Galatians 2:6

2:6 But from those who were influential ¹  (whatever they were makes no difference to me; God shows no favoritism between people ² ) – those influential leaders ³  added ⁴  nothing to my message. ⁵ 

Galatians 3:8

3:8 And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, proclaimed the gospel to Abraham ahead of time, ⁶  saying, “All the nations ⁷  will be blessed in you.” ⁸ 

Galatians 3:16-17

3:16 Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his descendant. ⁹  Scripture ¹⁰  does not say, “and to the descendants,” ¹¹  referring to many, but “and to your descendant,” ¹²  referring to one, who is Christ. 3:17 What I am saying is this: The law that came four hundred thirty years later does not cancel a covenant previously ratified by God, ¹³  so as to invalidate the promise.

Galatians 4:27

4:27 For it is written:

“Rejoice, O barren woman who does not bear children; ¹⁴ 

break forth and shout, you who have no birth pains,

because the children of the desolate woman are more numerous

than those of the woman who has a husband.” ¹⁵ 

¹ tn Or “influential leaders.” BDAG 255 s.v. δοκέω 2.a.β has “the influential men Gal 2:2, 6b. A fuller expr. w. the same mng., w. inf. added…vss. 6a, 9.” This refers to the leadership of the Jerusalem church.

² tn Grk “God does not receive the face of man,” an idiom for showing favoritism or partiality (BDAG 887-88 s.v. πρόσωπον 1.b.α; L&N 88.238).

³ tn Or “influential people”; here “leaders” was used rather than “people” for stylistic reasons, to avoid redundancy with the word “people” in the previous parenthetical remark. See also the note on the word “influential” at the beginning of this verse.

⁴ tn Or “contributed.” This is the same word translated “go to ask advice from” in 1:16, but it has a different meaning here; see L&N 59.72.

⁵ tn Or “added nothing to my authority.” Grk “added nothing to me,” with what was added (“message,” etc.) implied.

⁶ tn For the Greek verb προευαγγελίζομαι (proeuangelizomai) translated as “proclaim the gospel ahead of time,” compare L&N 33.216.

⁷ tn The same plural Greek word, τὰ ἔθνη (ta eqnh), can be translated as “nations” or “Gentiles.”

⁸ sn A quotation from Gen 12:3; 18:18.

¹¹ tn Grk “his seed,” a figurative extension of the meaning of σπέρμα (sperma) to refer to descendants (L&N 10.29).

¹² tn Grk “It”; the referent (the scripture) has been specified in the translation for clarity. The understood subject of the verb λέγει (legei) could also be “He” (referring to God) as the one who spoke the promise to Abraham.

¹³ tn Grk “to seeds.” See the note on “descendant” earlier in this verse. Here the term is plural; the use of the singular in the OT text cited later in this verse is crucial to Paul’s argument.

¹⁴ tn See the note on “descendant” earlier in this verse.

¹⁶ tc Most mss (D F G I 0176 0278 Ï it sy) read “ratified by God in Christ” whereas the omission of “in Christ” is the reading in Ì⁴⁶ א A B C P Ψ 6 33 81 1175 1739 1881 2464 pc co. The shorter reading is strongly supported by the ms evidence, and it is probable that a copyist inserted the words as an interpretive gloss. However, this form of the “in Christ” expression is somewhat atypical in the corpus Paulinum (εἰς Χριστόν [ei" Criston] rather than ἐν Χριστῷ [en Cristw]), a fact which tempers one’s certainty about the shorter reading. Nevertheless, the expression is used more in Galatians than in any other of Paul’s letters (Gal 2:16; 3:24, 27), and may have been suggested by such texts to early copyists.

²¹ tn The direct object “children” is not in the Greek text, but has been supplied for clarity. Direct objects were often omitted in Greek when clear from the context.

²² tn Grk “because more are the children of the barren one than of the one having a husband.”