1 You foolish Galatians! Who has given you the evil eye?* Before your eyes Jesus Christ was vividly portrayed as crucified! 2 The only thing I want to learn from you is this: Did you receive the Spirit by doing the works of the law or by believing what you heard? 3 Are you so foolish? Although you began with the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by human effort? 4 Have you suffered so many things for nothing?—if indeed it was for nothing. 5 Does God then give you the Spirit and work miracles among you by your doing the works of the law or by your believing what you heard? 6 Just as Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness, 7 so then, understand that those who believe are the sons of Abraham. 8 And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, proclaimed the gospel to Abraham ahead of time, saying, “All the nations will be blessed in you.” 9 So then those who believe are blessed along with Abraham the believer. 10 For all who rely on doing the works of the law are under a curse because it is written, “Cursed is everyone who does not keep on doing everything written in the book of the law.” 11 Now it is clear no one is justified before God by the law because the righteous one will live by faith. 12 But the law is not based on faith, but the one who does the works of the law will live by them. 13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us (because it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”) 14 in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham would come to the Gentiles, so that we could receive the promise of the Spirit by faith. 15 Brothers and sisters, I offer an example from everyday life: When a covenant has been ratified, even though it is only a human contract, no one can set it aside or add anything to it.16 Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his descendant. Scripture does not say, “and to the descendants,” referring to many, but “and to your descendant,” referring to one, who is Christ. 17 What I am saying is this: The law that came 430 years later does not cancel a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to invalidate the promise. 18 For if the inheritance is based on the law, it is no longer based on the promise, but God graciously gave it to Abraham through the promise. 19 Why then was the law given? It was added because of transgressions, until the arrival of the descendant to whom the promise had been made. It was administered through angels by an intermediary. 20 Now an intermediary is not for one party alone, but God is one. 21 Is the law therefore opposed to the promises of God? Absolutely not! For if a law had been given that was able to give life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law. 22 But the scripture imprisoned everything under sin so that the promise could be given—because of the faithfulness of Jesus Christ—to those who believe. 23 Now before faith came we were held in custody under the law, being kept as prisoners until the coming faith would be revealed. 24 Thus the law had become our guardian until Christ, so that we could be declared righteous by faith. 25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian. 26 For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through faith. 27 For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female—for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to the promise.
Galatians6 chapters
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Texts in conversation
Compare LXX Genesis 15:5 and Galatians 3:16
Septuagint · New Testament
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Summary
Genesis 15 says Abraham’s seed will be as many as the stars, meaning many descendants. In Galatians, Paul breaks a grammatical rule to apply it to one person, Jesus, basing this on the singular form of the word even though it means a large group.
Passages
LXX Genesis 15:5
Septuagint
4 And immediately there was a voice of the Lord to him, saying, This shall not be your heir; but he that shall come out of you shall be your heir.5And he brought him out and said to him, Look up now to heaven, and count the stars, if you shall be able to number them fully, and he said,Thus shall your seed be.6 And Abram believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness.
15 Brothers and sisters, I offer an example from everyday life: When a covenant has been ratified, even though it is only a human contract, no one can set it aside or add anything to it.16Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his descendant. Scripture does not say, “and to the descendants,” referring to many,but “and to your descendant,” referring to one, who is Christ.17 What I am saying is this: The law that came 430 years later does not cancel a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to invalidate the promise.
"... Here Paul claims that God’s covenant promise to Abraham’s progeny was not intended for his numerous descendants (i.e., the people of Israel), but for only one of them: Jesus. Paul supports this extraordinarily implausible assertion by making two interpretive moves, one explicit and one covert. The explicit move is to draw attention to a point of grammar: the noun “offspring” (literally, “seed,” sperma in Greek) is singular in form, not plural. Despite the fact that “seed” is a collective noun in Greek (as well as in English), Paul here insinuates that God had hidden a secret meaning in plain sight by using the grammatically singular form of the word in his promise to Abraham ... There are three scenes in Genesis in which Yahweh makes promises about Abraham’s seed: Genesis 15:5, 17:4–8, and 22:17–18. Each scene uses the singular collective noun “seed” (zera’ in Hebrew, sperma in the Septuagint), and the content of each promise is that Abraham will have innumerable descendants ... Out of those three scenes Paul extracts, with surgical precision, only the words “your seed,” and on that basis argues that the promises to Abraham’s offspring were meant for only one man. We can see why Paul does not quote or describe what God promised Abraham, because Paul’s interpretation contradicts the plain sense of what God said in each scene. Paul belabors the point that the word “seed” is singular in form, but he is perfectly aware that the word is plural in meaning, for that is how he himself uses it a few paragraphs later ..."
