4:27 {7} For it is written, Rejoice, [thou] barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not: for the {f} desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband.
(7) He shows that in this allegory he has followed the steps of Isaiah, who foretold that the Church should be made and consist of the children of barren Sara, that is to say, of those who should be made Ahraham's children by faith, and this only spiritually, rather than of fruitful Hagar, even then foretelling the casting off of the Jews, and the calling of the Gentiles.
(f) She that is destroyed and laid waste.
4:27 For it is written. See Isa 54:1. In that connection the prophet speaks of the Babylonian bondage, of Abraham and Sarah, and then of the deliverance, looking onward to the glorious deliverance in Christ. Chapter 53 is all concerning Christ, and chapter 54 speaks of the great deliverance.
[Thou] barren that bearest not. Sarah, the type of the church, long childless.
The desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband. Sarah, or rather the church, that has more children by far than the children of the old covenant.
4:27 For it is written - Those words in the primary sense promise a flourishing state to Judea, after its desolation by the Chaldeans. Rejoice. thou barren, that bearest not - Ye heathen nations, who, like a barren woman, were destitute, for many ages, of a seed to serve the Lord. Break forth and cry aloud for joy, thou that, in former time, travailedst not: for the desolate hath many more children than she that hath an husband - For ye that were so long utterly desolate shall at length bear more children than the Jewish church, which was of old espoused to God. Isa 54:1.
4:21-27 The difference between believers who rested in Christ only, and those who trusted in the law, is explained by the histories of Isaac and Ishmael. These things are an allegory, wherein, beside the literal and historical sense of the words, the Spirit of God points out something further. Hagar and Sarah were apt emblems of the two different dispensations of the covenant. The heavenly Jerusalem, the true church from above, represented by Sarah, is in a state of freedom, and is the mother of all believers, who are born of the Holy Spirit. They were by regeneration and true faith, made a part of the true seed of Abraham, according to the promise made to him.
