Psalm 94:12
10 Does the one who disciplines the nations not punish? He is the one who imparts knowledge to human beings! 11 The Lord knows that peoples’ thoughts are morally bankrupt. 12 How blessed is the one whom you instruct, O Lord, the one whom you teach from your law 13 in order to protect him from times of trouble, until the wicked are destroyed. 14 Certainly the Lord does not forsake his people; he does not abandon the nation that belongs to him.
Galatians 3:24
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.
Notes and References
"... In Galatians Paul speaks of the Jewish law functioning as a “custodian” or “guardian” (παιδαγωγός) until the coming of the Messiah (Galatians 3:24–25). In the Greco-Roman world of Paul’s day custodians were assigned the task of protecting the legal and fi nancial interests of minors (e.g., Herodotus 8.75; Plutarch, Moralia 4A–B; Diogenes Laertius 3.92). Josephus uses the word in this sense: “But now Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, took some of the most noble of the Jews that were children, and the kinsmen of Zedekiah their king, such as were remarkable for their beauty of their bodies and comeliness of their countenances, and delivered them into the hands of custodians [παιδαγωγοῖς], and to the improvement to be made by them” (Antiquities 10.186); “... so he made this to be the omen, that the government should be left to him who should come to him first the next day. When he had thus resolved within himself, he sent to his grandson’s custodian [τὸν παιδαγωγόν], and ordered him to bring the child to him early in the morning, as supposing that God would permit him to be made emperor” (18.212; compare 20.183 “Burrhus, who was Nero’s custodian [παιδαγωγός], and secretary for his Greek epistles”). As in the case of Paul’s usage, in the pagan world the law could be seen as a παιδαγωγός (compare Plutarch, Moralia 645B–C) ..."
Evans, Craig A. "Paul and the Pagans" in Porter, Stanley E. (ed.) Paul: Jew, Greek, and Roman (pp. 117-139) Brill, 2008