Acts 7

CHAPTER VII

STEPHEN’S DEFENSE

Acts 7:1

1And the high priest said, Are these things so? On εἰ introducing a direct question see 1:6; ἔχω with an adverb is practically our “to be.” German: Verhalten sich diese Dinge also? But this question is by no means equivalent to the procedure followed in our courts when the judge asks the prisoner whether he pleads guilty or not guilty. Here the prosecution had closed its case, and the high priest Caiaphas who is presiding over the court turns the case over to the defense. We should also say that the question of the high priest was not abrupt but the expected and necessary question, and that neither this nor anything else “broke the evident spell of the angelic look on Stephen’s face.” The radiance continued; and its hushing effect continued until v. 54, when it was dissipated by rage.

Acts 7:2

2And he said, Men, brethren and fathers, hear! Stephen intends to speak at length, hence the command to hear. Ἀδελφοί are all those present, πατέρες the members of the Sanhedrin in particular. The address is dignified, respectful, from the standpoint of one who belonged to the Jewish nation (“brethren”) and was under Jewish authority (“fathers”).

Stephen’s defense has often been underestimated and even criticized. It has been stated that, if it had not been for the impression made by Stephen’s bearing and his eloquence, he would have been called to order after the first few sentences for digressing from the point at issue. Such statements are unwarranted. Why should an address that was not pertinent, or that was faulty in other ways, have so much space allotted to it in Acts? Stephen spoke by direction of the Spirit, in later years Luke recorded his words by the prompting of the Spirit. Such an address must show the marks of the Spirit. It certainly does.

Things were at passion heat, the charge lodged against Stephen was the most heinous crime known to Judaism. If you had been in Stephen’s place, what would you have offered in defense? Stephen begins in a quiet tone and proceeds with studied deliberation. Accused of speaking against Moses, God, the Temple, and the law and customs, he speaks of them in due order and at some length and reveals just how he does speak of these subjects, namely in the closest connection with God’s own Word. Apparently not making a special defense at all or with one syllable referring to his accusers and their false witnesses, he is yet utterly refuting them and making the most effective defense. What could be blasphemous about a man who spoke as reverently and as Biblically as this man did?

Yet into his address Stephen weaves the old disobedience and unbelief of Israel. Joseph is sold by his wicked brothers (v. 9), Moses is scorned (v. 25–28), the very Moses whom God made a deliverer (v. 35), the very Moses who spoke the great Messianic promise about the Prophet like himself (v. 37), and whom the whole nation refused to obey (v. 39, 43). It is thus that the final invective is prepared for a ringing denunciation of Israel’s vicious unbelief as a call to repentance; it is uttered in the very tone and manner of the old prophets. Beginning so calmly, the defense ends so powerfully and turns the tables completely by putting accusers, witnesses, and court itself on the hopeless defense. To date no one has offered to outline a better defense for Stephen.

How did Luke secure this address? It was delivered in public, followed the Scripture story in simple fashion, may have been recorded by the secretaries of the Sanhedrin, was certainly heard by Paul. The one thing to be noted is that the address differs markedly from Luke’s own manner of writing and contains points that were entirely beyond Luke’s knowledge. In other words, Luke could not have invented this defense, or made up this address for Stephen, or developed it from a general report of its contents. Luke had a rather exact report of this address; and this helps to establish the exactness and the reliability of all the briefer addresses he records. The theme of the address is not formulated by Stephen himself but is apparent:

GOD’S GRACE IS MET BY ISRAEL’S DISOBEDIENCE

I.God’s grace manifested in Abraham and the disobedience of the patriarchs. The emphasis is on God.

II.God’s grace manifested in Moses and the disobedience of Israel. The emphasis is strongly on Moses.

III.God’s grace manifested in David and in Solomon. The emphasis is on the Temple.

Conclusion: The present disobedience.

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The God of the glory appeared to our father Abraham, being in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Haran, and said to him, Go out from thy land and from thy kindred and hither! into the land which I will show thee. Then, having gone out of the land of the Chaldeans, he dwelt in Haran.

The first words strike the keynote: “the God of the glory,” (LXX Ps. 29:3). That does not sound like blaspheming God. The genitive is qualitative: the God who is distinguished by the glory, not by glory in general, but by his own specific glory (note the article), the radiant revelation of his divine attributes, of any or of all of them as God permits them to manifest themselves.

It is charged that Stephen misarranged his data when he placed this appearance of God before Abraham’s residence in Haran and when he locates the previous residence of Abraham (which was Ur) in Mesopotamia. But this charge is unwarranted. It rests solely on the claim that Stephen quotes the words of Gen. 12:1. These were, indeed, spoken in Haran, but their utterance there may have been only a repetition of the original command given in Ur. That this supposition is true may be judged from the omission of the phrase “and from thy father’s home,” which omission shows that Stephen is not merely quoting Gen. 12:1, but knows exactly what he is saying. In Gen. 11:31, Terah and his family do not leave Ur of the Chaldees of their own will, for already at that time their final destination is said to be “the land of Canaan.” Why?

Because of the divine revelation. We have the same thought in Gen. 15:7 (see Neh. 9:7): God brought Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldees. To make the measure more than full: Philo and Josephus (Ant. 1, 7, 1) corroborate Stephen. In regard to the location of Ur, Stephen located it where it was.

Stephen spoke before an audience that was thoroughly versed in Scripture and he would have made a frightful impression if his first sentences had contained two palpable errors. His critics in the Sanhedrin would have halted him right then and there if his statements had, indeed, been erroneous.

Acts 7:3

3We have no reason to think that God spoke only to Terah in Gen. 11:31, and not also to Abraham, or that he did speak words that were similar to those he repeated in Gen. 12:1 to Abraham alone. The original word was one that combined a command and a great promise. By obeying the command Abraham displayed his full faith in the promise. Stephen points out the fact that Abraham’s faith began already in Ur. He speaks of Abraham only because he is the father of believers who rose to tremendous prominence in contrast with all his disobedient and unbelieving descendants. Already in Ur, God began to establish with him the covenant that culminated in Christ, the very covenant the accusers and judges of Stephen were rejecting by repudiating Christ and by now bringing Stephen to trial for his abiding in that covenant by obeying and believing in Christ.

John 8:56–59. The address shows its perfect approach by thus beginning with God and Abraham and the promise of the covenant. Were Stephen’s hearers still the sons of Abraham?

Acts 7:4

4Abraham obeyed, left the land of the Chaldees, and went to Haran. He thus set out for the land that God would show him. The reason for his stopping in Haran is now indicated. And thence, after his father died, he caused him to migrate into this land in which you are now dwelling, and he did not give him an inheritance, not a foot’s space. And he promised to give it to him for a permanent possession and to his seed after him, he not having a child.

The residence in Haran was temporary; it continued only until Abraham’s father Terah had died. But here again. Stephen, like Philo, the celebrated Jewish contemporary of Christ, seems to be in conflict with Genesis. Terah is said to have been 70 years old when Abraham was born (Gen. 11:26), and he died in Haran at the age of 205 years (Gen. 11:32). Abraham was 75 years old when he left Haran (Gen. 12:4). Thus 70 + 75 = 145; and 60 years must be added to make the total 205.

Then Stephen would be wrong: Abraham did not leave after his father’s death but 60 years before he died. Philo, the Jewish tradition, and thus Stephen are said to have followed an older report which attempted to save Abraham’s filial piety toward his father. Over against the Samaritan Pentateuch, which makes Terah’s age only 145, the Jewish text must stand that his age was 205. The view that in Stephen’s address “died” refers to a spiritual death is without foundation. The solution lies elsewhere. In Gen. 11:26 Terah is said to be seventy years old “and begat Abraham, Nahor, and Haran.” Abraham is mentioned first because of his greater importance and not necessarily because he was born first.

He was the founder of the chosen nation, Nahor was the grandfather of Rebecca, and Haran was the father of Lot. Now Abraham’s son Isaac married the granddaughter of Abraham’s brother Nahor. It is fair to conclude that Nahor was much older than Abraham, i. e., that in Gen. 11:26 the names are not arranged according to ages but according to importance. Aside from the inspiration by which Stephen spoke and Luke wrote, it does seem that in the simple matter of adding a few figures Stephen (Philo, too) would not have made such palpable errors.

From Haran God transferred Abraham (μετοικίζω) to “this land in which you are now dwelling” (static εἰς, and this εἰς is not repeated after the verb as R. 566 thinks), namely Palestine. The emphatic ὑμεῖς intends to connect Stephen’s hearers with God and Abraham and the covenant.

Acts 7:5

5But the remarkable fact was that God gave Abraham no “inheritance” in this land, not as much as “a foot’s space,” on which to plant a foot. The field purchased by Abraham in Gen. 23:9–17 was not a gift of God to him, in fact, was only a burial place. All that Abraham had received from God was the promise that God would give him the land as a permanent holding (εἰςκατάσχεσιν) and to his seed after him—but Abraham had no child. It was all grand and good, but it all required faith, an immense faith on Abraham’s part. Not seeing, he yet believed. In the genitive absolute, “a child not being for him,” the negative οὑ instead of μή is more decisive (R. 1138) as marking the actual fact at that time.

Acts 7:6

6Moreover, God spoke in this way, that his seed will be a foreigner in an alien land, and that they should enslave it and ill-treat it for four hundred years. And the nation to which they shall be slaves I myself will judge, said God; and after these things they shall go forth and shall serve me in this place.

Transitional δέ adds another feature, a statement concerning a matter that taxed Abraham’s faith still more: 400 years would elapse before his descendants would come into possession of the promised land. “In this way,” in this strange manner, did God speak. This is a reference to Gen. 15:13–16. Abraham’s seed was to be a πάροικος, one dwelling beside another without right of citizenship “in an alien land,” one belonging to others. “They shall enslave” Abraham’s seed “and shall ill-treat it,” the plural subject needing no further definition.

Stephen quotes the 400 years mentioned in Genesis while Exodus 12:40 has 430 (Gal. 3:17); Josephus gives both figures. It is best to regard 400 as a round number instead of trying to devise two ways of counting the years. To be enslaved and ill-treated was not a pleasant prospect but an added burden to Abraham’s faith. Yet Canaan afforded no room for a second nation to develop beside the Canaanites; in Egypt there was abundant room and thus also much less danger of contamination by idolatry. God knew what he was doing; we now see it after the event; Abraham could not foresee it and had to rely on faith.

