictive as well as utterances of prophets. Our Lord"s use of the story of the brazen serpent, of the gift of manna, and of the Passover (Luk_22:16) points in the same direction. We have also apostolical guidance in construing the Passover, the Exodus, the story of Melehiscdec, Abraham"s offering up of his son, the yearly Fast of the Atonement, as legitimately subject to similar treatment. Since the old economy with its histories and its ordinances originated from the same Divine Author as the new, it is no unreasonable belief that in the things of preparatory dispensations he had set foreshadowings, and in no scant number, of those great things in the spiritual economy which from "eternal ages" had been his thoughts towards us, and in which the whole progress of human history was to find its consummation. In the apostle"s discussion of his subject there are in part distinctly specified, in part merely indicated, a great variety of contrasts; these the reader will find presented by Bengel in his "Gnomon" in a tabulated form with great distinctness. For these are the two covenants; or, testaments (autai gar eijsi duo Receptus, eijsin aiJ duo diaqhkai); for these women are two covenants. The Textus Receptus has aiJ duo diaqhkai. but the article is expunged by all recent editors. What the apostle means is this: the circumstance that Abraham had two wives pointed to the fact that there were to be, not one covenant only, but two. He has previously (Gal_3:15, Gal_3:17) spoken of the promise" as a covenant; while also this term was already a familiar designation of the economy which God appointed to the natural "seed of Abraham." Compare also Jeremiah"s mention of these two covenants". (Jer_31:31) For the use of the verb are," comp. Mat_13:37-39; a Rev_1:20. A is B, and B is A, in the characteristics which they have in common. The one from the Mount Sinai (mi) men ajpo orouv Sina); one from Mount Sinai. The mia de, or, hJ deutera, which should have followed to make the sequel of the sentence conformable with its commencement, is, in form, wanting, having in the framing of the sentence got lost sight of, through the parenthesis introduced fin-mediately after this clause to illustrate its bearing; for the words hJ de anw JIerousalhm of ver. 26 only in substance furnish the apodosis to this protasis, being themselves evolved out of what immediately precedes them. The covenant which is our mother is styled, in Ver. 28,"promise." Windischmann proposes for a formally corresponding apodosis something of this sort: JH dera ajp oujranou (or, anwqen), eijv ejleuqerian gennwsa, htiv ejstirjrJa sustoicei dem h) ejleuqera ejsti metaknwn aujthv toutestin hJmwn (or, oitinev ejsmen hJmeiv).

Mount Sinai;" being promulgated from Mount Sinai, it takes its being therefrom. Which gendereth to bondage (eijv douleian gennwsa); bearing children unto bondage Those subject to a covenant are regarded as its offspring; as Act_3:3-5, "Ye are the children of the covenant," etc.: their lives are moulded by its direction; they come under the promises, or the discipline, assured by its terms; in short, they owe to it their spiritual condition. The apostle assumes it to be a manifest fact, having before repeatedly asserted it, that those under the Law are in a condition of servitude. Which is Hagar (htiv ejstin Agar); which is Hagar. The meaning of htiv here is, "which being such in character as it is, is Hagar." This covenant, with its children, being wrapped in an element of slavery, is kindred in character with Hagar and her offspring. It is objected that Ishmael was not, in fact, a slave. But as Hagar does not appear to have been a recognized concubine of Abraham, in the same way as Bilhah and Zilpah were concubines of Jacob, but still continued to be Sarah"s handmaid "thy maid,", (Gen_16:6) her child was, of course, born into the same condition. With Sarah"s consent, it is true, Abraham might, if he had thought fit, have adopted him as a child of his own; but this does not appear to have been done.

Allegorized interpretation of the facts.

"Which things are to be allegorically treated.

