Chapter 7 Acts 7
Stephen Speaks before the Council (vv. 1-53)
The High Priest a asked Stephen, “Is this true?” b 2 Stephen answered, “Brothers and fathers, listen to me! Before our ancestor Abraham had gone to live in Haran, c the God of glory appeared to him in Mesopotamia d 3 and said to him, ‘Leave your family and country and go to the land that I will show you.’ 4 And so he left his country and went to live in Haran. After Abraham’s father died, God made him move to this land where you now live. 5 God did not then give Abraham any part of it as his own, not even a square foot of ground, but God promised to give it to him, and that it would belong to him and to his descendants. At the time God made this promise, Abraham had no children. 6 This is what God said to him: ‘Your descendants will live in a foreign country, where they will be slaves and will be badly treated for four hundred years. e 7 But I will pass judgment on the people that they will serve, and afterward they will come out of that country and will worship me in this place.’ 8 Then God gave to Abraham the ceremony of circumcision f as a sign of the covenant. g So Abraham circumcised Isaac a week after he was born; Isaac circumcised his son Jacob, and Jacob circumcised his twelve sons, the famous ancestors of our race.
9 “Jacob’s sons became jealous of their brother Joseph and sold him h to be a slave in Egypt. But God was with him 10 and brought him safely through all his troubles. When Joseph appeared before the king of Egypt, God gave him a pleasing manner and wisdom, and the king made Joseph governor over the country and the royal household. 11 Then there was a famine all over Egypt and Canaan, which caused much suffering. Our ancestors could not find any food, 12 and when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent his sons, our ancestors, on their first visit there. 13 On the second visit Joseph made himself known to his brothers, and the king of Egypt came to know about Joseph’s family. 14 So Joseph sent a message to his father Jacob, telling him and the whole family, seventy-five i people in all, to come to Egypt. 15 Then Jacob went to Egypt, where he and his sons died. 16 Their bodies were taken to Shechem, where they were buried in the grave which Abraham had bought from the clan of Hamor for a sum of money.
17 “When the time drew near for God to keep the promise he had made to Abraham, the number of our people in Egypt had grown much larger. 18 At last a king who did not know about Joseph began to rule in Egypt. 19 He tricked our ancestors and was cruel to them, forcing them to put their babies out of their homes, so that they would die. 20 It was at this time that Moses was born, a very beautiful child. He was cared for at home for three months, 21 and when he was put out of his home, the king’s daughter adopted him and brought him up as her own son. 22 He was taught all the wisdom of the Egyptians j and became a great man in words and deeds.
23 “When Moses was forty years k old, he decided to find out how his fellow Israelites were being treated. 24 He saw one of them being mistreated by an Egyptian, so he went to his help and took revenge on the Egyptian by killing him. (25 He thought that his own people would understand that God was going to use him to set them free, but they did not understand.) 26 The next day he saw two Israelites fighting, and he tried to make peace between them. ‘Listen, men,’ he said, ‘you are fellow Israelites; why are you fighting like this?’ 27 But the one who was mistreating the other pushed Moses aside. ‘Who made you ruler and judge over us?’ he asked. 28 ‘Do you want to kill me, just as you killed that Egyptian yesterday?’ 29 When Moses heard this, he fled from Egypt and went to live in the land of Midian. There he had two sons.
30 “After forty years had passed, an angel appeared to Moses in the flames of a burning bush in the desert near Mount Sinai. 31 Moses was amazed by what he saw, and went near the bush to get a better look. But he heard the Lord’s voice: 32‘I am the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.’ Moses trembled with fear and dared not look. 33 The Lord said to him, ‘Take your sandals off, for the place where you are standing is holy ground. 34 I have seen the cruel suffering of my people in Egypt. I have heard their groans, and I have come down to set them free. Come now; I will send you to Egypt.’
35 “Moses is the one who was rejected by the people of Israel. ‘Who made you ruler and judge over us?’ they asked. He is the one whom God sent to rule the people and set them free with the help of the angel who appeared to him in the burning bush. 36 He led the people out of Egypt, performing miracles and wonders in Egypt and at the Red Sea and for forty years in the desert. 37 Moses is the one who said to the people of Israel, ‘God will send you a prophet, just as he sent me, and he will be one of your own people.’ 38 He is the one who was with the people of Israel assembled in the desert; he was there with our ancestors and with the angel l who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and he received God’s living messages to pass on to us.
39 “But our ancestors refused to obey him; they pushed him aside and wished that they could go back to Egypt. 40 So they said to Aaron, ‘Make us some gods who will lead us. We do not know what has happened to that man Moses, who brought us out of Egypt.’ 41 It was then that they made an idol in the shape of a bull, offered sacrifice to it, and had a feast in honour of what they themselves had made. 42 So God turned away from them and gave them over to worship the stars of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets: m
‘People of Israel! It was not to me
that you slaughtered and sacrificed
animals
for forty years in the desert.