Acts 7:7

7Indirect discourse is never long sustained in the New Testament; so here Stephen turns to the direct and continues his reference to Gen. 15. Not with indifference will God view this treatment of Abraham’s seed in Egypt. He lets his people suffer, but in his justice he always reckons with the oppressors and the persecutors. He did so in the case of these Jews who were spending their time of grace by persecuting the apostles, now Stephen, and presently the entire congregation of believers. Note the emphasis on ἐγώ, both because it is written out and because it is placed after its verb which stresses both. This judgment came upon Egypt in the form of the ten terrible plagues. Δουλεύω is used transitively in v. 6: “to enslave”; intransitively in v. 7: “to be a slave.” The former use is found in the dictionaries.

The indefinite relative ὧἄν (or ἐάν) leaves the guilty nation unnamed. At the time appointed, however, Abraham’s seed (now the plural) shall go forth out of this bondage, out of that foreign land, “and shall serve me in this place.” The last phrase is possibly an allusion to Exod. 3:12, “in this mountain,” but is not a quotation (R., W. P.). Λατρεύω is used with reference to the divine service of worship which all should render while λειτουργέω designates official service. This promise was spoken in Canaan, and “this place” is thus definite.

Acts 7:8

8And he gave him the covenant of circumcision; and thus he begot Isaac and circumcised him on the eighth day; and Isaac, Jacob, and Jacob, the twelve patriarchs.

In addition to the aforementioned promises God gave to Abraham “the covenant of circumcision.” This is almost an appositional genitive but is probably qualitative since circumcision was considered the sign and seal of the covenant, the latter consisting of the promise that Abraham should be the father of many nations (Gen. 17:5). The ordinary word for covenant was συνθήκη, but the LXX translated berith διαθήκη, apparently because it has less of the idea of mutuality even as it is also used in the sense of “testament.” For the covenant was wholly one-sided: God “gave” it to Abraham, and it is always called God’s covenant and never Abraham’s. Here there were not two equals making an agreement; here there was no exchange of this for that. Here there was only a giver and a recipient, only a great blessing and the obligation properly to receive and to use it.

The seal of this covenant was circumcision, περιτομή (from περί and τέμνω, “to cut around”), the cutting off of the foreskin. It was performed by the father on the eighth day (even if this occurred on a Sabbath); today it is performed by the rabbi or by a special officer (mohel). Associated with it was the giving of a name. The religious idea embodied in this act was the placing of the child into and under the covenant with all the blessings, promises, and obligations resulting therefrom. Involved in this is the idea that the child be spiritually renewed as now being in the covenant in that the removal of the foreskin sanctified procreation among the covenant people.

In order to understand why this act was limited to males we must disregard our modern ideas of individualism and of the equality of the sexes and go back to the creation of man and note that Eve was made for Adam. All girls were in the covenant through their fathers, for the covenant line was transmitted only through the men. We may call circumcision an Old Testament “sacrament,” but it was such in a modified sense even as the covenant was altogether promise with the ultimate fulfillment coming in Christ. The circumcision found among other ancients has another significance, that of Mohammedanism being only an imitation of the Jewish rite.

“Thus,” in this covenant, Abraham begot Isaac and circumcised him on the eighth day, and the line of covenant bearers was continued from Isaac through Jacob (not Esau) and then branched out through all of Jacob’s sons who were called the twelve patriarchs as being founders of long lines of descent.

We thus see how Stephen thought of God, how Scripturally he connected him with Abraham and the chosen nation to which all the Jews belonged by virtue of the old covenant and its seal. What a hopeless undertaking to prove that Stephen was a blasphemer of God (6:11)! Where in the Sanhedrin itself was there a man who could honor the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob more?

Acts 7:9

9When Stephen sketches the story of Joseph he does it as one who is still speaking of God, and he adds how God fulfilled the promise to Abraham (v. 6, 7) by raising up a nation from Abraham’s seed and finally establishing it in Canaan. Another feature is interwoven with this: it was God who made Joseph the savior of the patriarchs and did this despite their hatred of their brother. Joseph thus appears as a type of the eternal Savior Jesus. Such a reading of Israel’s patriarchal history glorifies God by a true spiritual insight and makes this section a genuine link in the historical apology of Stephen. And the patriarchs, having envied Joseph, sold him into Egypt. And God was with him and took him out of all his tribulations and gave him grace and wisdom before Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and established him as governor over Egypt and his whole house.

Here there is the first defection from the covenant: the patriarchs were filled with envy toward one of their number, the aorist participle stating only the historical fact. But God used this evil unto good, yea, unto good for the very ones who perpetrated it. In this way Stephen thought of God. In ἀπέδοντο the preposition implies the sale; compare 5:8. The patriarchs duly gave from themselves (middle) their brother in the bargain in which they were duly paid. They got rid of Joseph; so the envious Jews (Matt. 27:18; Mark 15:10) got rid of Jesus. Joseph was sold into Egyptian slavery.

Acts 7:10

10“And God was with him.” In this significant flash Stephen emphasizes the contrast between God and the wicked patriarchs. What God did with Jesus was also the very opposite of what the Jews did; Peter drove this home in 4:10–12; 5:30, 31. God was with Joseph in a most effective manner: he took him out of all his afflictions (θλῖψις, from the verb that means to press or compress); he gave him χάρις, undeserved divine favor, and wisdom before Pharaoh for interpreting the king’s dreams, etc.; and thus he established him (set him down) as governor over Egypt and the whole house of the king: “governor” in the sense of grand vizier, prime minister, second only to the king himself; over his whole house like the Frankish Major Domus. He raised him from a slave to a vice-king. Pharaoh is the title of all Egyptians kings, per-ʿo = “great house.” God is still the subject of “established” and not Pharaoh (our versions), which translation is not necessitated by “his” (Pharaoh’s) house, at least not in the Greek. Stephen is reciting all that God did by nullifying what the patriarchs had done and by working out his plans for Abraham’s seed.

Acts 7:11

11Moreover, there came a famine over the whole Egypt and Canaan and great tribulation; and the fathers were not finding provisions. But Jacob, on hearing that there was grain in Egypt, sent out our fathers the first time. And at the second time Joseph was made known to his brothers, and Joseph’s family became manifest to Pharaoh. And Joseph, sending, called to him Jacob, his father, and all his kindred, in all seventy-five souls. And Jacob came down into Egypt, and he himself came to an end and our fathers; and they were transferred to Shechem and deposited in the tomb which Abraham bought for a price of silver from the sons of Emmor in Shechem.

The story is continued with δέ which adds the great chapter on Joseph, the deliverer, and on the faith of the patriarchs in Egypt. “There came a famine” reports the fact; “they were not finding” describes the situation. Being herdsmen who had numerous flocks, this famine made their situation trying, indeed.

Acts 7:12

12Egypt was the great wheat country of the world, in later times the granary of Rome (Acts 27:38). Why Egypt had wheat throughout the seven years of famine is not stated, but it was due to Joseph. Verbs of perception have the complementary participle in the accusative when this refers to what is perceived, hence ὄντα after ἀκοίσας (B.-D. 416, 1); another explanation is that of indirect discourse, the participle retaining the tense of the direct (R., W. P.). The diminutive σιτίον is rare. Grain was all that the fathers secured on the first journey to Egypt.

Acts 7:13

13But on the second journey Joseph was made known to his brothers, or, taking the passive in the middle sense, made himself known to them (B.-D. 191, 2). Καί adds the effect with which Stephen is here concerned, namely that Joseph’s γένος or family became manifest to Pharaoh, i. e., he now knew all about it. In Gen. 41:12, Joseph was introduced as a Hebrew, but now Pharaoh learns much more. Note that “Joseph” is repeated because of the importance and the dignity in his name.

Acts 7:14

14It was this knowledge, brought to Pharaoh, that enabled Joseph to transfer his father and his entire relationship from Canaan to Egypt and to take them out of the famine-stricken land to one that was well supplied with food, with one of the family serving as vice-ruler. But this move was a fulfillment of the word spoken to Abraham in v. 6. Here in Egypt God intended to let Jacob’s family grow into a nation. On ἐν used with figures see R. 589: “amounting to,” or “in all.” Winer called this construction Hebraistic, but the papyri have this construction in all its varieties. In Gen. 46:27; Exod. 1:5; Deut. 10:22, the number of “souls” (persons, as in 2:41, which certainly included every child) is only seventy, while in the first two of these passages the LXX has seventy-five. This is a mere matter of counting.

The descendants of Jacob that went to Egypt were sixty-six in number (Gen. 46:26), but counting Joseph and his two sons and Jacob himself (Gen. 46:27), the number is seventy. In the LXX all the sons of Joseph whom he got in Egypt were counted, “nine souls,” which, with the sixty-six, made seventy-five. Various other ways of counting are suggested in order to explain this number; the one indicated is correct.

Acts 7:15

15Thus Jacob completed his life (τελευτάω) in Egypt, both he and the fathers, including Joseph—far from the land of promise.

Acts 7:16

16Yet we see their faith in the promise. They only sojourned in Egypt, their real home was Canaan, and so they were all eventually buried there. Jacob was at once buried in Abraham’s tomb Machpelah in Hebron. Read about his grand funeral in Gen. 50:1–13. Stephen is brief and speaks only of the fathers and states that their bodies were eventually transferred to Shechem. We know this only in regard to Joseph, for we learn that his body was embalmed (Gen. 50:26) and, according to the oath he had exacted from the children of Israel, was buried in Shechem after the Exodus (Josh. 24:32).

The Old Testament reports nothing in regard to the brothers of Joseph. It is Stephen who here tells us that they, too, were buried in Shechem together with Joseph. Jewish tradition, no doubt, preserved this information, and there is no reason for doubting it.

There is a difficulty in the statement that Abraham bought the tomb in Shechem from the sons of Emmor in Shechem. In 33:19, etc., it is Jacob who buys a piece of ground from these owners in order to erect an altar in that locality. Two solutions are offered. Perhaps some scribe wrote “Abraham” instead of “Jacob” in this passage; many are satisfied with this solution. Yet in Gen. 12:6 Abraham is in Shechem long before Jacob was there; and it is not at all improbable that Abraham made the original purchase, but after his departure from this place the land was again occupied by its original owners until Jacob repurchased it as Gen. 33:19 reports. “Sons of Emmor” are the tribe; the term is like “sons of Israel.”