I THE FACTS ARE CAPABLE OF THIS TREATMENT. The apostle does not mean to signify that the facts are not historical; nor does he mean to explain them away as if they were allegory like Bunyan"s "Pilgrim"s Progress;" nor does he mean that Moses shaped his narrative in Genesis with a view to this allegorized treatment. It is more correct to say that the lives of these real personages were so shaped by Divine providence as to afford a striking illustration of other events or objects. The two covenants were prefigured in the Old Testament under the image of the two wives of Abraham and their seed respectively. There is nothing in the apostle"s usage to justify the allegorizing methods of Origen and the rabbis, which destroy the true sense of Scripture. If we admit the apostle"s inspiration, we cannot reject his allegorical interpretation of the ancient facts.

II THE CONTRAST BETWEEN THE TWO COVENANTS. "For these that is, the two women the two covenants." Hagar and Sarah represent the two covenants in three important points of contrast.

1. In the historic origination of the covenants.

(1) One dates from Mount Sinai indeed, from Mount Sinai;" "which is Hagar; for this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia." This was the covenant of Law, which finds its true representative in the religious attitude of "the Jerusalem which now is.

(2) The other dates from the promise made by God to Abraham. This was the covenant of promise, which finds its representative in "the Jerusalem which is above the ideal metropolis of Christ"s kingdom, "the heavenly Jerusalem.

2. In their religious effects.

(1) The covenant of the Law" gendereth to bondage," and answers to "the Jerusalem which is in bondage with her children." The apostle had already described this very bondage under the Law, under schoolmasters, under stewards and tutors, under "elements of the world.

(2) The covenant of promise involves freedom and corresponds to "Jerusalem which is free, the mother of us all," whether Jews or Gentiles.

Believers are therefore "to stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made his people free.

3. In their future expansion. Both Hagar and Sarah were to have large posterity, but Sarah was to have the larger family, according to Scripture prophecy itself. The original promise thee and in thy seed shall all families of the earth be blessed implied this pregnant fact. But a voice from Isaiah sets it forth in an impressive light, "Rejoice, thou barren, that bearest not," that is, Sarah, or the Abrahamic covenant; "break forth and cry, thou that travailest not: for the desolate hath many more children than she" (Hagar) "which bath the husband" (Abraham). Thus Sarah was to become "the mother of nations." Thus Abraham was to become the heir of the world, and Jews and Gentiles were to enter into his wide inheritance. Vers. 28-31. Conclusion of the whole matter. The apostle points to a further coincidence between the type and the antitype.

I MARK THE HISTORIC FACT. "He that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit." He refers to Ishmael"s mockery of Isaac. As the elder son, with the right of primogeniture, he ridiculed the feast given in honour of Isaac as the heir. The spirit of persecution was in that mockery that sprang out of jealousy and ill feeling.

II MARK ITS ALLEGORIC SIGNIFICANCE. "Even so it is now." The persecutors of Paul were Judaists "born after the flesh," for they claimed to inherit the blessings of the covenant by virtue of carnal ordinances. They were adroit in all the arts of cruel mockery. Scripture tells the vivid story of persecution directed against the Christianity of the first age by the fanaticism of the Jews. The apostle might well say in his first epistolary writing concerning the Jews, "who both killed the Lord Jesus, and the prophets, and drove out us; and please not God, and are contrary to all. (1Th_2:15)

III THE INHERITANCE AN EXCLUSIVE POSSESSION. "Nevertheless what saith the Scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son: for the son of the bondwoman shall in no wise be heir with the son of the freewoman." The apostle adopts the words of Sarah addressed to Abraham; not giving any hint of the nearness of the destruction of Jerusalem and its whole ecclesiastical polity, but emphasizing the importance of the Galatians standing clear of the doomed system. As there could be no joint heirship between Ishmael and Isaac, so there could be no fusion or amalgamation of Law and gospel. Judaism could not be combined with Christianity. It was to be utterly cast out, though it then tenaciously held its ground side by side with Christianity even within the Church of God itself.

