Bible Dictionaries
Hagar

　　(ἅλλος, other, and τῇ νῦν Ἰερουσαλήμ), but the Jerusalem which is above (Ἀγραῖοι of Eratosthenes (ap. Strabo, XVI. iv. 2)-of whom Hagar was no doubt a personification-with Arabia. (In Baruch 3:23 the Arabians are called the ‘sons of Hagar.’) But the Greek is extremely uncertain, and Bentley’s conjecture, that we have here a gloss transferred to the text, has (as Lightfoot says [Gal.5, 1876, p. 193]), much to recommend it. The theory that ‘Hagar’ (Arab. ḥajar, ‘a stone’) was a name sometimes given to Mt. Sinai, and that St. Paul, becoming acquainted with this usage during his sojourn in Arabia, recalls it here (A. P. Stanley, Sinai and Palestine, new ed., 1877, p. 50, following Chrysostom, Luther, and others), is unsupported by real evidence. Such an etymological allusion would certainly have been thrown away upon St. Paul’s Galatian readers.

　　To affirm that the Jews, who were went to say that ‘all Israel are the children of kings,’ were the sons of Hagar the bondwoman, was to use language which could not but be regarded as insulting and offensive. But in fighting the battle of freedom St. Paul required to use plain speech and forcible illustrations. If he was convinced that men might be sons of Abraham and yet spiritual slaves, he was bound to say so (cf. the still stronger terms used on the same point in John 8:44). St. Paul was far too good a patriot to jibe at his own race, and too good a Christian to wound any one wantonly. But he saw the unhappy condition of his countrymen in the light of his own experience. He had lived long under the shadow of Sinai in Arabia, the land of bondmen, before he became a free citizen of the ideal commonwealth-Hierusalem quœ sursum est-the mother of all Christians. Only an emancipated spirit could write the Epistle to the Galatians, or (as its sequel) Luther’s Freedom of a Christian Man.

　　James Strahan.