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Acts 7:17

17We come to the second part of Stephen’s defense. The emphasis on God continues; but now Stephen refutes the charge that he is blaspheming the law and Moses, the lawgiver. Most emphatically he acknowledges that both were sent by God. Yet Stephen tells this part of the history so as to bring out all of the old opposition to Moses and to the law and thus to God himself, an opposition that finally culminated in the rejection of God’s Anointed. Thus the faith of Abraham waned; yea, the faith of the fathers suffered an ominous decline.

Now as there was drawing nigh the time of the promise which God communicated to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt until there arose a different king over Egypt who did not know Joseph. This one, by using fraud on our race, ill-treated our fathers so that he was causing their babes to be exposed that they might not go on living.

The time set for the fulfillment of the promise as it had been told to Abraham (v. 7) was now drawing near; ἧς is attracted from ἥν. The aorists report the fact of the great increase of the Israelites in Egypt. It was this increase that worried the new king.

Acts 7:18

18The statement that this king “arose” and that he knew nothing about Joseph points to a dynastic change in Egypt. “The previous dynasty had been that of the Hyksos; the new king was Ahmes who drove out the Hyksos.” Knobel. The statement implies that until the time of the rule of this king the Israelites had flourished unmolested; but now their troubles began. Until this time the memory of Joseph and of all that he had done for Egypt brought favor to the Israelites; but this king neither knew nor cared for Joseph, he looked at the Israelites with cold, political eyes and saw that, if they continued to increase, their power would endanger the kingdom.

Acts 7:19

19Thus the affliction began. The fraud used on the Israelites was the ill-treatment that the king ordered their babes to be exposed in order to cause them to die. This fraud broke the old agreements and promises originally made to the Israelites. Stephen contents himself with mentioning only the worst part of the ill-treatment visited upon the Israelites, the destruction of their male children. As long as “the fathers” is regarded as the subject of τοῦποιεῖν, there will be wavering between the consecutive (A. V.) and the final (R.

V.) idea of this infinitive. But when no new subject is expressed with an infinitive, its subject is the subject of the main verb, here οὗτος, the new king. Through his decrees this Pharaoh made those babes ἔκθετα (verbal adjective from ἐκτίθημι), “exposed ones,” exposed to die; he did this regularly, present infinitive, by enforcing his decrees. The infinitive is consecutive. But εἰςτό with its present infinitive expresses purpose: “for them not to go on living,” litotes, “for them to die.”

Acts 7:20

20This was the terrible situation obtaining when Moses was born. At which season there was born Moses, and he was fair unto God; who was nourished for three months in his father’s house. But having been exposed, the daughter of Pharaoh took him up for herself and raised him up for her own son.

Stephen intimates that God is with Moses from the very beginning. His birth occurred at this terrible season, καιρός, a period that is marked by what distinguishes it. “Fair or beautiful to God” is not a Hebraistic superlative (R. 671); the dative is ethical and has a distinct personal flavor (R. 537). Here and in Heb. 11:23 ἀστεῖος is taken from the LXX translation of Exod. 2:2; it really means “citified” but is used widely in the sense of refined beauty. Note how Stephen connects Moses with God even when Moses was still a babe. The Greek loves to construct his sentences in an unbroken chain; hence these relatives: “at which season”—“who was nourished.” For three months only could the babe be kept at home.

Acts 7:21

21Finally he had to be exposed to death; but he was saved in a most remarkable way and was reared as the son of Pharaoh’s own daughter who, as Josephus, Ant. 2, 9, 7 reports, called him παῖςμορφῇθεῖος, “a lad divine in form.” Both verbs are middle: “she took him up for herself,” i. e., appropriated him, and “nourished him up for herself for her own son,” i. e., adopted him. R., W. P., following Vincent, thinks that the idea of adoption is expressed by the first verb, but that is evidently not the case, for then the second verb and its phrase would be superfluous. Pharaoh’s daughter first appropriated the baby and eventually adopted him as her own son. Moses became a member of Pharaoh’s own family.

This is one of the many instances in which God seems to play with his enemies: Pharaoh’s own daughter saves, adopts, rears, educates God’s great deliverer of his own enslaved people. Ah, if she could have known what God was having her do! And here we have another type of Jesus who also nearly perished as a babe, who also was saved even in Egypt, and who also became a deliverer, yet one who was far greater than his type Moses. This typical feature in the child Moses could scarcely, however, have been known to Stephen.

Sometimes it is thought that the act of taking up the child as here described was equivalent to that of the Oriental father who, on the birth of a child, took it up in his arms in order to signify that he acknowledged and intended to rear it, whereas, if he had refused to do this, the child would have been rejected by him and left to perish. It is certainly stretching the point to present Pharaoh’s daughter as thinking of herself as performing such a paternal act.

Acts 7:22

22And Moses was educated with all the wisdom of the Egyptians; and he was mighty in his words and deeds. And when a time of forty years was being filled for him, it came into his heart to visit his brethren, the sons of Israel. And on seeing one being wronged, he defended and exacted vengeance for the one being abused by smiting the Egyptian. Now he was supposing that his brethren were understanding that God through his hand was giving salvation to them; but they did not understand. And on the following day he appeared to them while fighting and tried to reconcile them for peace by saying, Men, you are brethren! Why are you wronging each other?

But the one wronging his neighbor thrust him away from himself, saying: Who established thee as a ruler and judge over us? Thou, dost thou want to make away with me the way thou didst make away yesterday with the Egyptian? And Moses fled at this word and became a foreigner in the land of Midian where he begot two sons.

Even the mighty man Moses, having arrived at full manhood and being a man of power in every way, was an utter failure without God. No divine work can be done without God. Stephen tells the story at length in order to follow it with the glorious story of what Moses accomplished for Israel when God was with him. Was there any man present who could speak more Scripturally about Moses and show more clearly how God brought the Old Testament mediator to his great office?

The priestly cast of the Egyptians was famed for its knowledge of science, mathematics, astronomy, and medicine, and constituted the nobility about Pharaoh. Compare 1 Kings 4:30. In all their wisdom was Moses educated; with abstract nouns “every” and “all” flow together, hence πάσῃσοφίᾳ “all (every) wisdom.” And this magnificent education and training were not wasted; they produced a man who was powerful in word and deed, mightily equipped for leadership. Note the similar expression in regard to Jesus in Luke 24:19. Power is referred to and not mere readiness of tongue which explains Exod. 4:10, 15.

Acts 7:23

23Moses, too, felt this urge of leadership. He was now reaching the age of forty or full maturity. Men lived longer in those days, and we must reckon accordingly. So although he was without a call from God, with the thought just arising in his own heart, as Stephen carefully states, he proceeded to see for himself, with his own eyes, “his brethren, the sons of Israel,” as to what he might do for them.

It is difficult to render the Greek idioms into acceptable English. Thus the clause: “when there was being filled up for him a forty years’ time” = when he was about forty years of age. A thought or idea that arises in the heart is in Hebrew said “to go up upon the heart.” To think about its going up “out of the lower deeps of one’s nature” is a misunderstanding; for in Isa. 65:17, and Jer. 3:16 the expression is used in a good sense with regard to the memory of former glories; and in 1 Cor. 2:9 it is used negatively with regard to great glories. With reference to Moses the expression is not used in a bad sense but indictes only that the idea was his own conception. “To look for one’s self upon” = to visit with the connotation of help. It is thus used with reference to God in Luke 1:68, 78; 7:16; Heb. 2:6; also with reference to judicial visitation (C.-K. 999).

Here the act of Moses is entirely beneficent. For he intends to look upon “his brethren,” his own blood and kin, “the sons of Israel,” the heirs of God’s covenant. Both terms are highly significant. Although he was reared and had grown to manhood in the pagan court, Moses had not become an Egyptian in heart and soul. These enslaved Israelites were his real brethren, he was one of them. Yes, one of them as “the sons of Israel,” not merely nationally but spiritually. Moses had not lost his faith, he shared Israel’s hopes and Israel’s spirit. The fact that they were nothing but slaves did not alienate him. One wonders at the man. How had he escaped all the idolatry in the midst of which he had been reared? How had the faith of Israel been put into his heart and been preserved there?

Acts 7:24

24Living at the capital and at the king’s court, Moses must have gone some distance in order to see the Israelites in their oppression as slaves. Only two striking instances of what he found are preserved. He saw an Israelite being wronged by an Egyptian in some shameful way, a taskmaster lashing the defenseless slave. Not only did Moses come to the Israelite’s defense, but he also exacted vengeance for the oppressed by smiting the Egyptian, and that fatally. In Luke 18:7 we find ποιεῖνἐκδίκησιν used in the sense of to do what the law of right exacts, hence to avenge; see the verb alone in Luke 18:3. We at once see the love and the loyalty of Moses to his brethren, but also note that his tremendous power and energy are badly misdirected.

He is by no means as yet ready for the great task of which he is dreaming. He acts without a call or direction from God.

Acts 7:25

25A parenthetical δέ indicates his thought and his motive: “Now he was supposing that his brethren were understanding that God through his hand was giving salvation to them.” Note the durative tenses. Νομίζω has the accusative with the infinitive, and the indirect discourse retains the present tense of the direct: “God through my hand is giving,” etc. Note that “God” and “through his hand” are placed close together. The astonishing thing is that Moses already feels himself to be the deliverer of his people, an instrument of God. “Through his hand” = through his agency. We are unable to see how Moses arrived at this idea concerning himself. He even supposed that his brethren were understanding this, and that, when the one he had rescued would tell about the mighty Moses who delivered him, they would all look up to him. Much is veiled here.

It seems as though Moses had left the Egyptian court for good in order to become the great deliverer (σωτήρ) of his own people. But he was sadly mistaken: his people understood nothing of the sort.

