Paul remembers the joy the Galatians once had when they received the gospel and him, and he asks where it has gone. They had counted themselves blessed. Now, under the influence of other teachers, that joy and warmth had faded.

Matthew Henry captures the force of the question: "You once thought yourselves happy in receiving the gospel; have you now reason to think otherwise?" Barnes reads the words less as a question and more as a cry of memory: "What blessedness you had then! How happy was that moment!" Either way, Paul wants them to remember what the gospel first did for them.

No answer from the Galatians is recorded. Paul answers with his own testimony of how deep their love had been: "if it had been possible, ye would have plucked out your own eyes, and have given them to me." He follows with another question, "Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?" (Galatians 4:16), and then exposes the teachers who "zealously affect you, but not well" (Galatians 4:17).

"Blessedness" is the Greek makarismos, which Thayer defines as a declaration of blessedness, calling someone blessed. Paul uses the same word for the blessedness David describes of the forgiven man (Romans 4:6). The Textus Receptus behind the KJV reads tis oun ēn, "what then was," while other Greek editions read pou, "where." Gill explains the eyes saying as an expression of the deepest love, giving up something "than which nothing is dearer, or more useful to a man."

The gospel brings real joy. When the Galatians first heard of Christ crucified, they were glad, and they loved the messenger who brought it. Gill says they "were happy persons while under the ministry of the apostle." Losing their grip on grace also meant losing that joy and that love.

Paul does not scold them for losing their feelings. He points them back to the source. The blessedness came from the gospel of grace, and it can return as they return to it. His goal is not their affection for him but "until Christ be formed in you" (Galatians 4:19).