* The LXX of Ex. xii. 40 which Paul is assumed to follow, says that the sojourn of Israel in Egypt and in the land of Canaan was 480 years, accord- ing to one reading ; but according to another, 435 years. Lightfoot says the 5 in the Vatican Ms. is erased, but Swete retains it in his edition of the LXX. The words in the land of Canaan are not in the Hebrew. In Gen. xv. 13 (comp. Acts vii. 6) 400 years are given.
oe, ea SIO sat ul) s gnc?
Cu. IIL] THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 123
It was added (apoceré0y). Comp. mapeoirOev came in beside, Rom. vy. 20. Not as an addition to the promise, which is contrary to ver. 18, but asa temporary, intermediate insti- tution, in which only a subordinate purpose of God was expressed.
Because of transgressions (trav rapaBdcewr yap). In order to set upon already existing sins the stamp of positive transgression of law. Comp. Rom. iv. 5; v. 13. Note the article, the transgressions, summing them up in one mass. Not, in order to give the knowledge of sins. This, it is true, would follow the revelation of sins as transgressions of law (Rom. iii. 20; vii. 13); but, 1. the phrase because of trans- gressions does not express that thought with sufficient defin- iteness. If that had been his meaning, Paul would probably have written tis ériyvacews TOV TapaBdcewy yapLy on account of the knowledge of transgressions. 2. He meant to describe the office of the law as more than giving the knowledge of sins. Its office was, in revealing sin as positive transgression, to emphasise the objective, actual, contrary fact of righteous- ness according to the divine ideal, and to throw sin into contrast with that grand ideal.
The seed. Christ, whose advent was to introduce the fulfilment of the promise (ver. 16).
Ordained (d:atayels). The verb means to arrange, appoint, prescribe. Of appointing the twelve, Matt. xi. 1: of enjoining certain acts, L. viii. 55; xvii. 10; 1 Cor. vii. 17: of the decree of Claudius, Acts xviii. 2. Here, describing the form or mode in which the law was added; the arrangement made for giving it.
By angels (cv ayyédwv). Better, through angels as agents and intermediaries. Comp. eis ciatayas ayyédov with refer- ence to arrangements of angels; or as tt was ordained by angels, Acts vii. 58. The tradition of the giving of the law through angels appears first in Deut. xxxiii. 2 (but comp. LXX and
124 WORD STUDIES IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. [Cu. IIL
the Hebrew). See Heb. ii. 2; Acts vii. 38, 53. In the later rabbinical schools great importance was attached to this tradition, and it was not without influence in shaping the doctrine of angelic mediation which formed one of the elements of the Colossian heresy. Josephus (Ant. xv. 5, 3) relates that Herod excited the Jews to battle by a speech, in which he said that they had learned the holiest of laws from God through angels. It is a general O. T. idea that in great theophanies God appears surrounded with a heavenly host. See Hab. iii. 8; Isa. lxvi. 15; Zech. xiv. 5; Joel iii. 11. The idea of an angelic administration is also familiar. See Ex. xxiii. 20; xxxii. 34; xxxiii. 14; Isa. bxili. 9; Josh. vy. 14. The agency of angels indicates the limitations of the older dispensation ; its character as a dispensation of the flesh.
In the hand of a mediator (év yeupt weotrov). "Ev yerpl by the agency of. A Hebraism. In this sense, not elsewhere in N. T. See LXX, Gen. xxxviii. 20; Lev. xvi. 21. In the hand of Moses, Lev.. xxvi. 46; Num, iv. 87, 41, 45, 49. Comp. ovv yeipl ayyérou with the hand of the angel, Acts vii. 85. For weoirns mediator, see on 1 Tim. ii. 5, and comp. Heb. viii. 6; ix. 15; xii. 24. It is a later Greek word, signifying also umpire, arbitrator, and appears in LXX only in Job. ix. 83. ‘he mediator here is Moses, who is often so designated by rabbinical writers. The object is not (as Meyer) to enable the reader to realise the glory of the law in the dignity and formal solemnity of its ordination, but to indicate the inferior, subordinate position held by the law in comparison with the promise, not the gospel. <A glorification of the law cannot be intended, since if that were contemplated in the mention of angels and the mediator, the statement would tend to the disparagement of the promise which was given without a mediator. Paul, in the section iii. 6-iv. 7, aims to show that the law does not, as the Judaisers assume, stand in a relation to the divine plan of salvation as direct and positive as does the promise, and that it has not, like the promise and its fulfilment, an eternal significance. On the contrary, it has only a transitory value. This estimate of the law does not