Galatians 4:27

The prophecy of Isaiah 54:1, here quoted from the LXX, describes the restoration of Zion, the enlargement of her borders and increase of her people, under the figure of a wife long neglected and barren, but now restored to the favour of her husband and fruitful in children. This picture was perhaps suggested to the prophet by the history of Sarah's prolonged barrenness before she became the fruitful mother of Israel, and is peculiarly appropriate for describing the long delayed but fertile growth of the Christian Church, of which she was the typical mother.