43 It was the tent of the god Molech n that you
carried,
and the image of Rephan, o your star god;
they were idols that you had made to
worship.
And so I will send you into exile beyond
Babylon.’
44 “Our ancestors had the Covenant Tent p with them in the desert. It had been made as God had told Moses to make it, according to the pattern that Moses had been shown. 45 Later on, our ancestors who received the tent from their fathers carried it with them when they went with Joshua and took over the land from the nations that God drove out as they advanced. And it stayed there until the time of David. 46 He won God’s favour and asked God to allow him to provide a dwelling place for the God of Jacob. 47 But it was Solomon who built him a house.
48 “But the Most High God does not live in houses built by men; as the prophet says, q
49 ‘Heaven is my throne, says the Lord,
and the earth is my footstool.
What kind of house would you build for me?
Where is the place for me to live in?
50 Did not I myself make all these things?’
51 “How stubborn you are!” Stephen went on to say. “How heathen r your hearts, how deaf you are to God’s message! You are just like your ancestors: you too have always resisted the Holy Spirit! 52 Was there any prophet that your ancestors did not persecute? They killed God’s messengers, who long ago announced the coming of his righteous Servant. And now you have betrayed and murdered him. 53 You are the ones who received God’s law, that was handed down by angels – yet you have not obeyed it!”
Interesting Stuff:
a The High Priest was probably still Caiaphas, as at the trial of Jesus. He remained in office till A.D. 36. As president of the Sanhedrin, he was the chief judge in Israel.
b It was necessary in Jewish court procedure that the accused should know what the charges against him were, and have an opportunity of replying to them.
c Haran, meaning ‘Crossroads’ or ‘Highways’, was an important city on one of the rivers branching off from the River Euphrates. It lay on a strategic point between Mesopotamia (see note below) and the West.
d Mesopotamia was the name applied to the ‘land between the rivers’, i.e., the Tigris and Euphrates. In Greek usage, it applied to the larger area including Babylon, and probably included the territory in which Ur (where Abraham was born) was situated.
e Ex 12:40 puts the number of years as 430. The round figure of 400 used by Stephen (derived from what God said in Ge 15:13) was used in popular expressions in first century Judaism.
f The sign of circumcision was one sign given to Abraham as the outward symbol of the covenant which God made with him. This sign of the covenant was transmitted from generation to generation, from Isaac to Jacob, and from Jacob to his 12 sons, the ancestors of the 12 tribes of Israel.
g The word ‘covenant’ has the meaning of a bond or contract that binds two parties together, both of whom have responsibilities to carry out as specified in the covenant. In the covenant God made with Abraham, He promised to be Abraham’s God and the God of his descendants. He also promised Abraham a land and descendants who would become a great nation. In turn, Abraham and his descendants were to obey God and keep the covenant.
See Ge 12-50 for the story of Abraham and his family.
h Stephen builds up his case about Jesus’ rejection by his people by noting Joseph’s rejection by his brothers. Israel consistently rejected the individuals sent by God to help them.
i Although the Hebrew Bible uses the number 70 (Ge 46:27; Ex 1:5), the Greek Translation of the OT (the Septuagint) includes five more of Joseph’s descendants to become 75, the number that Stephen used.
j Although the OT does not explicitly state this, this would be expected if Moses grew up in the household of Pharaoh’s daughter. Both Philo (Jewish philosopher) and Josephus (Jewish historian),
spoke of Moses’ great learning.
k ‘Forty’ is the most frequently used round number in the Bible. Its abundant occurrences indicate that it was used as a rounded rather than an exact figure. A sense of completeness or maturity is attached to the number. A man was considered to have reached full adulthood at 40. Isaac and Esau married at 40; Saul, David and Solomon reigned for 40 years; etc. Stephen treats Moses’ life in three parts, corresponding to each of the three periods of 40 years that made up his life. He was 40 years old when he fled from Egypt. He was 80 years old when he was sent to speak to Pharoah (v. 30) and 120 years old when he died (v. 36) after 40 years wandering in the desert.
l According to the Jewish interpretation at that time, the Law was given to Moses by God through an angel. This was a Jewish tradition that was also accepted by the early Christians (Gal 3:19; Heb 2:2) although there was no mention of an angel in the original Exodus passages.
m This refers to the Jewish scroll containing the 12 writings of the so-called minor prophets. Stephen quotes Am 5:25-27 here.
n Molech was the god who required child sacrifice.
o Rephan appears to be the name of an Egyptian god associated with the planet Saturn.
p This was the tabernacle which was the portable place of worship carried by the Israelites through the wilderness. It was called Covenant Tent by Stephen because the main items of the tabernacle were the ark of the covenant (or Covenant Box) and the two covenant tablets which were called ‘the Testimony’ and were placed in the ark (Ex 25:16, 21).
q This was quoted from Isa 66:1-2. Isaiah was reminding Israel that all creation is the temple that God Himself had made. Stephen quoted this to remind his hearers that ultimately God builds his own temple.
r Some translations have the word ‘uncircumcised’. Though they were physically circumcised, they were acting like the uncircumcised pagan or heathen nations around, not fully consecrating themselves to God.