IV INFERENCE FROM THIS WHOLE ALLEGORIC LESSON. "So then, brethren, we are not children of a bondwoman, but of the free." "We, as Isaac was, are children of promise." Let us, therefore, recognize our true position with its blessed immunities and privileges. Let us forsake the dangerous fellowship of those who are children of the bondwoman. The Galatian tendency was false and evil; for it involved their losing what they had and getting nothing better in its place. Their true attitude was that of freedom.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Which things are an allegory - An allegory is a figurative speech, wherein one thing is expressed, and another intended. For those two sons are types of the two covenants. One covenant is that given from Mount Sinai, which beareth children to bondage - That is, all who are under this, the Jewish covenant, are in bondage. Which covenant is typified by Agar.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

VERSE 24. Which things are an allegory.

Allegories are not very convincing, but like pictures they visualize a matter. If Paul had not brought in advance indisputable arguments for the righteousness of faith over against the righteousness of works this allegory would do little good. Having first fortified his case with invincible arguments, he can afford to inject this allegory to add impressiveness and beauty to his presentation.

VERSES 24, 25. For these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar. For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia.

In this allegory Abraham represents God. Abraham had two sons, born respectively of Hagar and Sarah. The two women represent the two Testaments. The Old Testament is Mount Sinai, the bondwoman, Hagar. The Arabians call Mount Sinai Agar. It may be that the similarity of these two names gave Paul his idea for this allegory. As Hagar bore Abraham a son who was not an heir but a servant, so Sinai, the Law, the allegorical Hagar, bore God a carnal and servile people of the Law without promise. The Law has a promise but it is a conditional promise, depending upon whether people fulfill the Law.

The Jews regarded the conditional promises of the Law as if they were unconditional. When the prophets foretold the destruction of Jerusalem, the Jews stoned them as blasphemers of God. They never gave it any thought that there was a condition attached to the Law which reads: "If you keep the commandments it shall be well with thee."

Martin Luther — Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (1535), English translation by Theodore Graebner (Zondervan, 1939) — public domain (U.S. copyright not renewed). Text from a community e-Sword module.

Agar

Hagar.

The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The explanation of the story:

v. 24. which things are an allegory; for these are the two covenants; the one from the Mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar.

v. 25. For this Agar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children.

v. 26. But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.

v. 27. For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not; for the desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband.

Paul here, by the inspiration of God, gives a figurative or allegorical explanation of the story of Hagar and Sarah. In addition to the historical truth of the story of Ishmael and Isaac he finds here a spiritual truth which typifies the permanent relation between those that are under the Law and those that are under the promise. For these two women, he says, are two covenants; they represent the two religions, that of the Law and that of the Gospel. This distinction holds true for all times. For although there are many races and nations in the world, they can still be divided into but two parties, namely, such as attempt to be justified before God by their own works and merits, and such as place their trust in the merits and righteousness of Jesus Christ alone. The first class is represented by the bond-woman Hagar, the covenant which originates from, that is, on, Mount Sinai, and bears children unto bondage; for every one that still hopes to earn salvation by the works of the Law is a spiritual offspring of Hagar, the slave, and is by virtue of that fact in bondage.

The apostle continues his explanation: For Mount Sinai is in Arabia, The mountain on which the Law was given is in the same country which became the home of Hagar’s descendants, those that were children of bondage. And there is a further likeness in the fact that Hagar, as a bondswoman and the mother of a race in bondage, corresponded to, was in the same category with, the city of Jerusalem as it was when Paul wrote. Jerusalem was the capital of the Jewish race, if not of the Jewish nation; there dwelt the leaders of the people that continued to teach the necessity of keeping the Law in order to obtain salvation. As Hagar was thus in the state of bondage, so Jerusalem, the Jewish race, all that believed in the way of works and merits, are in the state of slavery, of spiritual bondage, knowing nothing of the liberty of the sons of God.

