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Galatians 4:10-20

King James Version (KJV)

“In our prayers we talk to God, in our Bible study God talks to us, and we had better let God do most of the talking.”
— D.L. Moody

Scripture focus

10. Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years. 11. I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain. 12. Brethren, I beseech you, be as I [am]; for I [am] as ye [are]: ye have not injured me at all. 13. Ye know how through infirmity of the flesh I preached the gospel unto you at the first. 14. And my temptation which was in my flesh ye despised not, nor rejected; but received me as an angel of God, [even] as Christ Jesus. 15. Where is then the blessedness ye spake of? for I bear you record, that, if [it had been] possible, ye would have plucked out your own eyes, and have given them to me. 16. Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth? 17. They zealously affect you, [but] not well; yea, they would exclude you, that ye might affect them. 18. But [it is] good to be zealously affected always in [a] good [thing], and not only when I am present with you. 19. My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you, 20. I desire to be present with you now, and to change my voice; for I stand in doubt of you.

Galatians 4:10-20 — KJV

Commentary

Commentary on Galatians 4:10

Theological / Devotional

Ye observe. The Greek implies scrupulous care.

Days, and months. Paul here refers to the seven ceremonial sabbaths and the new moons of the ceremonial system (see Lev. 23; Num. 10:10; 28:11-15). There is no basis in Scripture for assuming, as some do, that the “days” of which Paul here speaks refer to the seventh-day Sabbath. Nowhere in the Bible is the seventh day referred to in the language here used. Furthermore, the seventh-day Sabbath was instituted at creation (see on Gen. 2:1-3; cf. on Ex. 20:8-11), before the entrance of sin and some 2,500 years before the inauguration of the ceremonial system at Mt. Sinai. If observance of the seventh-day Sabbath subjects a man to bondage, it must be that the Creator Himself entered into bondage when He observed the world’s first Sabbath! And that conclusion is unthinkable.

Times. Literally, “appointed seasons,” here, the annual set festivals of the Jewish religious calendar (see on Num. 28:2).

Years. The sabbatical year and the year of jubilee (see Ex. 23:10, 11; Lev. 25:8-12).

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