An In-depth Look at the Hagar-Sarah Allegory of Galatians 4:21-31 (Part 2 of 3)

The Tale of Two Covenants

The apostle continues: “for these are two covenants, one indeed from Mount Sinai, bringing forth into slavery, which is Hagar. But Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the current Jerusalem, for she serves as a slave with her children. But the Jerusalem above is free, who is our mother”¹ (Gal. 4:24b-26).

Paul uses these two sons and their respective circumstances (vv. 22-24a) to illustrate “two covenants.” One covenant is said to be “from Mount Sinai,” which is an obvious allusion to the post-exodus covenant God made in the Sinai Wilderness with the Israelites (Ex. 19:1-8; Deut. 5:1-22).² The other covenant, represented by Isaac, would then correspond to the original covenant that God made with Abraham (see 3:15, 17) and ultimately fulfilled in the “new covenant” of Jesus Christ (see 3:15-29; also Jer. 31:31-34; Heb. 8:6-13; cf. 2 Cor. 3:6-16).   

Interestingly, when the covenant at Sinai was originally instituted, it was in the context of Israel having just been delivered from slavery. This covenant, therefore, including the accompanying requirements of the law, served as a symbol of emancipation for the Jews (S. C. Keesmaat, Paul and His Story 186-87). But now, Paul maintains, the situation is reversed. These same ordinances, rather than epitomizing freedom, are presently the occasion of bondage (cf. 2:4). Not only had God’s purpose for old-covenant Judaism been fulfilled (3:19–4:7),³ but misguided Jews were misconstruing the divine purpose and advocating an inordinate reliance on ceremonial works of the law (cf. 3:10; 4:9, 21).

Mount Sinai in Arabia?

What is to be made of Paul’s reference to “Mount Sinai in Arabia” (Gal. 4:25)? Since he spent time in “Arabia” (1:17), is he now pinpointing the geographical location of the literal mountain? Scholars have debated this question for centuries, with no less than thirteen different places having been identified (see M. Har-el, The Sinai Journeys 2). The traditional “Mt. Sinai” is Jebel Musa in the southern Sinai Peninsula, but other plausible locations around the general region, including as far east as Jebel el Lawz in Saudi Arabia, have been claimed.⁴ Nevertheless, it is illegitimate to appeal to the apostle’s statement in Gal. 4:25 as a definitive geographical marker, if for no other reason than the ancient territorial definition of “Arabia” encompassed a vast region inclusive of all the alleged sites.⁵

The important thing to remember is that Paul is using figures of speech. He says that “Hagar is Mount Sinai,” an indirect allusion to the old-covenant system established at Sinai (cf. v. 24). As the real-life Hagar was the mother of Abraham’s first son, Ishmael, it is informative to consider the genealogical record of Hagar and Ishmael as documented in the 25th chapter of Genesis, especially since Paul’s knowledge of the Hagar-Ishmael story included Gen. 25 (cf. Rom. 9:12). “Now this is the genealogy of Ishmael, Abraham’s son, whom Hagar the Egyptian, Sarah’s maidservant, bore to Abraham …. They [Ishmael’s descendants] dwelt from Havilah as far as Shur, which is east of Egypt as you go toward Assyria” (Gen. 25:12-18, NKJV). 

According to C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch: “Havilah and Shur … formed the south-eastern and south-western boundaries of the territories of the Ishmaelites, from which they extended their nomadic excursions towards the N.E. as far as the districts under Assyrian rule, i.e., to the lands of the Euphrates, traversing the whole of the desert of Arabia” (Biblical Commentary 1:265). Josephus reports that the descendants of Ishmael “inhabited all the country from Euphrates to the Red Sea, and called it Nabatene. They are an Arabian nation, and name their tribes from these, both because of their own virtue, and because of the dignity of Abraham their father” (Ant. 1.12.4). 

