Commentaries and Other Bible Study Helps - Prayer Tents - Prayer Tents

3:15-17 Paul uses an everyday example to explain the place of the law in God's scheme. A covenant or a will cannot be changed, and neither can the promises made to Abraham and to his offspring be changed just because a law has come into the picture.

3:16 God spoke promises to Abraham on several occasions, but probably Gen. 13:15 and 17:8 are particularly in view. And to your offspring. Paul knows that the singular (Hb. zera‘) can be used as a collective singular that has a plural sense (he interprets it in a plural sense in Rom. 4:18). But it also can have a singular meaning, and here Paul, knowing that only in Christ would the promised blessings come to the Gentiles, sees that the most true and ultimate fulfillment of these OT promises comes to one "offspring," namely, Christ. Paul's willingness to make an argument using a singular noun in distinction from its plural form (which occurs in other OT verses) indicates a high level of confidence in the trustworthiness of the small details of the OT text.

3:17 came 430 years afterward. Paul is apparently referring to the Septuagint translation of Ex. 12:40, "The dwelling of the children of Israel . . . in Egypt and in Canaan was 430 years," which would mean 430 years from Abraham to the exodus (the Hb. text does not include "and in Canaan"). Another explanation is that Paul is not counting the time from the first statement of the promise to Abraham but from the last affirmation of that promise to Jacob before he went to Egypt in Gen. 46:3-4. This method would then count the entire time in Egypt as the time from the "promise" to the "law." If this is so, then Paul is relying on the Hebrew text of Ex. 12:40 to affirm a 430-year stay in Egypt.

3:18 In 2:21 Paul said that if righteousness comes through the law, Christ died for nothing. Here he says similarly, if the inheritance comes by the law, the promise is not the basis for it.