For this Agar is mount Sinai That is, is a type of that mount. The whole of that mountainous ridge in Arabia Petrea, of which Sinai was a part, was called Horeb, probably on account of its excessive dryness. It was called by Moses, the mountain of God, (Exodus 3:1,) because on it God gave the law to the Israelites. Grotius says, Sinai is called Hagar, or Agar, synecdochically, because in that mountain there was a city which bare Hagar's name. It is by Pliny called Agra, and by Dio, Agara, and its inhabitants were named Hagarenes, Psalms 83:6. Whitby thinks the allusion is taken from the meaning of the word Hagar, which, in the Hebrew, signifies a rock. And answereth Namely, in the allegory; or resembles, Jerusalem, which now is, and is in bondage As being in subjection to so many ritual observances, and under a sentence of wrath on the commission of the least wilful offence, and as being also in bondage to the Romans. But Jerusalem, which is above The church of Christ, so called, because its most perfect state will be in heaven; is free
Ελευθερα εστι, is the free woman, that is, is represented by Sarah; who is the mother of us all Who believe. The Jerusalem above, the spiritual Jerusalem, or church of Christ, consisting of believers of all nations, with the covenant on which it is formed, is fitly typified by Isaac, and his mother Sarah, the free-woman, because she was constituted by God the mother of all believers, on account of her bringing forth Isaac supernaturally, by virtue of the promise. For it is written, &c. As if he had said, My interpretation of the things respecting Abraham's wives and sons is not new; it is alluded to by Isaiah 54:1; 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, &c., thou that, in former ages, travailest not, for such is now thy happy state, that the desolate, &c. Ye, that were so long utterly desolate, shall at length bear more children than the Jewish Church, which was of old espoused to God.