For even those who are circumcised do not themselves keep the law, but they desire to have you circumcised that they may boast in your flesh.
13. For neither they who hold by circumcision keep the law. The old version and Erasmus translate thus: who are circumcised. But Paul appears to me to refer to teachers only; and for this reason I would prefer to render the words, those who hold by circumcision, which would not include all circumcised persons, and thus would avoid ambiguity.
The apostle, having at large established the doctrine of the gospel, and endeavoured to persuade these Christians to a behaviour agreeable to it, seems as if he intended here to have put an end to the epistle, especially when he had acquainted them that, as a particular mark of his respect for them, he had written this large letter with his own hand, and had...
Commenting on Galatians 6:11-18
But God forbid that I should glory,.... The apostle, on the contrary, expresses his aversion to glorying in anything these men did; not in his outward carnal privileges, as a Jew; nor in his moral, civil, and legal righteousness; nor in his gifts and attainments; nor in his labours and success, as of himself; nor in the flesh of others, or in any outward corporeal...