And now Jerusalem is just like Mount Sinai in Arabia, because she and her children live in slavery to the law.
Parallel translations
- WEB For this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and answers to the Jerusalem that exists now, for she is in bondage with her children.
- KJV For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children.
- BSB Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present-day Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children.
- NKJV for this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and corresponds to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children—
- NASB Now this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is enslaved with her children.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Hagar corresponds to Mount Sinai and to the present earthly Jerusalem, which is in slavery with her children. The system of law-righteousness centered there leads only to bondage.
Overview
Paul identifies Hagar with Sinai and with the Jerusalem of his day, the heart of law-based Judaism that rejected the gospel. Those who seek standing through the law remain enslaved, like Hagar and her son. The verse drives home that clinging to the law as a means of justification keeps people in spiritual servitude.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 10
- Matt 23:37“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets, and stones those who are sent to her! How often I would have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not!
- Gal 1:17nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went away into Arabia. Then I returned to Damascus.
- Ps 68:17The chariots of God are tens of thousands and thousands of thousands. The Lord is among them, from Sinai, into the sanctuary.
- Luke 13:34“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that kills the prophets, and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, like a hen gathers her own brood under her wings, and you refused!
- Acts 1:11who also said, “You men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who was received up from you into the sky, will come back in the same way as you saw him going into the sky.”
- Judg 5:5The mountains quaked Yahweh’s presence, even Sinai at the presence of Yahweh, the God of Israel.
- Heb 12:18For you have not come to a mountain that might be touched, and that burned with fire, and to blackness, darkness, storm,
- Ps 68:8The earth trembled. The sky also poured down rain at the presence of the God of Sinai — at the presence of God, the God of Israel.
- Deut 33:2He said, “Yahweh came from Sinai, and rose from Seir to them. He shone from Mount Paran. He came from the ten thousands of holy ones. At his right hand was a fiery law for them.
- Luke 19:44and will dash you and your children within you to the ground. They will not leave in you one stone on another, because you didn’t know the time of your visitation.”
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Christ at the center
Christ became a curse for us to redeem us from the law's curse, that we might receive the Spirit and be sons — justified by faith in him, not by works.
How Galatians 4:25 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Greek word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.