Acts 7:26

26This truth was brought home to Moses on the very next day. “He appeared,” suddenly stood beside two of them who were engaged in fighting (present participle) and tried to compose them (conative imperfect) for peace by appealing to them that as brethren they ought not to wrong each other. In the question ἱνατί asks “to what purpose” they were doing each other wrong. The rebuke was perfectly proper and mild, Moses did not even take sides. What, indeed, could either gain by hurting the other?

27, 28) Then Moses had his eyes opened. The one who was wronging the other, that very one, thrust Moses away with a sharp question: “Who established thee as ruler and judge over us?” And with the accusing question: “Certainly thou dost not want to make away with me what way thou didst make away yesterday with the Egyptian?” This is the force of the question with μή which strongly demands a negative answer. In v. 21 the aorist ἀναιρέω is used in its neutral sense, simply, “to take up”; here, as in 2:23 and so often, it is used in its evil sense, “to make away with,” “to murder.” Note how μεσύ are abutted, and the emphasis is on “thou”; ὃντρόπον, the adverbial accusative, has the antecedent drawn to the relative. These questions must have come as a shock to Moses. The castle Moses had erected out of his own suppositions came down about his head. He was usurping the place of “ruler and judge over his brethren.” God had not appointed him.

His whole proceeding was wrong. His own brethren considered his deed of yesterday plain murder—and it was that. They thrust him away.

Pharaoh also heard of it and sought to bring Moses to account. When, in Heb. 11:27, Moses is said to have left Egypt “by faith, not fearing the wrath of the king,” this means that the did not seek to remain in Egypt, to placate the king’s wrath, who, of course, was more wrathful than ever because Moses left; but now he places both his people and their deliverance as well as himself entirely into God’s hands. This was a mighty act of faith.

But Stephen has a purpose in bringing out so pointedly the fact that Moses’ own people did not understand, and that the very Israelite who was in the wrong thrust Moses away. Stephen returns to this in v. 35. So far is he from blaspheming Moses that he views Moses as a type of Christ. Both were denied, both were thrust away by Israel, and God made both the deliverers of Israel but he made Christ such in a far higher sense.

Acts 7:29

29Ἐντῷλόγῳ, “in connection with that word” (which B.-D. 219, 2, however, makes wegen, and R. 589 the occasion, the preposition being used in its original sense) “Moses fled.” He became “a foreigner” (πάροικος as in v. 6) in Midian; but despite his long stay in Midian he did not become a Midianite. During those forty long years he remained a true Israelite and waited for his people’s promised liberation (v. 6). The fact that he married and “begat two sons” in Midian makes his remaining a foreigner in the land only the more significant.

The plans of Moses had failed swiftly, utterly; God’s plans were moving with perfect success. Moses needed not only the forty years of Egyptian schooling but forty more of desert schooling in order to make him the man God wanted.

Acts 7:30

30And forty years having been fulfilled, there appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai an angel in a flame of fire of a thornbush. And Moses, on seeing it, wondered at the sight; but as he came near to observe it, there came the Lord’s voice: I, the God of thy fathers, the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob! And become trembling, Moses dared not observe. And the Lord said to him: Loose the sandal of thy feet, for the place where thou standest is holy ground. Seeing, I saw the ill-treatment of my people in Egypt, and their groaning I heard; and I came down to take them out for myself. And now hither! I will send thee to Egypt.

The life of Moses may be divided into three periods of forty years each. While he was pasturing his flock in the wilderness of Mount Sinai he suddenly saw a thornbush on fire which was burning intensely but not burning to ashes. On “Mount Sinai” see R. 760. Ἐνφλογὶπυρὸςβάτου is exceedingly compact, the nouns without articles being stressed in their own meaning: “in a thornbush’s fire flame,” the two genitives being descriptive (R., W. P.). Since βάτος is any thornbush, it is impossible to determine its variety botanically, and quite unnecessary.

The bush is symbolical of Israel, which, too, was a lowly bush and not a towering tree like the Egyptians. The flame of fire in the bush symbolizes Israel’s fiery affliction which, although it was due to the Egyptians, had Jehovah back of it. The fire burned with hot flame but did not consume the bush; so Israel’s affliction burned but did not destroy.

The ἄγγελος here mentioned is called both Yahweh and Elohim and is thus God himself. This is the Maleach Yahweh who is mentioned again and again in the Old Testament but never in the New; compare Gen. 22:11, etc., and 48:15, etc. In order to determine with exactness who is referred to all the passages that treat of him must be combined and compared. Thus he will appear as the angelus increatus and never as a created angel although some contend for the latter. Other angels are always representatives of a class, this angel is always the specific revelation and personification of God himself.

Regarding the identity of this Maleach with Yahweh-Elohim there is not the slightest doubt. The question whether we may say more, namely that this Maleach is the Old Testament appearance of the Son, the Logos, and thus an anticipation of the Incarnation, is answered by two observations: 1) In some passages this Maleach speaks and acts like God and is yet distinguished as a separate person; 2) All his activity is the mediation of salvation so that Malachi 3:1 calls him “the Angel of the Covenant.” When this is compared with the New Testament revelation of the Logos and of his Incarnation, the deduction is sound that the great Maleach of the Old Testament was, indeed, this same Logos. When C.-K. will not make this deduction because he thinks that the New Testament revelation in Christ was wholly new (Gal. 3:19; Heb. 2:2), he is answered by John’s Prolog, by John 8:56–58, by Heb. 3:1, “the Apostle” Christ Jesus, and by every similar passage. In this as in many other respects the Arian inclinations of von Hofmann have influenced some exegetes and theologians. When C.-K. finally introduces the apocalyptic Jewish literature, we see the source of much of the confusion regarding the Old Testament manifestations of God and must reply that these revelations will never be seen in their clear reality when they are viewed through the medium of such Jewish literature and will be lost altogether when it is thought that even these Jewish apocalyptic ideas originated in Persian and other pagan sources.

Acts 7:31

31Attracted by this astounding phenomenon, Moses was in the act of approaching it in order to inspect it more closely when “the Lord’s voice” rang out from the burning thornbush. The ὅραμα or “sight” was the strange fact that a bush should be on fire here, where there was no one to set it on fire. Vastly stranger it was that it should burn and burn without consuming itself. This was not an ordinary fire but a miracle of God. Moses saw only this flaming fire from which the voice spoke and no form of any kind in the fire. The voice alone indicated that the Lord was revealing himself by means of this fire.

Acts 7:32

32The Lord at once makes himself known by proclaiming his full covenant name: “I, the God,” etc. From “the fathers” God goes back to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and thus strongly expresses the truth that this appearance has a connection with his great covenant. He appears here on Sinai because here he will renew and advance his covenant with the children of Israel when Moses, through God’s mighty hand, has freed them from Pharaoh and brought them to this place. No wonder that Moses was trembling and dared not raise his eyes to look at those flames. Behold, this is how Stephen thinks of God and of Moses!

Acts 7:33

33The order to remove “the sandal of thy feet,” a distributive singular, is to induce Moses to realize fully that he is standing in the presence of God himself, which makes the entire place “holy ground.” The perfect ἕστηκας is always used in the sense of the present: “thou standest.”

This is an Oriental idea: to remove the sandals in the presence of a superior, to walk in bare feet in any sanctuary. Thus the priests did in the Temple, thus must all who enter Mohammedan mosques do today, thus the Samaritans do on Mt. Gerizim. See how Aaron and his sons were sanctified, Exod. 29:10; Lev. 8:23. Entrance into the mosques, even that on the site of the Temple in Jerusalem, is now compromised. All the author had to do was to put on huge slippers over his shoes. These were furnished at the doors by an attendant, but these slippers were imperative unless one entered in his stocking feet. The keepers of the synagogue of the Samaritans at Nablous did not require this, but their great sacrifice on Mt. Gerizim is another matter.

Acts 7:34

34And now at last Moses receives his divine commission to deliver Israel. God condescends to speak in a human way about his looking down on the ill-treatment of his people in Egypt and hearing their pitiful groaning. The ἰδὼνεἶδον is a reproduction of the Hebrew infinitive absolute after the fashion of the LXX, which emphasizes the verb by means of its participle: “I surely saw”; it is found in the New Testament only in quotations. The Greek is content with the mere past fact, “I saw—heard,” whereas the English requires the time relation of the perfect, “I have seen—have heard.” Thus also we have “I came down” and the infinitive of purpose, the middle from ἐξαιρέω, “to take them out for myself,” i. e., to effect their deliverance (effective aorist). Thus Moses receives his commission: “And now thither!” We must connect the adverb δεῦρο with ἀποστείλω (R. 932): “come, I will send thee,” and the verb means, “send with a commission to execute,” and thus means more than πέμπω although both are generally translated “to send.” Stephen thus exalts Moses.

Acts 7:35

35But he is not merely reciting the Old Testament story of Moses. He has a purpose in his selection. From the divine commission of Moses, Stephen proceeds to what this commission really implied regarding Israel. He reads the Old Testament with the clear, deep insight of Paul. This Moses, whom they denied when they said, Who established thee as a ruler and judge? this one God has commissioned both as ruler and ransomer with the hand of the angel that appeared to him in the thornbush. This one led them out by doing wonders and signs in Egypt and in the Red Sea and in the desert for forty years.

This one is the Moses who said to the sons of Israel, A prophet will God raise up from you out of your brethren, like me. This one is he who came to be in connection with the assembly in the wilderness, in company with the angel who was speaking to him in the mount of Sinai, and (in company with) our fathers; he who received living sayings to give to us; he to whom our fathers did not will to become obedient but thrust him away and were turned in their hearts unto Egypt when they said to Aaron, Make us gods who shall go before us! For this Moses who brought us out of Egyptland, we do not know what happened to him.

The entire passage is one chain: five emphatic “this” terminating in two “he who (to whom).” It is like a grand pyramid, and the capstone is Israel’s idolatrous unbelief.

The trouble lay not with Stephen and his treatment of Moses, it lay with the treatment Moses received from Israel at the beginning and continued to receive, yea, was receiving right now from Stephen’s accusers and judges. Stephen’s defensive is turning into an offensive. Not he is on trial, but his judges are. Stephen, however, is not judging them, he is letting God’s Word, Moses himself, do that just as Jesus did in John 5:45–47. So in the very first place it was “this Moses” whom they denied and repudiated at the beginning as not being a ruler and judge for them, whom in spite of them God made both ruler and vastly more than judge. We have the same verb “denied” that was used with regard to the rejection of Jesus in 3:13.

