Galatians 4:25

Galatians 4:25. A difficult passage. The reading of the first clause is disputed. The longer text (which is supported by the Vatican MS. and adopted by Westcott and Hort) reads: But (or, Now) this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia. [1] This implies that the name Hagar was an Arabic designation for Mount Sinai, but this cannot be satisfactorily proven (as the testimonies of Chrysostom and the Bohemian traveller Harant are isolated and unconfirmed). Hagar means ‘Wanderer,' ‘Fugitive,' and is connected with the Arabic ‘Hegira' (the famous ‘flight' of Mohammed from Mecca to Medina, whence the beginning of the Mohammedan era); Sinai means ‘Pointed,' or (according to Fürst) ‘Rocky.' There is, however, an Arabic word of similar sound, though different etymology, (‘Hadschar,' or ‘Hadjar,' ‘Chajar'), which means a ‘stone' or a ‘rock,' and is to this day applied to several remarkable stones on and around Sinai, e . g. to the traditional rock from which Moses drew water (in the Wady Leja). At the time of Paul, who was himself in Arabia (see note on Galatians 1:17), it may have been (and in case this reading is correct, it must have been) a local name of one of the peaks of that group of barren rocks, or of the whole group; as ‘Selah' or ‘Petra' (‘Rock') was the name of the famous rock-hewn city, in the Sinaitic Peninsula, and that part of Arabia was called the ‘Rocky Arabia' (Arabia Petrea). At present the principal peaks of Sinai are called ‘Jebel Musa' (Mount of Moses, the traditional mount of legislation), ‘Ras Sufsâfeh' (the probable mount of legislation, facing the vast plain Er Raha), and ‘Jebel Katharina.' Calvin and others escape this difficulty by explaining: ‘Hagar is a type of (or, represents) Mount Sinai in Arabia.' But against this is the Greek neuter article before Hagar (‘the thing' or ‘the name' Hagar; not in the feminine, ‘the woman Hagar'). The shorter reading (of the Sinaitic MS. and the Vulgate, adopted by Lachmann, Tischendorf, in the last edition, and Lightfoot) is: For Sinai is a mountain in Arabia. [2] This is quite intelligible and free from the difficulty just mentioned, though for this very reason subject to the suspicion of being a correction, if it were not for the ease with which the insertion of Hagar can be explained in the Greek. Some take the clause in either case as a parenthesis, others as a continuation of the argument. It cannot be merely a geographical notice for the Galatians; for Sinai was well known to all who had heard of the Mosaic legislation. The stress seems to lie on ‘Arabia,' known as a land of the wild descendants of Hagar. She fled with Ishmael to the Sinaitic Peninsula (Genesis 16:7; Genesis 16:14); several Arab tribes were named after her ‘Hagarenes' or ‘Hagarites' (Psalms 83:7; 1 Chronicles 5:19), and the Arabs generally were called ‘sons of Hagar' (Bar 3:23). The law was given not on Mount Sion in the land of promise, but outside of it in Arabia, and this corresponds to Hagar who was an outsider, an Egyptian slave. The law ‘came in beside' (Galatians 3:19; Romans 5:20), and had only an intermediate and transitory importance in the history of salvation.

[1] A, B, D, E read τὸ δὲ Ἅγαρ Σινὰ ὄρος ἐστὶν ἐν τῇ Ἀραβίᾳ. K, L, P, with the majority of cursive MSS-, read γαρ. instead of δὲ (but, now).

[2] τὸ γὰρ Σινὰ ὄρος ἐστὶν ἐν τῇ ʼ Αραβία. So א, C, F, G, Vulg., Orig The words τὸ γὰρ might easily be chanced by a careless scribe into to τὸ Ἅγαρ, as this name immediately precedes the disputed reading.

Correspondeth to the Jerusalem which now is. Lit: belongs to the same row or column, is in the same rank with. Both have the same nature, namely, both are in bondage. But what is the subject of the verb? If the preceding clause be taken as a parenthesis, the subject is the Sinaitic covenant, Galatians 4:24; but if it is not parenthetical, Hagar is the subject in the longer reading, or Mount Sinai in the shorter reading. ‘The Jerusalem which now is,' or the present, the earthly Jerusalem, which represents, as the metropolis, the whole Jewish race, the Mosaic theocracy.

For she is in bondage with her children. In bondage to the Mosaic law (also to Rome, although this is not meant here). The Jewish church which crucified the Lord and persecutes the Christian church, is in spiritual slavery, as Hagar was in literal slavery. We must here remember the Pauline distinction between two Israels, a spiritual Israel which embraces all believers, whether of the circumcision or of the uncircumcision, and is the true heir of promise, and the carnal Israel, which has only the circumcision of the flesh, and not of the heart, which is of the blood, but not of the faith of Abraham, and is cast out like Hagar and Ishmael. Comp. Romans 2:26-29; Romans 4:12 ff; Romans 9:6 ff.