What a wonderful contrast, then: But the Jerusalem which is above is free, she is our mother. The apostle here speaks of the spiritual Jerusalem, or Zion, of the Church of Jesus Christ, that is, the total number of all believers that are scattered throughout the earth, who have the same Gospel, the same faith in Christ, the same Holy Spirit, and the same Sacraments, as Luther writes. This Church is the true mother of all believers; in her they have been regenerated unto new life, by her they are daily nourished; for God has given to His Church on earth the means of grace, to be used by all believers and dispensed to them day by day. In support of this apparently daring explanation the apostle cites Isa 54:1: Rejoice, thou barren one that bearest not; break forth and shout, thou that travailest not; for far more are the children of the desolate woman than of her that has a husband. This is a prophetic promise given to the Church of the New Covenant, to be fulfilled in the time of the Messiah. The contrast brought out by the prophet is that between the church of the Law, which was fertile and had many children, that is, that had the opinion that she alone was the real bride of the Lord, that her children alone were God’s peculiar people, and the Church of the Gospel, of the evangelical promise, which, as the true bride of Christ, has brought forth a great number of descendants of every people, nation, and tongue; that is, the communion of believers and saints. It is a prophecy which will remain in power until the end of time; for so long the Gospel will be preached, by the power of which people are born in a spiritual manner.

Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Here the apostle makes an allegorical and spiritual application of the foregoing history of Sarah and Hagar, of Isaac and Ishmael; and the mystery he tells us is this, "The two mothers, Sarah and Hagar, are types of the two covenants, the one of works, the other of grace; the two sons, Isaac and Ishmael, are a type of two sorts of men living in the church, the one proceeding from the first, the other from the second covenant; the one regenerate, the other unregenerate men. All regenerate men are under the covenant of grace, and freemen; for every man’s freedom depends upon the covenant under which he stands. Ishmael is the son of the bond-woman, and points at Jerusalem which then was, and the people of the Jews, as they then stood affected, seeking justification, and expecting eternal salvation, by the works of the law; but now behold in Isaac, a son of the free-woman, an emblem of the gospel church, which dares not depend upon the righteousness of the Mediator; and this points out Jerusalem above, which is free, and the mother of us all.

Learn hence, That all unregenerate men, who continue in a state of nature, are under the first covenant, or covenant of works. Ishmael is a type of all unregenerate men. Mankind is bound to God by a double bond: First, by a bond of creation: secondly, by a bond of stipulation. The one is natural, and the other is a voluntary, obligation; by the former we are bound to God, by the latter he is bound to us. The covenant made with man in his state of innocency, was Faedus Amicitae, a covenant of friendship; the covenant made with us since the fall, is Faedus Misericordiae, a covenant of reconciliation; the former made with the first Adam, the latter with Christ the second Adam.

The first covenant was made not barely with the person, but with the nature of Adam, with the whole race of mankind; for God dealt with Adam, not as a single person, but as Caput Gentis, as the root and representative of mankind; and, consequently, this covenant was not abolished by the fall, but stands still in force; not to give life, because it is become weak through our flesh: we are become weak to that, not that weak to us; but it commands duty as it did before, namely, perfect, personal, and perpetual obedience; and, in case of failure, denounces the curse.

Lord! awaken every natural and unregenerate man, who, bearing only Adam’s image, is also under Adam’s covenant; he is a bond-man now, as was Ishmael of old, in bondage to sin, in bondage to Satan, in bondage to the law, in bondage to his own fears, in bondage to the world.

O rest not, till by grace you are delivered from this bondage, by being translated into the kingdom of God’s dear Son, and heartily submitted to the terms and conditions of the second covenant, which propoundeth repentance, and promiseth pardon and acceptance upon repentance!

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Which things contain an allegory: for these women are two covenants; one from mount Sinai, bearing children unto bondage, which is Hagar.

J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

24. Which things are an allegory. Though literally true, the facts had an allegorical interpretation. The two women and their children were types. Are two covenants. One, the bondwoman, represents the covenant given at Sinai, the covenant of bondage. The other, the freewoman, represents the covenant of Christ, the gospel.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

Connecting Statement:

Paul begins a story to illustrate a truth—that law and grace cannot exist together.

