‏ Acts 7

CHAPTER 7

Ac 7:1-60. Defense and Martyrdom of Stephen.

In this long defense Stephen takes a much wider range, and goes less directly into the point raised by his accusers, than we should have expected. His object seems to have been to show (1) that so far from disparaging, he deeply reverenced, and was intimately conversant with, the whole history of the ancient economy; and (2) that in resisting the erection of the Gospel kingdom they were but treading in their fathers' footsteps, the whole history of their nation being little else than one continued misapprehension of God's high designs towards fallen man and rebellion against them.

2-5. The God of glory--A magnificent appellation, fitted at the very outset to rivet the devout attention of his audience; denoting not that visible glory which attended many of the divine manifestations, but the glory of those manifestations themselves, of which this was regarded by every Jew as the fundamental one. It is the glory of absolutely free grace.

appeared unto our father Abraham before he dwelt in Charran, and said, &c.--Though this first call is not expressly recorded in Genesis, it is clearly implied in Ge 15:7 and Ne 9:7; and the Jewish writers speak the same language.

6-8. four hundred years--using round numbers, as in Ge 15:13, 16 (see on Ga 3:17).

9-16. the patriarchs, moved with envy, sold Joseph into Egypt, but God was with him--Here Stephen gives his first example of Israel's opposition to God's purposes, in spite of which and by means of which those purposes were accomplished.

17. But when--rather, "as."

the time of the promise--that is, for its fulfilment.

the people grew and multiplied in Egypt--For more than two hundred years they amounted to no more than seventy-five souls; how prodigious, then, must have been their multiplication during the latter two centuries, when six hundred thousand men, fit for war, besides women and children, left Egypt!

20-22. In which time--of deepest depression.

Moses was born--the destined deliverer.

exceeding fair--literally, "fair to God" (Margin), or, perhaps, divinely "fair" (see on He 11:23).

23-27. In Ac 7:23, 30, 36, the life of Moses is represented as embracing three periods, of forty years each; the Jewish writers say the same; and though this is not expressly stated in the Old Testament, his age at death, one hundred twenty years (De 34:7), agrees with it.

it came into his heart to visit his brethren--his heart yearning with love to them as God's chosen people, and heaving with the consciousness of a divine vocation to set them free.

28-29. Wilt thou kill me, as thou didst the Egyptian yesterday?--Moses had thought the deed unseen (Ex 2:12), but it now appeared he was mistaken.

30-34. an angel of the Lord--rather, "the Angel of the Covenant," who immediately calls Himself Jehovah (Compare Ac 7:38).

35-41. This Moses whom they refused, saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge, &c.--Here, again, "the stone which the builders refused is made the head of the corner" (Psa 118:22).

42-50. gave them up--judicially.

as ... written in the book of the prophets--the twelve minor prophets, reckoned as one: the passage is from Am 5:25.

have ye offered to me ... sacrifices?--The answer is, Yes, but as if ye did it not; for "neither did ye offer to Me only, nor always, nor with a perfect and willing heart" [Bengel].

51-53. Ye stiffnecked ... ye do always resist the Holy Ghost, &c.--It has been thought that symptoms of impatience and irritation in the audience induced Stephen to cut short his historical sketch. But as little farther light could have been thrown upon Israel's obstinacy from subsequent periods of the national history on the testimony of their own Scriptures, we should view this as the summing up, the brief import of the whole Israelitish history--grossness of heart, spiritual deafness, continuous resistance of the Holy Ghost, down to the very council before whom Stephen was pleading.

54-56. When they heard these things they were cut to the heart, &c.--If they could have answered him, how different would have been their temper of mind!

57-58. Then they cried out ... and ran upon him with one accord--To men of their mould and in their temper, Stephen's last seraphic words could but bring matters to extremities, though that only revealed the diabolical spirit which they breathed.

59-60. calling upon God and saying, Lord Jesus, &c.--An unhappy supplement of our translators is the word "God" here; as if, while addressing the Son, he was really calling upon the Father. The sense is perfectly clear without any supplement at all--"calling upon [invoking] and saying, Lord Jesus"; Christ being the Person directly invoked and addressed by name (compare Ac 9:14). Even Grotius, De Wette, Meyer, &c., admit this, adding several other examples of direct prayer to Christ; and Pliny, in his well-known letter to the Emperor Trajan (A.D. 110 or 111), says it was part of the regular Christian service to sing, in alternate strains, a hymn to Christ as God.

Lord Jesus, receive my spirit--In presenting to Jesus the identical prayer which He Himself had on the cross offered to His Father, Stephen renders to his glorified Lord absolute divine worship, in the most sublime form, and at the most solemn moment of his life. In this commitment of his spirit to Jesus, Paul afterwards followed his footsteps with a calm, exultant confidence that with Him it was safe for eternity (2Ti 1:12).