Tell me, you who want to be under the law, do you not understand what the law says? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the free woman. His son by the slave woman was born according to the flesh, but his son by the free woman was born through the promise. These things serve as illustrations, for the women represent two covenants. One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children into slavery: This is Hagar. Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present-day Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother. For it is written: "Rejoice, O barren woman, who bears no children; break forth and cry aloud, you who have never travailed; because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband." Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. At that time, however, the son born by the flesh persecuted the son born by the Spirit. It is the same now. But what does the Scripture say? "Expel the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman's son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman's son." Therefore, brothers, we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman.
Paul takes the Genesis narrative of Abraham's two sons—Ishmael born to the slave woman Hagar "according to the flesh," and Isaac born to the free woman Sarah "through the promise" (Gen 16; 21)—and reads it as what he himself calls ἀλληγορούμενα, an allegory (Gal 4:24, "these things serve as illustrations"). He does not derive a hidden meaning unmoored from the text but maps its real persons onto two covenants: Hagar and her slave-born son correspond to the Sinai covenant and "the present-day Jerusalem... in slavery with her children," while Sarah and her promise-born son correspond to "the Jerusalem above" who "is free, and she is our mother" (4:24-26). The hermeneutic is figural and contrastive rather than strict typology: Paul is not tracing an escalating institutional pattern but pressing the narrative into symbolic service to expose the antithesis between law-bondage and gospel-freedom, between flesh and Spirit, between children of slavery and children of promise. The contrast is sharp and polemical—the very story the Judaizers claim (descent from Abraham) is turned against them, for the Galatians, "like Isaac, are children of promise" (4:28), born by the Spirit and heirs of the free woman. The telos lands on gospel liberty: believers are not slaves but free children of the heavenly Jerusalem, an identity received by promise and possessed in Christ, the true Seed in whom the inheritance is secured.
Found via
Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Reference Type
Allusion
Connection Method(s)
Analogy (Pauline allegory) + Contrast — the Galatians 4 allegory is owned by TT 068 Hagar and Ishmael, which classifies it as Analogy and Contrast rather than a type
Hermeneutical Notes
NT Use Pattern: Symbolic — Hagar / Sarah → two covenants. The narrative figures are pressed into symbolic service for Paul's covenantal-identity argument, not as typological prototypes.
