Tutor

A tutor stands over a minor or a household of minors, exercising authority delegated by the father or master until the appointed time. The umbrella collects two narrow uses: a royal household arrangement in 2 Kings, and Paul's analogy to the law in Galatians.

Tutors in a royal household

When Jehu moves against the house of Ahab, the seventy sons in Samaria are not directly under their father but under appointed officials. "Now Ahab had seventy sons in Samaria. And Jehu wrote letters to the rulers of Samaria, to the elders of Jezreel, and to the tutors [appointed by] Ahab, saying," (2Ki 10:1). The bracketed insertion clarifies that the tutors are Ahab's appointees, set over his sons as guardians of a minor heir's interests.

Tutor as Pauline figure

Paul takes the same household arrangement and turns it into an argument about the heir's status. "But I say that so long as the heir is a juvenile, he differs nothing from a slave though he is lord of all; but is under guardians and stewards until the day appointed of the father." (Gal 4:1-2). The juvenile heir, though legally lord of all, lives under guardians and stewards until the father's appointed day; only then does the heir come into the inheritance in his own right.