Galatians Journal: Chapter 4, Verse 25

Galatians 4:25 Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children.

“Arabia” in Paul’s time was considered a larger area than just the Arabian peninsula. It included the Sinai peninsula, and most of the Gentile territory bordering Israel (including the area in which Paul went into seclusion in Galatians 1:17, which would have been to the north of Israel, near modern day Syria). Initially, Paul’s explanation here seems confusing. He connects Hagar, who is the mother of the Arab nations, with Mt. Sinai, which is in Arabia, and then, surprisingly, with Jerusalem, the holy city of Judaism, and the center of the Jewish world. Mt. Sinai is where Moses came face to face with God. Jerusalem is the City of David, and as we see in the next verse, is connected to the concept of heaven. How can Mt. Sinai and Jerusalem be connected to Hagar, the mother of the Arab nations? Paul, of course, explains this himself.

“she is in slavery with her children” The whole emphasis in this section of the letter has been on slavery (at least, he is picking up on the concept first presented in Galatians 3:23 – 4: 11). We also need to connect back to Paul’s arguments about the law in Chapter 3 – especially verses 10-14. Relying on the law, rather than the promise, results in a curse – it leads to bondage rather than to freedom. Here, Mt. Sinai and Jerusalem are connected to the curse, to bondage, to slavery – Sinai is where the law originated, Jerusalem, as the center of Judaism, is also centered on the law and the concept of following the law in order to please God. Thus, there is a connection to the slave woman and her children, the product of trying to fulfill the promise by human effort. It all leads to slavery to the law, to bondage to sin. The statement “with her children” also implies that this is a generational curse – passed on from parent to child. Of course, this is what the concept of original sin is all about. But this also ties back to the underlying theme we’ve been discussing throughout our analysis of Galatians – ethnic prejudice and narrow mindedness is a root problem here, too. The ultimate result of insisting that the Gentiles follow the law is that the culture of the Jews becomes the central focus, rather than the person of Jesus. “Be like us, or you can’t be pleasing to God.” It sounds disturbingly close to Billy Crystal’s old Saturday Night Live character, Fernando – “It’s better to look good than to feel good.” But insisting on cultural conformity is really no different. This too is slavery.