Paul now gives an example of the way the Galatians are becoming slaves all over again, namely, their strict observance of all kinds of celebrations. The verb translated pay special attention to contains the elements of observing or keeping something religiously, or scrupulously observing something to the minutest detail. The other element that Paul obviously has in mind is that the Galatians are doing all these things because of their belief that it is through these observances they can be reconciled to God. Pay special attention to may be expressed in some languages as “you observe as being very important,” “you have religious festivals on,” or “you count as part of your worship to God.”

The expression days, months, seasons, and years probably refers to the Jewish system of religious feasts, since it is the Judaizers who are the strong opponents of Paul in Galatia. If this is so, days could refer to the sabbaths, and other feasts celebrated only for a day; months to the monthly celebrations (for example new moons, as in Num 10.10); seasons to the annual festivals which were not limited to a single day, for example Passover, Tabernacles, et cetera. (see 2 Chr 8.13); and years to the New Year celebrations, the year of Jubilee, or perhaps the Sabbatical year. One cannot be very sure as to the contents of these terms, but, taken together, they simply refer to the total system of celebrations observed by the Jews at that time.

There is little or no difficulty involved in an expression such as days, since all languages have some means of expressing such a time unit. The term for months is often simply equivalent to “moons,” and seasons may be rendered as “special times during the year.” Words for years are often expressed in somewhat idiomatic forms, for example, “when the rains come back,” “the seasons of the sun,” or “tying up the sun” (an expression in the Quechua languages of South America in which special strings, called “khipus,” were used as means of counting the years through tying particular types of knots).

Paul does not suggest that the observance of these feasts is bad in itself; the implication of what he says is that it is wrong to regard the observance of these feasts in a legalistic manner, that is, in order to win the approval of God.

It is observed by some that it is strange that Paul does not here refer to the practice of circumcision, and the suggestion is made that the Judaizers actually began their campaign among the Galatians with elements of Judaism which were less repulsive and which had affinity with the pagan practices the Galatians were used to. More probably, however, this is no reflection at all on the approach of the Judaizers; it is simply Paul’s approach. He selects those elements in Jewish ritual which have obvious affinities with pagan worship to show that adoption of these and other practices related to the Jewish Law is practically a return to the paganism which they forsook when they accepted the Christian message.

Quoted with permission from Arichea, Daniel C. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on Paul’s Letter to the Galatians. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1976. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .