FREE WOMAN

A woman who is not in slavery. This term is used with reference to Abraham’s wife Sarah and “the Jerusalem above.” From the time that Jehovah God liberated the Israelites from Egyptian bondage and gave them the Law at Mount Sinai till the termination of the Law covenant in 33 C.E., Jehovah treated the nation of Israel as a secondary wife. (Jer 3:14; 31:31, 32) However, the Law did not give the nation of Israel the status of a free woman, for it showed the Israelites up as under subjection to sin, hence slaves. Most appropriately, therefore, Paul compared the enslaved Jerusalem of his day with the servant girl Hagar, Abraham’s concubine, and Jerusalem’s “children,” or citizens, with Hagar’s son Ishmael. In contrast, God’s original wife, the Jerusalem above, has, like Sarah, always been a free woman, and her children are likewise free. To become a free child of the Jerusalem above, having “her freedom,” it is necessary to be set free by the Son of God from the bondage of sin.​—Ga 4:22–5:1 and ftn on 5:1; Joh 8:34-36.