Journal: Bulletin for Biblical Research
Volume: BBR 25:2 (NA 2015)
Article: Isaiah’s Offspring: Paul’s Isaiah 54:1 Quotation In Galatians 4:27
Author: Mark S. Gignilliat

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BBR 25:2 (2015) p. 205

Isaiah’s Offspring: Paul’s Isaiah 54:1 Quotation In Galatians 4:27

Mark S. Gignilliat

Beeson Divinity School and Samford University

Paul’s Isaiah quotation in Gal 4 is ground well worked. Another scholarly contribution is warranted, however, because aspects of Isaianic research over the past several decades, research largely unexamined within Pauline scholarship, may shed light on Paul’s deployment of Isa 54:1 within his allegorical appeal to the Sarah/Hagar narrative. Moreover, Paul’s larger “offspring” theology within Gal 3 and 4 may find its substantial location within the broader cross-currents of Isaiah’s theologizing on the self-same subject matter. In particular, the identification of the “servants” of the Lord as a theme, if not the major theme, of Isaiah 54–66 opens up a dialogical conversation between Isaiah and Paul concerning a theological problem they both share, namely, “Who are the true offspring of Abraham/Zion?” Isaiah recalibrates Abraham’s promised offspring via the emerging figure of the servant of the Lord in the redemptive dynamic of Isa 40–53, and this recalibration leans into the unfolding of the servants as the progeny of the servant’s work. In summary, within an Isaianic frame, Abraham’s offspring are the servant’s offspring.

Key Words: Isaiah, Paul, Galatians, offspring, servant(s), OT in NT, intertextuality

Introduction

Another investigation of Paul’s Isaiah quotation in Gal 4 makes for a crowded scholarly corner. Over the past two decades, several important and fruitful contributions to this subject have surfaced.1 These various interlocutors will be engaged in due course, though most of this interaction

BBR 25:2 (2015) p. 206

is relegated to the footnotes. A pressing question remains then in light of the towering literature on the subject. “Why one more?”

In J. L. Martyn’s magisterial commentary on Galatians, he makes the following programmatic claim: “[Paul’s] own interpretation of this text [Isa 54:1] can be seen only after we have briefly considered it in its original setting.”2 Implicit within Martyn’s interpretive advice is an understanding that Paul goes his own way with this text, and if readers of Galatians w...

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