NT Text: Galatians 4:27
OT Source(s):
Source: Beale & Carson (eds.), Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (2007); Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Reference Type: Direct Quotation
Connection Method(s): Promise-Fulfillment + Typology
Anchor Text: Isa 54:1 — Sing, O Barren One
Significance: Sarah is mentioned outside Genesis only in Isaiah 51:1-2, where she bore those who "pursue righteousness" and "seek Yahweh." In Isaiah, Sarah's barrenness theme transforms from a past story of a child to the future "story of a birth of a people," making it exegetically possible for Paul to dissociate the Isaiah proclamation from ethnic Israel exclusively—Sarah's children include those truly searching for God and his righteousness. Isaiah portrays Jerusalem as desolate (Isaiah 64:10—"a curse"!), producing female images of two Jerusalems: a barren, cursed Jerusalem and a rejoicing Jerusalem. Since Isaiah 54:1 follows immediately upon the Suffering Servant "song" (alluded to in Galatians 2:20-21; 3:1, 13), Paul expected the Galatians to see the connection between faith in the crucified Christ and incorporation into the numerous people having the new Jerusalem as their mother. The quotation stresses the link believers enjoy not with Sarah precisely, but with the new, redeemed Jerusalem. If that free and heavenly city is the Galatians' true mother, how absurd to regress and become enslaved to slavish Jerusalem abandoned by God!