Galatians 3:10, Read Whole

This verse is often cited to settle the question of the law, and its words carry real weight. It does not merely call the Torah old, optional, or fulfilled. It uses the word curse:

“For as many as are of the works of nomos νόμος nom'-os(law) are under a curse.”

The claim built on it is simple and strong. Paul says that those who live by the works of the law are cursed, and so to go back to the law and keep its commandments is to walk back under a curse. Whatever else one thinks about the Torah, the claim says, one ought to be afraid of it.

If this were what Paul meant, it would be hard to argue with, since no one wants to fall under a curse. So we will read the verse, and not only the first half, as it is usually quoted, but the whole sentence Paul wrote:

Galatians 3:10 For as many as are of the works of nomos(law) are under a curse; for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the biblion βιβλίον bib-lee'-on(book) of the nomos(law), to perform them."

The verse has a first half and a second half, and the claim quotes only the first.

A Note on the Board

Imagine a teacher who walks into a classroom on Monday morning and writes on the board: “Some of you have detention this afternoon. For the rule says: whoever does not hand in the homework gets detention.”

No student in that room is confused about who has detention. Those who handed in their homework do not settle in for a long afternoon. The second sentence explains the first, and “some of you” means those who did not hand it in. No one would read the board and conclude that handing in homework earns detention, for that would turn the teacher’s own rule upside down.

Galatians 3:10 is built in exactly the same way. The opening clause says that some people are under a curse. Then comes “for it is written,” and a rule that explains who they are.

The Second Half First

We begin, then, where Paul’s explanation lies, with the second half. When Paul says “for it is written,” he is quoting the Torah, Deuteronomy 27:26. It is the last of a long list of curses to which Moses told the people to say “Amen” as they entered the land.

Deuteronomy 27:26 Cursed is he who does not establish the words of this Torah to do them. And all the people shall say, "Amen."

The Hebrew is arur asher lo yakim אָרוּר אֲשֶׁר לֹא־יָקִים aw-rar', “cursed is the one who does not establish.” The small word lo means “not.” The curse does not rest on the one who establishes the words of the Torah by doing them. It rests on the one who does not.

The Greek of Galatians says the same. Paul writes ouk emmenei οὐκ ἐμμένει em-men'-o, “does not remain,” or, as the YLV puts it, “does not abide by.” To remain in something is to stay inside it and keep living there. The curse falls on the person who does not stay in what is written.

The second half of the verse is therefore perfectly clear. The curse falls not on those who do the Torah, but on those who do not do it.

Then Who Is the First Half About?

Return now to the first half: “as many as are of the works of nomos(law).” The Greek is hosoi ex ergon ἔργον er'-gon nomou ὅσοι ἐξ ἔργων νόμου nom'-os, literally “as many as are out of works of law.”

The claim takes these people to be those who keep the Torah. Read the whole verse that way, however, and it turns against itself. The first half would say that the one who keeps the Torah is under a curse, and the second half, quoting Moses, would say that the one who does not keep it is under a curse. The verse would rest one sentence on its exact opposite.

Paul did not write like that, and neither does anyone who writes with care. When a second half begins with “for it is written,” it gives the reason for the first half. It does not contradict it.

For the verse to hold together, “as many as are of the works of nomos(law)” must be people who are not in fact remaining in the Torah. They put forward Torah works as the ground on which they would be justified, while they themselves do not live by what the Torah says. Then both halves point to the same people, and the curse of Deuteronomy 27:26 lands exactly where Moses put it.

This is not a convenient guess, for Paul tells us who these people were at the end of the same letter:

Galatians 6:13 For those who are circumcised do not even keep the nomos(law) themselves, but they desire to have you circumcised so that they may boast in your sarx σάρξ sarx(flesh).

Here they are. The very men who were demanding circumcision from the Galatian believers did not keep the Torah themselves, and they wanted the Galatians’ flesh as something to boast about. They held up a work of the Torah as a requirement while they were not remaining in the Torah. These are the people Paul means by “as many as are of the works of nomos(law),” and they are the ones under the curse of Deuteronomy 27:26.

The Same Phrase Earlier in the Letter

Paul had already used the phrase “works of nomos(law)” in the chapter before, and he used it in the same sense.

Galatians 2:16 yet knowing that a man is not justified by the works of nomos(law) but through the faith of Yeshua Messiah, even we have believed in Messiah Yeshua, so that we may be justified by the faith of Messiah and not by the works of nomos(law); since by the works of nomos(law) no sarx(flesh) will be justified.

The word justified runs all through this one verse. A man is not justified by works of nomos; we believed so that we might be justified by faith; by works of nomos no flesh will be justified. Each time Paul says “works of nomos(law)” here, he is speaking of what a person puts forward in order to be justified. He is not speaking of a justified person keeping the Torah.

That is the very question with which Chapter 1 of this book began. Justification is by grace, through faith in the Messiah. Whoever puts forward Torah works as the basis for being made righteous has left that foundation, and Paul says that such people, as it turned out, were not even keeping the Torah themselves.

Two Ways to Read One Verse

When the two readings are laid side by side, the difference is plain.

The common reading has to leave that last question unanswered. It never says who these people are, because anyone who reads Galatians to the end finds them, and they are not keepers of the Torah.

Read as it stands, the verse says what the teacher’s board said. Some are under a curse, and they are the ones who do not remain in what is written. Moses said it, he commanded all the people to say “Amen,” and Paul quoted it.

Paul does not stop at verse 10. In the next two verses he sets two more texts of Scripture side by side, one from Habakkuk and one from Leviticus, and those verses have often been read as though Paul were throwing the second one away. Read with care, they also show what the Messiah actually redeemed us from.