Bible Strands
Galatians 4:24
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.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Paul addresses Galatian believers mid-argument over law and promise, using the Hagar-Sarah narrative to clarify their spiritual standing.
The words — ἀλληγορουμένα (allēgoroumena) means "being told as an allegory" or "serving as illustrations," and δύο (duo) specifies the "two" covenants Paul contrasts.
The thread — The text anchors this typology in Genesis 16:8, Genesis 16:15, and Genesis 21:9, while Galatians 4:23 and Galatians 4:25 frame the immediate comparison of the two sons and the two Jerusalems.
Why it lands — It demands that readers identify which covenant governs their lives, recognizing that the Sinai covenant produces bondage while the promise covenant produces freedom.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Greek words
King James Version
Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar.
Cross-references
- Genesis 21:9 But Sarah saw that the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham was mocking her son,
- Genesis 16:8 “Hagar, servant of Sarai,” he said, “where have you come from, and where are you going?” “I am running away from my mistress Sarai,” she replied.
- Genesis 16:15 And Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram gave the name Ishmael to the son she had borne.
- Genesis 25:12 This is the account of Abraham’s son Ishmael, whom Hagar the Egyptian, Sarah’s maidservant, bore to Abraham.
- Hosea 11:10 They will walk after the LORD; He will roar like a lion. When He roars, His children will come trembling from the west.
- Matthew 13:35 So was fulfilled what was spoken through the prophet: “I will open My mouth in parables; I will utter things hidden since the foundation of the world.”
- 1 Corinthians 10:11 Now these things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come.
- Hebrews 10:15 The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. First He says:
- Hebrews 12:24 to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.
- Genesis 16:3 So after he had lived in Canaan for ten years, his wife Sarai took her Egyptian maidservant Hagar and gave her to Abram to be his wife.