Questions:
What did Stephen say about Abraham in his defense before the Sanhedrin (vv. 2-8)?
2. Describe briefly what Stephen said about Jacob and his family (vv. 9-16)
3. What happened when the time drew near for God to keep His promise to Abraham (vv. 17-19)?
4. What did Stephen say about Moses in his defense (vv. 17-43)?
5. Explain how the Israelites thought that God dwelt in the Temple and that was where He must be worshipped (vv. 44-47).
How did Stephen point out that they had been wrong in their understanding (vv. 48-50)?
6. How did Stephen end his defense (vv. 51-53)?
Summary of Section:
- The High Priest asked Stephen whether the charges were true.
- Stephen began his defense by emphasising four major periods in Israel’s history which were dominated by four major characters:
a. Abraham (vv. 2-8)
i) God had appeared to him in Mesopotamia to ask him to leave his family and country to go to a land which God would show him.
ii) God did not then give him any part of the land as his own but promised to give it to him and his descendants.
iii) At that time he did not have any children yet but God promised that his descendants would first live as slaves in a foreign country for four hundred years. Then God would pass judgment on their masters and bring them out to the land He had promised them where they would worship Him.
iv) Then God gave Abraham the ceremony of circumcision as a sign of His covenant with Abraham and his descendants after him.
v) Abraham then circumcised his son Isaac when he was born and that ceremony was continued through successive generations of his descendants including the sons of Jacob, the ancestors of the twelve tribes of Israel.b. Joseph (vv. 9-16)
i) Joseph’s brothers, the sons of Jacob, were jealous of him and sold him to be a slave in Egypt. God was with him and in due time, the king made him governor of the country and the royal household.
ii) When there was a famine over all Egypt and Canaan, Jacob sent his sons to Egypt to buy grain. On the second visit, Joseph revealed himself to his brothers.
iii) The king came to know about Joseph’s family and they were given permission to come and stay in Egypt. There Jacob and all his sons died but their bodies were taken to be buried in Shechem, the same burial place as their ancestor Abraham.
iv) When the time drew nearer for God to fulfil His promise to Abraham, the number of Israelites had grown much larger. The king by that time no longer knew Joseph and was cruel to them. He put their babies out of their homes in order to kill them and that was the time Moses was born.c. Moses (vv. 17-43)
i) Moses was adopted by the king’s daughter and was taught all the wisdom of the Egyptians as he grew up. He became a great man in words and deeds.
ii) When he was 40 years old, he tried to help his fellow Israelites by killing an Egyptian because he thought they would understand that God was going to use him to set them free.
iii) They, however, treated his help with contempt, and during a fight which Moses tried to stop, one of them asked whether he was going to kill him as he did the Egyptian.
iv) Moses then fled and went to live in Midian. There after 40 years, God appeared to him and sent him back to Egypt to bring His people out. God told Moses that He had seen the sufferings of His people and heard their groans.
v) Moses led the Israelites out of their land of slavery, performing miracles and wonders in Egypt and at the Red Sea.
vi) There they also built an idol in the shape of a bull to worship and made God turn away from them. So God had Moses lead them in the desert for 40 years.
vii) He was the one who received God’s living messages to pass on to the Israelites but they rejected him and wanted to go back to Egypt. He was also the one who told the Israelites that God would send another prophet just like him.
viii) The pattern of the Covenant Tent was given to Moses by God and this tent was passed onto their ancestors who carried it into the land as God drove out the nations for them. And it stayed there till the time of David and Solomon.d. David and Solomon (vv. 44-50)
i) Although David wanted to build a permanent dwelling place for God, God refused him.
ii) It was Solomon who finally built a house for God.
iii) However, Stephen quoted Isaiah to emphasise that although a house had been built for God, He could not be confined to a man-made structure because He is the Creator and Maker of everything that exists.
3. Then Stephen proceeded to rebuke his listeners for sharing the same stub- born attitudes as shown by the Israelites down the centuries.
4. He told them they were deaf to God’s message and had always resisted the Holy Spirit like their ancestors. They killed God’s messengers who predicted the coming of His righteous Servant whom they had betrayed and murdered.