The aorist participle εἰπόντες refers to the one statement that is requoted from v. 27. Only one man uttered it, but it is rightly attributed to all the Israelites, for their whole history shows that very attitude. This repudiated Moses who was made the old covenant mediator is the very type of Jesus who was also repudiated by the Jews and yet was made the everlasting Mediator.

Although he was repudiated as “ruler and judge” (the two functions always going together in ancient times), God commissioned Moses as “ruler and ransomer” to operate in this vastly higher function with the help and agency (σὺνχειρί, compare the phrase in v. 25) of the angel that appeared (aorist to indicate the one appearance) to him in the thornbush, whose name and identity that angel himself declared (v. 32). Ἄρχων is rather general: “ruler,” prince, author, and the like; here it means the head and leader of the young nation. But λυτρωτής is far superior to “judge.” This title is purposely chosen in order to bring out fully the parallel with Christ who was a “ransomer” in the supreme sense. Although it is rare, the term is made plain by its cognates in the Greek. All of these involve a λύτρον or ransom price of some kind; in Christ’s case the price of his own blood and death. Our word “redeemer” tends to lose this definite sense, “ransomer” retains it. The tendency to reduce this term to “liberator” (the cognate terms similarly) must be resisted.

Moses, too, paid a great price in leading Israel out of its bondage. The burden which often crushed his soul, the fearful sins of this people are indicated in part in the following. The perfect ἀπέσταλκε is not a mistake for the aorist (B.-D. 343, 2), nor is it a perfect in a chain of aorists; it is the vivid perfect in narrative (R. 897), and we may add that it conveys the idea of the permanence of the appointment.

Acts 7:36

36Another “this one,” which emphasizes the previous ones, tells Stephen’s hearers that this repudiated leader accomplished the liberation of Israel. And how did he accomplish this? By all the “wonders and signs” (see 2:19) in Egypt, the Red Sea, and the wilderness “for forty years” (accusative of extent of time). In these many signs connected with Israel’s release Moses again typified Christ.

Acts 7:37

37“This one is the Moses” intensifies all these demonstrations by adding the name “Moses” because of the greatness of what is now predicated of him. He, yes, he it is who prophesied so distinctly about the Christ “to the sons of Israel,” sons and thus heirs of the covenant and the faith of Israel, all of whom ought to be true sons in that covenant and that faith. On the prophecy itself see 3:22, and note that “like me” again and more decidedly than ever makes Moses the type of Jesus, each being a mediator, Jesus being the supreme one.

Acts 7:38

38The fifth “this one” brings out this mediator-ship of Moses which made him the type of the eternal mediator. For in connection with, ἐν, the assembly (ἐκκλησία, see 5:11) of the children of Israel in the wilderness, namely on Mount Sinai, he was in company (μετά) with both the Angel Jehovah who spoke to him on Sinai (v. 30–34) and with our fathers. Note that μετά has two objects: “in company with the angel and our fathers”; to be with both made him the mediator of the old covenant (in this respect surpassing all other prophets) and the great type of Jesus. It conflicts with the line of thought followed by Stephen when Gal. 3:19; Heb. 2:2; Josephus, and “a well-defined Jewish interpretation” concerning angels (plural) in connection with the giving of the law, are introduced; for Stephen carefully refers back to v. 30, etc., to the one ἄγγελος or messenger who was God himself. He is not to be confused with created angels.

A signal feature of this mediatorship is briefly mentioned in the first relative clause: “he who received living sayings to give to us,” received them from God in order to bestow them on us, Stephen regarding himself as one of them. The reference is to the divine law. Since Moses was the medium of its transmission, this law in a signal manner made him the mediator of the old covenant (given to Abraham, v. 8). Δόγια are simply “brief sayings,” here those of the Decalog. Any other use of the word, pagan, Biblical, or ecclesiastical, means no more even when the “oracles of Delphi,” the “Logia” that Papias said Matthew wrote, or the “Logia of Jesus,” extracanonical sayings of Jesus from the Oxyrhynchus papyri, are referred to.

More important is the question as to how Stephen could call the Ten Commandments “living.” That view is too narrow which fails to connect them with the entire old covenant and forgets that this covenant was entirely gospel, God’s grace in the promise of the Messiah and salvation. We have those “living logia” in connection with the new covenant and its fulfilled promises in Christ. The living power of God is in them. They are even “unto life,” Rom. 7:10, 12, 14; Gal. 3:12; but not to the sinner (Gal. 3:21). For him they are only an aid to the gospel in restoring him to life.

Acts 7:39

39Once more, and with another relative, Stephen points his hearers to Moses but now he points to him as once more being rejected by these false “sons of Israel”: “he to whom our fathers did not will to become obedient but thrust him away (significantly repeating the verb from v. 27) and turned in their hearts (in the very center of their being) unto Egypt.” “Did not will” is the very verb Jesus used in Matt. 23:37. There is where the seat of unbelief is always found; and this will is in the heart. Not the bondage in Egypt attracted the Israelites but, as the following shows, the feasts of Egyptian idolatry.

Acts 7:40

40Stephen does not speak only in general terms when he thus charges the fathers with the rejection of Moses at Sinai. With εἰπόντες (aorist as in v. 35) he specifies; the Israelites demanded that Aaron make them an Egyptian idol: “Make us gods!” The enormous guilt of this demand needs no emphasis. The relative clause with the future tense denotes purpose (R. 960): “who shall go before us” on our way back to Egypt. The living God led them out with omnipotent miracles; the dead idols of Egypt, manufactured in the desert by their own hands, are to nullify all this and to lead them back. In the plural “gods” the one true God is denied. The plural is one of category, hence the manufacture of one idol was sufficient.

The excuse for turning from God is the fact that they do not know what has become of “this Moses,” the contemptuous use of οὗτος (R. 697). The relative clause may be concessive: “who (although he) brought us out of Egypt-land”; again it may be derogatory: “this Moses, who (we are sorry to say) brought us,” etc. The subject is a pendent nominative (R. 459) which is often used in popular language. Moses remained on the mountain peak with God for forty days; hence the light and slighting statement: “We do not know what occurred for him,” i. e., what has become of him. He was no longer a concern of theirs. Thus again Moses was repudiated, the covenant cast aside, the faith of Abraham spurned, the omnipotence and the miracles of God regarded as nothing.

Why is Stephen bringing these histories forward so prominently? Because he is preparing for his climax: in their rejection of the mediator Moses these disobedient, unbelieving fathers were the type of Stephen’s present hearers in their still more vicious rejection of the Mediator Jesus.

Acts 7:41

41And they made a calf in those days, and they led up a sacrifice for the idol and went on making merry in connection with the works of their hands.

Right here at Sinai the Israelites staged a regular idol festival. The verb “made a calf” is found only here but is a clear compound. This μόσχος is a ταῦρος, a calf that has grown, but not to full maturity, the bull god Apis of the Egyptians. The writer visited the Tomb of the Bulls which is underground and in the desert. It has a long passageway with chambers on each side, and each chamber contains a granite sarcophagus weighing tons and a lid to correspond. The embalmed, mummified bulls were not there, but the monstrosity of such worship of brutes still stared one in the face.

Stephen mentions the two chief acts: bringing up the burnt sacrifice (θυσία) for the idol as he properly names the bull, and then the continued making merry (imperfect, descriptive), the same verb that occurs in Luke 15:23, in the parable of the Prodigal. They did not only “rejoice in the works of their (own) hands” (our versions), in the idol they had made, but also “made merry,” celebrated a grand feast with dancing, singing, etc., “in connection with the works of their hands,” the idol with all its paraphernalia.

Acts 7:42

42Stephen passes over the rest of the story and mentions only the punitive act of God, his turning from Israel and giving them up to their idolatries, as Amos 5:25, etc., describes it. But God turned and gave them over to serving the host of heaven even as it has been written in the prophets’ book:

Certainly, you did not offer to me slaughter victims and burnt sacrifices

For forty years in the wilderness, House of Israel?

Yea, you took up the tabernacle of Moloch

And the star of the god Rephan,

The figures which you made in order to worship them.

Yea, I will transfer you beyond Babylon.

“God turned” (the verb is here intransitive). When the sinner determines to follow his wicked course, God punishes him by giving him over to his sin and thus uses sin to punish sin. A downward progression results until the effects of sin destroy the sinner, and he is blotted out. Nothing can be worse than to have God turn and let the sinner who has turned from him go on into judgment. “God gave them over to serving the host (army) of heaven,” which is Sabaism, worship of the sun and other heavenly bodies instead of the Lord of hosts. “Gave them over” occurs in the same sense three times in Rom. 1:24, 26, 28, where God speaks of abandoning the heathen to their lusts, three times “like clods on a coffin in a grave” (R. W. P.). Λατρεύειν refers to religious service as in v. 7.

Instead of quoting more from the Pentateuch or alluding to its expressions, Stephen lets the prophet Amos speak for him and uses the regular formula of quotation γέγραπται, “it has been (and thus remains forever) written.” The twelve minor prophets were regarded as one book. The μή in the question in the first two lines of Amos’ words demands a negative answer: Israel did not bring its sacrifices to God during the forty years in the wilderness. What sacrifices were still brought God could not accept. The following lines show that idolatry filled the hearts of the nation. Even circumcision, the sign of the covenant, fell into disuse. The two Hebrew words denote burnt offerings and meat offerings, but the LXX translated them with two words, both of which mean sacrifices slaughtered and burnt. Stephen follows the LXX throughout with but slight change, and since in the next three lines this deviates so far from the Hebrew, it would seem that he spoke Greek and not Aramaic when making his defense.

Amos prophesied between 810 and 783 B. C. against the Northern Kingdom in the time of Jeroboam II, when Uzziah reigned over the Southern Kingdom. When he points out the sin, godlessness, and idolatry of the Israelites of his time, he refers to the Israelites in the desert during the forty years under Moses. Those old idolatries are still going on and are, therefore, the more worthy of punishment. The forty years may be regarded as a round number. They were in reality thirty-eight, yet forty appears in Num. 14:33, and Josh. 5:6. Moreover, the germs of this defection were found already at the start of this period. In “House of Israel” Amos sums up all the generations of Israel since Moses’ time, for this wickedness manifested itself ever anew.