These things may be interpreted as an allegory

"This story of the two sons is like a picture of what I will tell you now"

as an allegory

An "allegory" is a story in which the people and things in it represent other things. In Paul's allegory, the two women referred to in Galatians 4:22 represent two covenants.

women represent ... she represents

"women are a picture of ... she is a picture of"

Mount Sinai

"Mount Sinai" here is a synecdoche for the law that Moses gave to the Israelites there. AT: "Mount Sinai, where Moses gave the law to Israel" (See: Synecdoche)

she gives birth to children who are slaves

Paul treats the law as if it were a person. AT: "The people under this covenant are like slaves who have to obey the law" (See: Metaphor and Personification)

she is in slavery with her children

Hagar is a slave and her children are slaves with her. AT: "Jerusalem, like Hagar, is a slave, and her children are slaves with her" (See: Metaphor)

translationWords

covenant

Sinai

Hagar

Arabia

Jerusalem

enslave

children

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

24. δύο διαθῆκαι אcABCD etc. αἱ is prefixed in Text. Rec. with א*.

24. ἅτινά, “now this class of things,” Col 2:23 note.

ἐστιν ἀλληγορούμενα[133], “are written with another meaning.” For the thought cf. 1Co 10:11. For the word compare Chrysostom οὐ τοῦτο δὲ μόνον παραδηλοῖ, ὄπερ φαίνεται, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἅλλα τινὰ ἀναγορεύει· διὸ καὶ ἀλληγορία κέκληται.

[133] Is affixed it means that all the passages are mentioned where the word occurs in the Greek Bible.

St Paul does not deny the literal truth of the narratives, but says that besides their literal meaning they have another. He probably would not have restricted himself to the existence of only one other meaning, if others could fairly be deduced from the narratives.

Philo, who himself professes to retain also the literal sense (e.g. On Abraham, cc. 15 (§ 68), 20 (§ 99), 24 (§ 119), 29 (§ 147)), is the great example preserved to us of a commentator who continually sees inner, in his case philosophical, meanings in Scripture, but the tendency is universal, and the method is in fact legitimate if the inner meanings are deduced from principles underlying the narratives. Rabbinic, as well as Philonic, expositions go far beyond these, deducing, by an exaggerated belief in the inspiration of every word and letter, meanings which the words, or even letters, may have in other contexts and combinations. In our passage St Paul chiefly deduces his meaning from principles; if he does from words it is but slightly.

Theodore, against Alexandrian allegorists, insists strongly on the primary sense of Scripture: “apostolus enim non interimit historiam, neque evolvit res dudum factas; sed sic posuit illa ut tunc fuerant facta, et historiam illorum quae fuerunt facta ad suum usus est intellectum.” So Theodoret οὐ γὰρ τὴν ἱστορίαν ἀνεῖλεν, ἀλλὰ τὰ ἐν τῇ ἱστορίᾳ προτυπωθέντα διδάσκει.

For Philo’s interpretation of the incident of Hagar see Ryle in Hastings’ Dict. Bible II. 278b; also Lightfoot, pp. 195 sqq.

αὗται γάρ εἰσιν, “These two women are” etc. But possibly αὗται = ταῦτα, attracted into the gender of διαθῆκαι, and so Win.-Schm. § 23. 5 a, comparing Mat 7:12 al.

δύο διαθῆκαι. See notes on Textual Criticism. The absence of the article in the true text emphasises the fact that the women do represent “dispositions” (testaments, see note on Gal 3:15), and indeed two. It should be noted that this is the first time in this Epistle that St Paul has called the Christian dispensation a διαθήκη (cf. 2Co 3:6; 2Co 3:14). Previously he distinguished the διαθήκη or διαθῆκαι from the ἐπαγγελία or ἐπαγγελίαι. The corrector, however, who added αἱ was accustomed to regard the two dispensations as two διαθῆκαι, gaining his knowledge in reality from this passage.

μία μὲν. The second is not expressly mentioned, but is taken up in ἡ δὲ ἄνω Ἰερονσαλὴμ, Gal 4:26. Cf. Win.-Schm. § 26. 7.

ἀπὸ ὂρους Σινά. Given forth from Mt Sinai, ἐκ (Gal 4:23) would have attributed too much originating power to the place itself. It is better to retain the comma after Σινά.

