Albert Barnes Commentary Galatians 5:7

"Ye were running well; who hindered you that ye should not obey the truth?" — Galatians 5:7 (ASV)

Ye did run well. The Christian life is often represented as a race (see Barnes on 1 Corinthians 9:24; also 1 Corinthians 9:25–26). Paul means here that they began the Christian life with ardour and zeal .

Who did hinder you. The marginal reading is drive you back. The word used here, anakoptw, properly means to beat or drive back. Hence, it means to hinder, check, or retard.

Dr. Doddridge remarks that this is "an Olympic expression, and properly signifies coming across the course while a person is running in it, in such a manner as to jostle, and throw him out of the way."

Paul asks, with emphasis, who it could have been that retarded them in their Christian course. He implies that this could have happened only by their own consent, or that there was really no reason why they should not have continued as they began.

That ye should not obey the truth? The true system of justification by faith in the Redeemer. That you should have turned aside and embraced the dangerous errors regarding the necessity of obeying the laws of Moses.