Acts 7:43

43The Hebrew reads as follows:

“Yea, you have borne the tabernacles of your king

And the shrine of your images,

The star of your god which you made to yourselves.

Therefore will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus.

See Delitzsch on the passage in Amos. The thought of Amos is: the king, whose tabernacle, and the images, whose shrine they bore, was a star which they had made their god, an astral divinity. They made images of their star divinity and carried them in a little casket-like temple which was placed on a portable rack (Gestell) of some kind. This method of worship the Israelites copied from the Egyptians among whom sun worship and star worship existed from the earliest times. We need recall only that Ra was originally their supreme god, namely the sun, the prototype of all their kings, who was worshipped also as Osiris and in Apis, the bull. Mentu and Atmu are only the rising and the setting sun, i. e., Ra divided; Phtha and Amon (Amon-Ra) were later advanced to first place as gods.

The oldest translations show how wrong the transpositions of the LXX are. But worst of all, the LXX read the Hebrew word for “your king”: m l k k m (omitting the vowel points) as “Moloch”; and made “Rephan” a god out of the Hebrew kiyun, “shrine,” by misreading two of the unvocalized letters: turning k into r, and y into ph. And a great deal of difficulty has resulted from this infelicitous misreading.

There is no god “Rephan.” The Israelites knew nothing about Moloch during those forty years, and the effort to identify Moloch with Saturn, the one being worshipped by allowing children to burn up in his heated arms, the other said to devour his children, thus making Moloch a star divinity, is misdirected. When Rephan is identified with Satan, this is only another fancy. We may also note that Deut. 4:19 forbids the very type of idolatry to which Amos refers, the worship of sun, moon, stars, and the host of heaven; and Ezek. 20:7, etc., states positively that the Israelites would not relinquish “the idols of Egypt.” All the evidence is in favor of the view that in the wilderness Israel practiced Egyptian and no other idolatry.

The last line is simpler. Amos wrote: “beyond Damascus,” so also the LXX; Stephen substitutes “beyond Babylon” because the prophecy had been fulfilled long ago, the people having been carried so far beyond Damascus as to have been scattered even beyond Babylon. Amos speaks of the Northern Kingdom.

The question that is of moment here is how Stephen, speaking by the Spirit, could retain the faulty and baseless rendering of the LXX, especially the terms “Moloch” and “Rephan”? The answer is: “Because these names are negligible for the purpose Stephen and the Spirit had in hand, the bringing home to Stephen’s hearers their like opposition to God.” Even the LXX left “the star” as a god and an idol. Besides, we have the original Hebrew so that actual error even in so insignificant a matter is obviated.

—————

Acts 7:44

44The third part of the address refutes the charge of blasphemy against the Temple. Stephen briefly reviews the story of the Tabernacle and of the Temple and ends with a quotation from Isaiah that is directed against an overestimation of the Temple. The reply scorns to enter into details, it throws on the screen the Scripture story and view of the Temple as being also Stephen’s view and lets that suffice. The entire bearing of Stephen, as it is reflected in his address, is that of power backed by divine certainty, so that he is in reality not defending himself but rather trying to bring his judges to repentance.

The Tabernacle of the Testimony was for our fathers in the wilderness even as he appointed who spoke to Moses to make it according to the model which he had seen.

Note the contrast between “the tabernacle of your king” (god) in the quotation from Amos and this “Tabernacle of the Testimony,” by which, in connection with which, and in which God testifies to Israel regarding himself and regarding all his covenant grace. The LXX thus translates the Hebrew “tabernacle of coming together,” i. e., where God meets his people and reveals himself. This is not literal but substantial correctness so that Stephen adopts the expression. This was the true tabernacle for the fathers, but all that Stephen can say about it is that Moses made it after the heavenly pattern and that thus the fathers had it. What more could he say when they carried that idol tabernacle with them? “It was for the fathers” is the idiom for “the fathers had it.”

Stephen points to its divine origin when he says that he who spoke to Moses (God) ordered him to make it according to the model which he had seen while he was with God on the mountain. The very design was God’s so as to connect this Tabernacle entirely with God. Τύπος is “blow,” then the mark made by a blow, the imprint, and thus the design, pattern, or model. Stephen tacitly points out the fact that Israel did not always have the Temple which the Jews so fanatically adored at the present; a long time elapsed before they ever thought of a temple—surely a sobering thought.

Acts 7:45

45Which our fathers, having received in turn, brought in in company with Joshua, in connection with the permanent possession of the nations which God pushed out before the face of our fathers until the days of David who found favor before God and asked for himself to find a habitation for the God of Jacob.

In the flexible Greek fashion all that Stephen says about the Tabernacle and the Temple, v. 44–50, is one grand sentence. The participle “having received in turn” is to be construed with “brought in in company with (μετά) Joshua.” The Tabernacle was delivered to them by Moses when Joshua brought the fathers into Canaan. This was “in connection with the permanent possession (κατάσχεσις as in v. 5) of the nations,” the Canaanite tribes, “whom God pushed out,” etc. The genitive “of the nations” is not subjective so that the phrase would mean: “at the time when the nations held permanent possession”; the genitive is objective: Israel came into permanent possession of these nations, i. e., of their land, they having been driven out by God (ὧν is attracted from ἅ). “Which they brought in … until the days of David” indicates briefly that for a period that covered hundreds of years this Tabernacle was all that Israel had.

Acts 7:46

46Another relative clause brings us to the last chapter of the Tabernacle. It was David who found such favor (χάρις) with God that encouraged him to ask for himself (middle), as a special manifestation of that divine favor, “to find (object infinitive) a habitation for the God of Jacob.” This infinitive clause is an appropriation of the beautiful language of Ps. 132:5. Besides this psalm read 2 Sam. 7:1, etc., regarding David’s plans. Σκήνωμα is poetical language, as is also εὑρεῖν. David has in mind a permanent place of worship, a beautiful temple, yet he calls it no more than a “tent” and speaks of finding it when he thinks of building a fitting temple. Instead of using a mere pronoun Stephen keeps David’s impressive dative “for the God of Jacob.”

Acts 7:47

47An adversative δέ takes us to Solomon. Solomon, however, built him a house. Not before this time did Israel have a temple. Even David had to content himself with the old Tabernacle. Somehow God did not seem to be so anxious about a temple. He even let David ask in vain for the privilege of building one (1 Kings 5:3; 1 Chron. 22:7, etc.; 28:2, etc.) and put this event off until Solomon’s time. David was a man of war and blood, Solomon (Shelomah, Friedrich) a man or prince of peace; the one was a type of Christ conquering foes, the other a type of Christ reigning in peace. Stephen is satisfied to mention only the fact that Solomon finally built “a house for him,” nor does Stephen call it any more than that.

Acts 7:48

48In fact, over against the Jews who valued their Temple extravagantly, far more than they valued the true worship of God by faith and obedience to him, and desecrated even this “house” with their godless obduracy, Stephen shares Solomon’s own conception of the Temple (1 Kings 8:27): nevertheless, not the Highest in things made with hands doth dwell, nay, not he, whatever creatures may do. The negative is purposely placed with the subject: “not the Highest,” and our versions ought to be amended accordingly; for to construe the negative with the verb even alters the sense. See R., W. P. For, indeed, all that others can do is “to dwell in things made with hands.” That is one difference between them and the Highest, one of the great titles for God. It is because of his infinite exaltation that he is beyond all man-made things.

We have only the neuter plural and not “temples” (A. V.) or “houses” (R. V.). So also the contrast between the two is heightened by placing them side by side in the Greek: “the Highest—in things made with hands.” When Stephen speaks thus about the Temple, the very one built by Solomon, he has God’s own Word to support him: even as the prophet states, namely Isa. 66:1, 2, with only slight verbal difference between the LXX and the Hebrew.

49, 50)The quotation is exactly to the point.

The heaven a throne for me,

And the earth a footstool of my feet!

What kind of house will you build me? saith the Lord;

And what a place of my rest?

Did not my hand make all these things?

Here God himself speaks and declares what he thinks of any and every temple built for him by men. The superstitious reverence of the Jews for their Temple here finds its divine answer. These Jews treat the Highest as though he were some pagan god or pagan idol that had to have some sort of temple for its home. Because Stephen has spoken of God as being exalted above all man-made temples, they are now putting him to trial. Because he will not make God an idol that needs must have a temple, they are ready to condemn him for blasphemy of their Temple. We must note the full force of what Stephen says, in particular how his words regarding the Temple naturally merge into the denunciation of v. 51, etc., without either break or pause.

Even the heaven is only God’s throne, a royal seat for him. Heaven itself is not a house or a temple for him; it is only one of the things he has made. As for the whole earth, it is vastly less, nothing more than a footstool for his feet, so far beneath him, one of the insignificant things he has made. Why does Isaiah say these tremendous things to the Israel of his time and to the future Israel that would return from its seventy years of captivity in Babylon to build him another temple? Because of their wicked and obdurate hearts.

That is exactly why Stephen, too, hurls these same words at his present hearers, whose hearts are of the same kind. What kind of a house is it that people such as this will build for Yahweh who is here confronting them? The Herodian Temple was even now in the process of being rebuilt. And what a place of his rest are they trying to provide, where he may enter and abide among them? They have forgotten his infinite greatness which Solomon remembered, 2 Chron. 6:18. They do not draw the proper conclusions from the fact that it is he who made all these things, even heaven and earth and all that is therein.

They no longer know that God looks only to him who is of a contrite spirit and who trembles at his Word lest perhaps he fail to observe it (the continuation of Isa. 66:2, then also v. 3). When they build with hearts like that, every offering in their Temple so builded is an abomination to Yahweh, the blood of every ox like that of a murdered man, every lamb like a dog with his head cut off, every oblation like swine’s blood, and their burning incense as though it were intended to bless an idol. Stephen does not add these statements of Isaiah, but these words help us to understand the lines which he quotes.