εἰς δουλείαν. He cannot say that the διαθήκη at Mt Sinai was a slave (as exactness of verbal parallelism requires), but slavery is the result of being its offspring. It is probably accidental that in the metaphor the status of the child is determined by that of the mother rather than the father. This was not the custom of either the Arabs or the Hebrews, but it was of the Greeks and Romans. The Galatians, wherever they lived, would, as a non-Semitic race, probably also have had the same custom.

γεννῶσα, “bearing children unto bondage,” R.V. Of the mother, Luk 1:13 al.

ἥτις ἐστὶν Ἅγαρ, “which is Hagar.”

(a) It is probable that in this passage ἥτις has practically lost its classical distinction from ἥ, and is merely explanatory as in Luk 2:4; Luk 8:26; Luk 9:30; Luk 12:1; Act 16:12. See Win.-Schm. § 24. 14. Moulton, Proleg., 1906, pp. 91, 92, while arguing for the existence of the distinction, is inclined to admit that it may have “worn rather thin.”

(b) The usual explanation is “inasmuch as it is Hagar.” The first covenant bears children to bondage, and therefore fairly corresponds to Hagar.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

24.] which things (on ὅς and ὅστις see Ellic.’s note: here ἅτινα seems to enlarge the allegory beyond the mere births of the two sons to all the circumstances attending them) are allegorical: i.e. to be understood otherwise than according to their literal sense. So Suidas: ἀλληγορία, ἡ μεταφορά, ἄλλο λέγον τὸ γράμμα, κ. ἄλλο τὸ νόημα: Heysch., ἀλληγορία, ἄλλο τι παρὰ τὸ ἀκουόμενον ὑποδεικνύουσα: and gloss. N. T., ἀλληγορούμενα, ἑτέρως κατὰ μετάφρασιν νοούμενα, καὶ οὐ κατὰ τὴν ἀνάγνωσιν. The word is often used, as the thing signified by it is exemplified, by Philo. It was the practice of the Rabbinical Jews to allegorize the O. T. history. “Singula fere gesta quæ narrantur, allegorice quoque et mystice interpretantur. Neque hac in parte labores ipsorum plane possumus contemnere. Nam cadem Paulus habet, qualia sunt de Adamo primo et secundo, de cibo et potu spirituali, de Hagare, etc. Sic Joannes memorat Sodomum et Ægyptum mysticam, plagas item Ægyptias per revelationem hostibus Ecclesiæ immittendas prædicit,” Schöttgen. How various persons take this allegorical comment of the Apostle, depends very much on their views of his authority as a Scripture interpreter. To those who receive the law as a great system of prophetic figures, there can be no difficulty in believing the events by which the giving of the law was prepared to have been prophetic figures also: not losing thereby any of their historic reality, but bearing to those who were able to see it aright, this deeper meaning. And to such persons, the fact of St. Paul and other sacred writers adducing such allegorical interpretations brings no surprise and no difficulty, but only strong confirmation of their belief that there are such deeper meanings lying hid under the O. T. history. That the Rabbis and the Fathers, holding such deeper senses, should have often missed them, and allegorized fancifully and absurdly, is nothing to the purpose: it is surely most illogical to argue that because they were wrong, St. Paul cannot be right. The only thing which really does create any difficulty in my mind, is, that Commentators with spiritual discernment, and appreciation of such a man as our Apostle, should content themselves with quietly casting aside his Scripture interpretation wherever, as here, it passes their comprehension. On their own view of him, it would be at least worth while to consider whether his knowledge of his own Scriptures may not have surpassed ours. But to those who believe that he had the Spirit of God, this passage speaks very solemnly; and I quite agree with Mr. Conybeare in his note, edn. 2, vol. ii. p. 178, “The lesson to be drawn from this whole passage, as regards the Christian use of the O. T., is of an importance which can scarcely be overrated.” Of course no one, who reads, marks, learns, and inwardly digests the Scriptures, can subscribe to the shallow and indolent dictum of Macknight, ‘This is to be laid down as a fixed rule, that no ancient history is to be considered as allegorical, but that which inspired persons have interpreted allegorically: but at the same time, in allegorizing Scripture, he will take care to follow the analogy of the faith, and proceed soberly, and in dependence on that Holy Spirit, who alone can put us in possession of His own mind in His word.’ Calvin’s remarks here are good: “Quemadmodum Abrahæ domus tunc fuit vera Ecclesia: ita minime dubium est quin præcipui et præ aliis memorabiles eventus qui in ea contigerunt, nobis totidem sint typi. Sicut ergo in circumcisione, in sacrificiis, in toto sacerdotio levitico allegoria fuit: sicuti hodie est in nostris sacramentis, ita etiam in domo Abrahæ fuisse dico. Sed id non facit ut a literali sensu recedatur. Summa perinde est ac si diceret Paulus, figuram duorum testamentorum in duabus Abrahæ uxoribus, et duplicis populi in duobus filiis, veluti in tabula, nobis depictam.” As to the objection of Luther, repeated by De Wette, that this allegory shews misapprehension of the history (die Allegorie von Sara und Hagar, welche … zum Stich zu schwach ist, denn sie weichet ab vom historischen Verstand. Luth., cited by De W.), because Ishmael had nothing to do with the law of Moses, the misapprehension is entirely on the side of the objectors. Not the bare literal historical fact is in question here, but the inner character of God’s dealings with men, of which type, and prophecy, and the historical fact itself, are only so many exemplifications. The difference between the children of the bond and the free, of the law and the promise, has been shewn out to the world before, by, and since the covenant of the law. See an excellent note of Windischmann’s ad loc., exposing the shallow modern critical school. See also Jowett’s note, on the other side: and while reading it, and tracing the consequences which will follow from adopting his view, bear in mind that the question between him and us is not affected by any thing there said on the similarity between St. Paul and the Alexandrians as interpreters of Scripture,—but remains as it was before,—was the O. T. dispensation a system of typical events and ordinances, or is all such typical reference fanciful and delusive? For these (women (αὗται), not as Jowett, Ishmael and Isaac, which would confuse the whole: the mothers are the covenants;—the sons, the children of the covenants) are (import in the allegory, see reff.) two covenants (not ‘revelations,’ but literally covenants between God and men): one (covenant) indeed from Mount Sina (taking its origin from,—or having Mount Sina as its centre, as ὁ ἐκ Πελοποννήσου πόλεμος) gendering (bringing forth children: De W. compares υἱοὶ … τῆς διαθήκης, Act 3:25) unto (with a view to) bondage, which one is (identical in the allegory with) Agar.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