A. Schweitzer is probably correct in concluding that the relation between Hagar and Sinai, whether geographical or linguistic, “is no longer intelligible to us” (Mysticism of Paul 211). But the point that Paul is making is crystal clear. Irrespective of what Mt. Sinai may have symbolized in the past, it is now emblematic of servitude. Ishmael stands for Judaism and corresponds to the present Jerusalem (the center of the Jewish religious system). Words like “shocking,” “offensive,”  “astonishing,” “surprising,” “amazing,” “extraordinary,” and “radical” have been used by commentators to describe Paul’s controversial assessment and the reaction it would have provoked among his fellow Jews.⁶ J. M. Boice offers this helpful analysis:

On the most superficial level, Isaac and Ishmael were alike in that both were sons of Abraham. But on a more fundamental level they were entirely different. In the same way, Paul argues, it is not enough merely to claim Abraham as one’s father. Both Christians and Jews did that. The question is: Who is our mother and in what way were we born? If Hagar is our mother, then we were born of purely human means and are still slaves. If our mother is Sarah, then the birth was by promise, and we are free men. (Galatians EBC 484)  

Physical Vs. Spiritual Jerusalem

It is of interest that “Jerusalem” is spelt differently in 4:25 and 26 than it was in 1:17-18 and 2:1. The previous spelling is Hierosóluma, the common designation identifying the city geographically. Here the spelling is Ierousalēm, the Hebraic form of the LXX that connotes the sacred status of the city. “Evidently in 1:17-18 and 2:1 Paul had simply the geographical site in mind. Here, however, particularly in antithesis to hē ánō Ierousalēm (‘the Jerusalem that is above’) of v26, his emphasis is on the religious significance of the city: the present city of Jerusalem to which the Judaizers looked as the source and support of their gospel” (R. N. Longenecker, Galatians [WBC 41] 213; see also G. L. Borchert, Galatians CBC 310). Paul’s analogy is obviously targeting the judaizing troublemakers. “To them Paul declared that their Jerusalem was a slave city, bound hand and foot to an obsolete tradition” (C. H. Dodd, Meaning of Paul 49).  

Although “the current Jerusalem” is being contrasted with “the Jerusalem above,” rather than the latter being restricted to a future expectation, it is spoken of here as a present reality. “By this other Jerusalem Paul means not merely the assembly of those who have left the earthly struggle to enter heaven: he means also the central point from which believers are gathered, nourished, and governed, and the manner in which all this takes place” (H. N. Ridderbos, Epistle to Galatia NICNT 178). Note Paul’s emphasis throughout Galatians on the spiritual (heavenly) focus of genuine Christianity versus the physical (earthly) impetus of legalistic Judaism (1:4, 6-17, 23; 2:1-6, 11-21; 3:1-29; 4:1-12; etc.).  The “Jerusalem above,” void of ethnic or geographic boundaries, is elsewhere portrayed in the NT in Heb. 11:10, 16; 12:22; 13:11-14; Rev. 3:12; 11:8; 21:2, 9-27.

--Kevin L. Moore

Endnotes:

     ¹ In some witnesses, adopted by the TR, pántōn (“all”) is inserted before hēmōn (“of us”), although the above reading has strong support (see B. M. Metzger, Textual Commentary [2nd ed.] 528; G. Zuntz, Text of the Epistles 223). Unless otherwise noted, scripture quotations are the author's own translation.

     2 Contra J. D. G. Dunn, Theology of Paul 146 n. 94; cf. Galatians 249-50.

     3 See also 2:16; 2 Cor. 3:14; Col. 2:14; Heb. 7:12, 18; 8:13; 10:1, 9 (and their respective contexts).

     4 See Gordon Franz, “Is Mount Sinai in Saudi Arabia?” in the Associates for Biblical Research’s Bible and Spade (rev. 19 March 2001), <Link>.

     5 The Nabatean kingdom was called “Arabia” by the Romans, and its boundaries, while fluctuating during the Middle Nabatean period (30 BC – AD 70), appear to have included what is today known as the Sinai, the Negev, the east side of the Jordan Valley, much of Jordan, and part of Saudi Arabia; at times it incorporated Damascus and the cities of the Decapolis.

     6 “It should be clear, however, that the theological rationale behind it has nothing to do with anti-Judaism, let alone anti-semitism; Paul speaks as a Jew of the significance of the life, death and resurrection of another Jew…. The extremeness of the argument probably derives from the fact that Paul was responding to the other missionaries at this point” (J. D. G. Dunn, Theology of Galatians 95-96).

 

Related Posts: Hagar-Sarah Allegory (Part 1), Part 3

 

Image credit: Edward Lear, Mount Sinai, adapted from https://www.art-prints-on-demand.com/a/lear-edward/mount-sinai.html