Neither the Lord speaking through Isaiah, nor Jesus (John 2:19; 4:23, 24), nor Stephen say that no temple and no places of worship shall be built. God vouchsafed his presence in the ancient Tabernacle and in Solomon’s Temple (2 Chron. 7:1–3). How, by whom, and in what spirit temples are to be built Solomon and Isa. 66:2b show us. But to build temples and churches, to make them grand and imposing, to fill them with crowds for great services while hearts are without contrition, obdurate before God’s Word, is to treat God as an idol to whom we may dictate as we please, to invent what his will and word is to be to suit our own perverted hearts. That is the kind of house many still build, a place where they offer rest to the Highest. The view of critics that Isaiah’s words refer to a temple which the Jewish exiles proposed to erect in Babylon, or refer only to the Samaritan Temple on Mt.

Gerizim, need not be refuted at this place. Compare Aug. Pieper, Jesaias II, 653, etc.

—————

Acts 7:51

51What follows must be called the conclusion, for while it continues the account without a break, it pertains to all that precedes. Like one of the prophets of old, in the very spirit of Isaiah from whom Stephen has just quoted, he hurls the countercharge of wilful obduracy against his judges. He wields the law on the conscience of his hearers with the boldness and the fearlessness of a Peter (2:36; 4:10–12; 5:29–32)in order to crush these wicked Jews in repentance.

Stiffnecked and uncircumcised as to heart and ears, you on your part always fall against the Holy Spirit; as your fathers, also you! Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who made advance announcement about the coming of the Righteous One, whose betrayers and murderers you on your part have now become: people such as received the law on dispositions of angels and did not observe it!

The invective is deliberate, measured, with not a word too much, like a surgeon who cuts deep in order to let the fearful corruption out. “Stiffnecked” = with a neck or a back (τράχηλος) that will not bend; obstinate. “Uncircumcised as to hearts and ears” = bearing the covenant sign only outwardly and not inwardly in its intended force, which involves the cutting off of all opposition to God and to his Word. The dative is neither locative nor instrumental but a dative of relation (B-D. 197): “in regard to hearts and ears.” As to their hearts and their ears these Jews were no better than the uncircumcised heathen. John 8:44. The ears are the organs for hearing God’s Word and his will, the heart the organ for receiving, believing, obeying that Word and that will. The hearts are mentioned first because they control the ears and in the obdurate make them deaf to God.

Although it is added only coordinately (καί), we now have the proof for these designations: “you on your part (emphatic ὑμεῖς) always fall against the Holy Spirit,” which uses the idiomatic Greek verb for opposition and resistance. “Holy Spirit” is in place because it is this Person who comes to us in the Word in order to work contrition and faith. To resist him is to cut ourselves off from the very means by which alone we can be saved. This resistance begins with individual acts and eventually becomes a fixed habitus which permanently closes the heart so that the Spirit can no longer have his work in us. This is hardness of heart or obduracy.

Why the Word melts some hearts while others deliberately and permanently harden themselves against it, no man knows. The former is due wholly to God’s grace, the latter is due wholly to man’s guilt. No one cause for both exists. When synergism or determinism are taken to be such a cause, the fact is overlooked that both are non-existant. Man cannot aid the Spirit with his unregenerate or natural ability, nor is the gratia of the Spirit irresistibilis. The conversion of the sinner is easy to explain, for the gratia is sufficiens to work conversion in him; the obduracy remains a mystery because of this very sufficiency of grace, which, as was the case in these hearers of Stephen, secures only the opposite effect. In this respect Stephen’s hearers proved to be true sons of their fathers: “as your fathers (Stephen takes care not to say our in the present connection), also you.” Israel’s history reveals a damnable ancestry, and the descendants are still multiplying rapidly.

Acts 7:52

52Stephen fully establishes this connection of evil spiritual descent; Jesus did the same in Matt. 23:29–32. What did “your fathers” do? They persecuted every one of the prophets through whom the Holy Spirit spoke to them. Stephen’s question which asks them to name one who was not so persecuted is not a rhetorical exaggeration. “Who even today, according to the statements of the Old Testament, is able to name a prophet who was received with approval and enthusiasm as other nations received their great spirits and prophets? From Moses and Samuel until Malachi and John the Baptist the true prophets who arose in Israel came to experience ungrateful disregard, haughty contradiction, open rebellion, and, as Jesus also says regarding all the prophets, persecution from the people of their nation, from the princes and the priests, from their own nearest relatives.” Zahn. As far as murder is concerned, Stephen does no more than to repeat the charge which Jesus made in Matt. 23:31, 35, 37; Luke 11:47, etc.; 13:34.

The fact that the murderous intent did not always succeed, as was the case with reference to Elijah, Jeremiah, etc., made those who had this intent nonetheless murderers. Such, Stephen tells his hearers, were “your fathers.”

The words are perfectly chosen when he describes the prophets as “those who made advance announcement about the coming of the Righteous One.” That announcing was their chief, their blessed work; they were God’s own heralds. What did it, then, mean to persecute and to kill them? “Coming” is the great Messianic term; it is a comprehensive designation of the Messiah’s entire life and work. Jesus is repeatedly called “the Righteous One” in the supreme sense; see 3:14, and compare 22:14; 1 Pet. 3:18. Here this designation is in glaring contrast with “betrayers and murderers.” What their fathers did to such an eminent degree these judges whom Stephen faces have exceeded “now,” in the recent past. The Greek is content to use the aorist with reference to a recent occurrence: “became,” whereas we prefer “have become.” By hiring the traitor Judas the whole Sanhedrin made itself “betrayers” of the Righteous One; and by forcing Pilate to crucify him they became his “murderers.” Note the emphasis on ὑμεῖς and how fully and terribly their connection is established with “your fathers,” the persecutors and the murderers of the prophets.

Acts 7:53

53R. 728 makes οἵτινες causal (which it often is): “since you are such as”; but B.-D. 293, 2 sees correctly that here (and elsewhere) this relative is used when the general characteristic of definite persons is stated: you—“people who,” “people such as.” Yes, they were this very kind. They received the law in a most heavenly way but did not guard or observe it. All this frightful crime would be bad enough if they had never had or heard of this law of God; but God had made them his chosen people and had given them his glorious law, and they treated it in this manner. The tables are thus completely turned. Stephen stood accused of speaking against the law, but the Sanhedrin itself is convicted of utterly breaking and abandoning the law.

The phrase εἰςδιαταγάς is a crux as far as translating and explaining εἰς is concerned. See our versions and the R. V. margin and what they think the Greek means. Many explanations are offered, Zahn is undecided. Fortunately, the sense is clear as Deut. 33:2; Gal. 3:19; Heb. 2:2 show. The angels were active in the giving of the law on Mount Sinai.

The genitive “of angels” is subjective: they made “dispositions,” shall we say “arrangements,” the Germans say Anordnungen. Deissmann has found the word used in the sense of an order, a disposition one has made, a testamentary disposition, an imperial or a divine ordinance (Light from the Ancient East, 86, etc.). In this case εἰς does not equal ἐν; nor is it “unto,” “in accord with,” or the predicative εἰς (R. 596), “as” (R. V. margin). It is best to take εἰς in the sense of “upon” or “on,” German auf. But when “angels” are supposed to include the angel mentioned in v. 30 and 38, or when the plural is identified with this one angel, who is God himself, we cannot agree.

Stephen exalts the law: heavenly angels helped in its giving, yet the Sanhedrists disregarded it; Paul’s emphasis in Gal. 3:19 is the reverse; only angels were used.

STEPHEN STONED

Acts 7:54

54 It is usually assumed that Stephen’s address ends at this point, that it was broken off here, and that he intended to close with some word of gospel. He did close with a wonderful gospel utterance (v. 56); the interruption did not come until after he had spoken it. Luke pauses to tell us about the preliminary effect that was produced by the law Stephen was uttering, which already shows what effect the gospel would have.

Now, while hearing these things, they were being sawn in two as regards their heart and began gnashing their teeth against him. But being full of the Holy Spirit, on earnestly looking to heaven, he saw God’s glory and Jesus standing at the right of God and he said, Lo, I behold the heavens having been opened, and the Son of man standing at the right of God!

The imperfects used in v. 54, as the present participle shows, go back to the preceding verses and describe what was happening while Stephen was uttering the severe indictments of the law. No pause occurred at this point. Yes, Stephen’s words went home and produced an inner and an outer effect. There are always motus inevitabiles when the Word is rightly preached; no man escapes some effect, no man is the same man that he was before that Word reached him.

Here the effect was utterly hostile. Luke again uses the strong verb employed in 5:33, “they were being sawn in two,” but here with the dative of relation “as to their hearts,” the same dative that occurred in v. 51 (B.-D. 197, who adds that this dative predominates over the accusative of relation). These hearts (the heart is always the center of the personality) did not bend or bow to the law in a manner that indicated contrition; they were stiff and hard like dried wood, and the law could only saw them in two with its sharp teeth. The outward evidence was the fact that, as they sat and listened and heard more and more what Stephen was saying to and about them, they began grinding their teeth at him in suppressed rage. Yet they kept their seats; Stephen could still be heard.

Acts 7:55

55And so Stephen spoke his final word. It became an involutary exclamation, for at this moment a wonderful thing happened. Although he had spoken under the Spirit’s influence during his entire address, at this moment he became filled with the Spirit and, on earnestly looking up toward heaven (he was in the hall of the court), “he saw God’s glory and Jesus standing at God’s right.” By the help of the Spirit his mortal eyes were enabled to look right into heaven. The words ἀτενίσας, εἷδε, and the following θεωρῶ are an answer to the idea that Stephen saw only mentally, in his own mind or imagination, or, as is usually said, “in spirit.” No; this was an outward reality, even as the Holy Spirit is mentioned who gave this ability of sight to Stephen’s eyes.

The first martyr of the Christian faith is going to his death; and he becomes the leader of the long, long line of future martyrs. Therefore this sight is granted to him, not as though it were intended for him and his strengthening alone, but through him for all of them. So the glory of God shines for all of them as they near death, so the Savior stands ready to receive them. Through Stephen’s eyes they are all to see. “God’s glory” is one concept, the Hebrew kebod Yahweh, all the majesty of God shining in heavenly light. The Spirit enabled Stephen to look at his glory without its blinding his eyes. That glory was over him in the midst of all his enemies.