24. ἅτινά ἐστιν ἀλληγορούμενα· “Which things are allegorical utterances.” The present tense of the participle, the meaning of the verb as established by usage, and the facts respecting current views, combine to make the above the only tenable translation, the participle being interpreted as an adjective participle used substantively in the predicate. BMT 432. The assertion pertains not to the original sense of the passage, what the writer meant when he wrote it, nor to the current or proper interpretation of the words, but to the character of the utterances as they stand in the scripture. Substantially the same thought might have been expressed by ἅτινα ἡ γραφὴ ἀλληγορεῖ in the sense, “which things the scripture says allegorically,” the scripture being conceived of apart from the author of the scripture and as now speaking.

The verb ἀλληγορέω, a late Greek word not found in the Lxx, and here only in N. T., occurs first in Strabo 1. 2:7, though ἀλληγορία occurs as early as Demosthenes. Classical writers used αἰνίττομαι, in the sense, “to speak in riddles” (cf. Jos. Ant. Proem. 24 (4), where αἰνίττομαι and ἀλληγορέω occur together), and ὑπόνοια of an underlying figurative or allegorical meaning: Xen. Symp. 3:6; Plato. Rep. 378 D; cf. Philo, Vita contempl. 28 (3). The meanings of ἀλληγορέω are as follows:

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Are an allegory [εστιν αλληγορουμενα] . N. T. o. Lit. are allegorised. From allo another, ajgoreuein to speak. Hence, things which are so spoken as to give a different meaning from that which the words express. For parable, allegory, fable, and proverb, see on Mt 13:3.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.