Galatians 4:24

Galatians 4:24. Which things are allegorized, allegorically expounded, have an allegorical signification. The story of Hagar and Sarah has another (namely, a figurative, typical) meaning, besides (not, instead of) the literal or historical. Paul does not deny the fact, but makes it the bearer of a general idea, which was more fully expressed in two covenants. He uses allegorical here in a sense similar to the word ‘typical' in 1 Corinthians 10:11 (Greek). See the Excursus. ‘ Allegory' means a description of one thing under the figure of another, so that the real or intended meaning differs from the obvious sense of the words; the verb ‘to allegorize' (only used here in the New Testament) means, (1) to speak in an allegory or figuratively, that is so as to intend another sense than the words express; (2) to interpret as an allegory, and in the passive mood: to have an allegorical meaning. So here.

For these (two women, Hagar and Sarah) are two covenants. They ‘are' allegorically, that is, they represent or signify, two covenants. Comp. Matthew 13:39; Matthew 26:26-28; 1 Corinthians 10:4.

One (of them) from Mount Sinai, bringing forth (or bearing children) unto bondage; and this is Hagar. The regular antithesis would be: ‘the other from Mount Sion (which corresponds to the upper Jerusalem), bearing children unto freedom; and this is Sarah.' This is substantially expressed in Galatians 4:26, but owing to the intervening explanatory parenthesis, Galatians 4:25, the grammatical form melts away in the general structure. Besides the parallel is not quite complete; for Sarah was the mother not only of the true spiritual children of Abraham, but also of those carnal Jews who are no better than the children of Hagar, who strictly speaking stood outside of the Sinaitic covenant and became through her illegitimate son Ishmael the mother of a bastard Judaism (the religion of Mohammed).