Galatians 3:23

συνκλειόμενοι אABD*G. συγκεκλεισμένοι Text. Rec. CDcKL.

23. πρὸ τοῦ δὲ ἐλθεῖν τὴν πίστιν. Galatians 3:22 suggests to St Paul that he should (Galatians 3:23-24) dwell on the temporary and preparative character of the Law, a point which he touched upon in Galatians 3:19 ἄχρις ἂν ἔλθῃ κ.τ.λ. τὴν π. The article resumes the πίστις of Galatians 3:22. It is almost “this faith of which I speak,” hardly “the dispensation of faith.”

ὑπὸ νόμον ἐφρουρούμεθα. φρουρ.: 2 Corinthians 11:32; Philippians 4:7; 1 Peter 1:5[110]. “We” = we Jews, who alone were under the Law. In the last two of these three passages φρουρεῖν has the connotation of protecting rather than keeping in prison. So probably here. The various laws were, as Chrysostom and Theodoret say, a wall to the Israelites, or, as Jewish writers say, a “hedge” against sins of the heathen (see Schechter, Some Aspects, pp. 206 sq.).

[110] Is affixed to a word it means that all the passages are mentioned where that word occurs in the New Testament.

συνκλειόμενοι, Galatians 3:22 note. See notes on Textual Criticism. It is the “present participle of identical action”: cf. John 6:6 (Burton, § 120). It describes the nature of the imprisonment; we were shut up.

εἰς κ.τ.λ. Preferably with the principal verb ἐφρουρούμεθα. The guard of the Law was with the aim that we should pass over into faith.

τὴν μέλλουσαν πίστιν�. For the construction see Romans 8:18. Contrast 1 Peter 5:1. The position of μέλλουσαν suggests the length of the period during which we were in ward. Only here, as it seems, are πίστις and ἀποκαλύπτεσθαι coupled. Here also πίστις can hardly be “the dispensation of faith.”