“And Jesus standing at the right hand of God” (on this phrase see 2:25; this perfect participle is always present in sense) signifies that he had arisen to come to the aid of his confessor, to receive him unto himself. God’s “right” or “right hand” is invariably his power and his majesty; and to stand at God’s right, like sitting at his right, is to exercise this infinite power and majesty in an unlimited way. This surely refers to the human nature of Jesus as it participated in the divine majesty or attributes (δόξα). To understand this aright one must consider all the passages that speak of God’s right plus their contexts. It goes without saying that what Stephen beheld was adapted to his eyes, and at the same time the Spirit gave to his eyes the ability to see this heavenly glory and Jesus.

Strange interpretations have been given to Luke’s words. Thus it is said that Jesus is standing and not sitting with God on his throne; that he is not revealing himself as coregent with God but as the servant of the King of heaven, the one who is next to the throne, who is ready to obey the nod of the King and his will in the whole domain of his rule. An older view claims that Jesus’ standing thus in heaven means that, when in his human nature Jesus is sitting or standing in heaven, he is closed there so that he cannot at the same time and in the human nature be present on earth (Calvin, Institutiones IV, 17, 16), and that we must interpret Matt. 28:20; 18:20; the words of the Lord’s Supper, and all similar passages according to the limitation this reasoning places upon the body, the bodily presence, and the human nature of Jesus in his glory. The basic deficiency of these reasonings has often been pointed out. They play one passage of Scripture against another instead of letting one class of passages illumine and interpret the other class. Scriptura ex Scriptura explicanda est, always and always, and not by rationalizings of human minds regarding some passage or passages so as to make them conflict with other passages.

Acts 7:56

56Thus the Holy Spirit himself completed Stephen’s address for him, completed it in a most miraculous way and with the most effective gospel word. Unlike Peter, Stephen did not need to preach to the Sanhedrin the resurrection and the exaltation of Jesus (3:10, 15), here Jesus himself preached it by revealing himself to Stephen in his heavenly glory and causing him to reveal to the Sanhedrin what his eyes were seeing. This was the fulfillment of the very word Jesus himself had uttered before this very Sanhedrin when he was on trial, Matt. 26:64. They now hear that this Jesus whom they crucified is standing in the heavens as the eternal Messiah at God’s own right of majesty and power. Stephen is not relating what he saw on some former occasion, but what it is granted him to see at the very moment of his speaking. Far removed and yet not removed is this Jesus; for the heavens stand open (the perfect participle with its present connotation), and he is standing as one who has risen for action.

Yes, it was all for Stephen, for his comfort and his assurance. There stood the almighty Son of man whose power maintained his great confessor. But it was intended also for the Sanhedrists. Whom were they opposing? The glorified Son of man, the heavenly, eternal, almighty Messiah of God.

The title “the Son of man” is discussed at length in connection with the writer’s interpretation of Matt. 8:20; Mark 2:10; Luke 5:24; John 1:51, to which the reader is referred.

Acts 7:57

57While the crushing rebukes of the law were being administered, the Sanhedrists had remained in their seats although gnashing their teeth; the great gospel testimony of Stephen, although it was produced by a miracle of God, causes the Sanhedrists to rage like wild beasts that are demanding blood. Is it possible that the gospel can affect men’s hearts in such a way? It did in this case. But uttering yells with a great voice, they held their ears and rushed with one accord upon him; and having thrown him out of the city, they began stoning him.

Pandemonium broke loose. All legal formalities were cast aside as mob rage and violence suddenly came into control. We do not understand how some interpreters can insert into Luke’s description the formal passing of a death sentence. According to Jewish law it would have been ineffective because a second session of the Sanhedrin which was held at least a day later was necessary for legal confirmation, and in addition to that the governor’s consent to the execution was mandatory. No; a mob storm breaks loose and hurries Stephen to his death forthwith.

The shouting and the holding shut of the ears implies that Stephen’s words were considered the most awful blasphemy. Lest they hear another word like that they shout with might and main to drown out Stephen’s voice and stop their ears so that no word of his may enter them. Then, as though actuated by one impulse, they dash upon this blasphemer and thrust him outside of the city and there begin to stone him. All this happened without delay. But note that Luke first has a chain of aorists that fall like blow upon blow; the shouting—the holding the ears shut—the rushing upon Stephen—the expulsion from the city; and then uses an imperfect which arrests our attention to view what is going on, the process of stoning, for, before it is finished, something else must be told. This imperfect is repeated in v. 59 and holds us in suspense still longer in anticipation of what is yet to be added. This use of the imperfect is an excellent example of how the tense is employed to hold the reader in suspense.

Acts 7:58

58We know that attempts were made to stone Jesus for blasphemy in the very Temple courts (John 8:59; 10:31, etc.). Why Stephen was thrust out of the city in agreement with Lev. 24:14 (Heb. 13:11), we cannot say, unless it was done because of the strange twists of the mob mind which, in the midst of its lawlessness, sometimes clings to legal formality. Points to be considered in reconstructing the story are these: building was going on in the Temple area, and stones were ready at hand there—the paved streets afforded no suitable stones—just where the Sanhedrin met is a question—outside of the city plenty of stones were available.

We are not impressed by the argument that these supreme judges and dignitaries of the Sanhedrin were incapable of the coarseness here described, and that Luke intends to change the subject of all the verbs to other unnamed persons. We know what these men perpetrated upon the helpless Jesus in Matt. 26:67, 68, and in Mark 14:65. They really do less here. But, of course, to the Sanhedrists we must add their Levite police force, into whose hands Stephen must have been given for the trial; we must also add the crowd of Hellenist Jews who had arrested Stephen and brought him in and acted as his accusers, together with their suborned witnesses. Many persons may have been thronging outside of the doors, these were augmented by people who had been attracted to the scene. A force of police rushed Stephen to the scene of execution. Sanhedrists went along, and a crowd that grew as they went followed.

But what about the loss of the Jewish right to execute criminals? Note that the Sanhedrin had not passed a verdict and thus was not legally liable. The whole action was one of mob violence and could be classed as a popular outburst of rage against a fearful blasphemer. Pilate was not eager to do justice in a case such as this, the less so since he himself had grave reasons to fear the Sanhedrin because of outrages he had perpetrated. We need not date this event later than the rule of Pilate, place it into an interim when Pilate had been withdrawn and his successor had not yet arrived. Pilate was at Caesarea at this time.

And the witnesses placed their robes at the feet of a young man called Saul. The witnesses had to cast the first stones in order to attest that they had sworn and witnessed truly (Deut. 17:6); otherwise they would be adding the crime of murder to that of perjured testimony. The long, loose outer robe had to be laid aside in order to permit free use of the limbs in the violent action of throwing stones. The thought is not that some individual, here by chance Saul, was selected to guard these robes lest someone make off with them during the excitement. We must assume that Saul was acting in an official capacity, either alone or in conjunction with others who were superintending the stoning. This is made probable by what is related in the sequel about his prominent activity under the authority of the Sanhedrin.

We see what a position he had attained as a disciple of the great Gamaliel who was a member of the Sanhedrin (5:34). “Young man,” νεανίας, is not a youth in our sense of the word but a man come to maturity; Saul must have been about thirty years old at this time. This is only an estimate, yet it is based on all the available data.

Acts 7:59

59And they were stoning Stephen, calling out and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit! And having kneeled, he shouted with a great voice, Lord, place not this sin against them! And having said this, he fell asleep.

The repetition is tragic and is made more so by the imperfect tense. The terrible process of stoning a man to death was going slowly onward. An aorist would mean that the final, fatal stone had been thrown. Note that Luke now adds the name: “And they were stoning Stephen”—yes, this proto-martyr, this first confessor of Christendom to seal his faith with his life. As stone after stone crashed against his body, he raised his face to God and after the pattern of Jesus’ own dying prayer (Luke 24:46) asked the Lord Jesus (see 1:21) to receive his spirit. That prayer was heard.

Stephen’s spirit, the immaterial part of his being, left his body and was received by Jesus into the glory and the bliss of heaven, there to await the last day when his body would be raised up to be again united with his soul and to participate in its heavenly joys. So Paul longed “to depart and be with Christ” (Philippians 1:23).

Here there is no “oblivion” for the soul at death. The idea of a sheol or hades as a Totenreich or intermediate place for souls, lying somewhere between heaven and hell, seems to be foreign to Stephen’s mind, who sees only the heavenly glory of God and Jesus at God’s right standing to receive his martyr’s spirit. Fecisti me victorem, recipe me in triumphum. Augustine.

Acts 7:60

60Stone after stone struck Stephen. He sank to his knees, literally, “having placed the knees,” yet he did not do so in the humbleness of prayer before the Lord but simply because he had been severely struck by well-aimed stones. At the very moment of death, like Jesus, he rallies all his fast-ebbing strength and at the top of his voice so that all in the crowd may hear he shouts his final prayer which asks God not to place this sin against his murderers, the dative of disadvantage. In the aorist negative commands are in the subjunctive and not in the imperative. In prayers, for instance in the Lord’s Prayer, the aorist denotes urgency and fervency; so it does here. This prayer for his enemies Stephen had also learned from Jesus.

R., W. P., regards this aorist as ingressive, it is effective. The verb accords with its opposite, ἀφιέναι, “to dismiss” or send the sin away (ἄφεσις). Stephen’s prayer had one most notable fulfillment, namely Saul. Being a young man like Stephen, Saul soon stepped into Stephen’s vacant place, took up the martyr’s work, and carried it forward with great power.

And so Stephen “fell asleep.” This time Luke uses an effective aorist which marks the ending of an action. The two aorists used in this verse thus bring the final outcome of the previous imperfects. Although he experienced a violent and terrible form of death, Stephen “went to sleep.” This is not a euphemism which would hide the fearful reality but literal truth. This expression is regularly used in the New Testament with reference to the dying of believers. By the use of this very word for death the resurrection is implied. But only the body falls asleep; the soul does not sleep but is with the Lord, awaiting the awakening of the body.

R A. T. Robertson, A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research. 4th edition.

B.-D Friedrich Blass’ Grammatik des neutestamentlichen Griechisch, vierte, voellig neugearbeitete Auflage, besorgt von Albert Debrunner.

C.-K. Biblisch-theologisches Woerterbuch der Neutestamentlichen Graezitaet von Dr. Hermann Cremer, zehnte, etc., Auflage, herausgegeben von D. Dr. Julius Koegel.