5. They had received God’s Law handed down by angels but had not obeyed it.
Nuggets of Wisdom
- It is important to bear in mind that Stephen’s speech was most likely in response to the two accusations thrown at him, that he had spoken against the Temple and the Law of Moses. When he went through the history of the Israelites, he did it in such a way as to draw lessons from it which the members of the Council had never noticed or been blind to.
- Stephen’s concern was to demon- strate that his position, far from being blasphemous and against God’s word, actually honoured it. For OT Scripture itself confirmed his teaching about the Temple and the Law, especially by predicting the Messiah. They, however, by rejecting the Messiah, were the ones who disregarded the Law, not he.
- The two themes that ran through his speech were:
i) Throughout their history, God raised up men to act as deliverers of His people. However, the Israelites repeatedly rejected them and disobeyed the Law given by God.
ii) The Israelites had the Tabernacle or Covenant Tent in the wilderness and later the Temple built by Solomon. However, they fell into idolatry and made the mistake of thinking that God, like their idols, actually dwelt in the Temple. - Stephen was thus pointing out to his hearers that in the past, the Israelites had themselves rejected Moses and God, offered idolatrous worship, and resisted and killed the prophets He sent. Thus they were the ones who failed to keep Moses’ Law. They also had the Tabernacle and the Temple as places to worship God but God Himself had declared to them that He was not tied to these places. Thus when he spoke of a new ‘place’ of worship for God, it was simply in line with OT teaching.
- In the final analysis, Stephen’s speech was not so much a self-defense but a testimony to Christ. His main theme was positive, that Jesus the Messiah had come to replace the Temple and fulfil the Law, both of which bore witness to him.
Stephen Is Stoned to Death (vv. 54-8:1a)
54 As the members of the Council listened to Stephen, they became furious and ground their teeth s at him in anger. 55 But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw God’s glory and Jesus standing at the right side of God. 56 “Look!” he said. “I see heaven opened t and the Son of Man u standing v at the right side of God!”
57 With a loud cry the Council members covered their ears with their hands. Then they all rushed at him at once, 58 threw him out of the city, w and stoned him. The witnesses left their cloaks x in the care of a young man named Saul. y 59 They kept on stoning Stephen as he called out to the Lord, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!” z 60 He knelt down and cried out in a loud voice, “Lord! Do not remember this sin against them!” a’ He said this and died.
And Saul b’ approved of his murder.
Interesting Stuff:
s To ground or gnash one’s teeth was a sign of rage. Their consciences were pricked but they were far from repenting and acknowledging the truth of what Stephen said.
t Although Stephen was a man full of the Spirit, he experienced a special filling of the Spirit which enabled him to enjoy a heavenly vision. The picture brings to mind the baptism of Jesus, when the opened heavens were also a sign of revelation from God.
u Jesus used this title of himself to emphasise his relationship to the Messianic prophecies (refer to ‘Glossary’). It is unusual for someone to apply this to Christ.
v Although there are different views as to why Jesus was standing rather than sitting (2:34) at God’s right hand, one view that should be emphasised is the idea of ‘witness’. The proper posture for a witness in court is standing. Stephen had been acknowledging Jesus before the Council, and now he saw Jesus acknowledging him before God, and welcoming him into God’s presence.
To speak in this way was blasphemy to Jewish ears. The members thus shouted to drown out the blasphemy and stuffed their fingers in their ears so that they might not hear any more of it.
w It would seem that no proper procedure was followed because there was no formal condemnation and sentence. Stephen was thus just seized and dragged out of the town and then stoned to death.
x In order to perform their gruesome function more easily, the witnesses took off their cloaks. It was written in the Torah that the witnesses of a trial were to play the chief part in the execution, in this case, in the throwing of the first stones.
y This young man called Saul would play an increasingly impor- tant part in the later part of Acts as the leading champion of the cause which he was now opposing. Saul was his Hebrew name but he was better known by his Roman name of Paul. He was born in Tarsus (see chap 9, note o ) in the Roman province of Cilicia. See chap 13, note p for further details on Saul.
z These words are reminiscent of Jesus’ words at the cross (Lk 23:46). The only difference is that Jesus committed his spirit to God the Father, whereas Stephen here committed his spirit to Jesus.
a’ Stephen here echoed another of Jesus’ words from the cross (Lk 23:34).
b’ Again Luke makes the point that Saul was present at Stephen’s death and approved of it. He is providing the transition point between the death of Stephen and the beginning of the persecution of the church in Jerusalem.
Questions:
How did the Council react as they listened to Stephen (v. 54)?
2. What happened to Stephen after he finished speaking (vv. 55-56)?
3. What did the Council members do to Stephen when they heard his last words (vv. 57-58)?
4. How did Stephen react to what they did to him (vv. 59-60)?
5. Who was at the scene of Stephen’s death (v. 58)?
What was he doing?
Summary of Section:
- The Council members became furious and ground their teeth in anger as they listened to Stephen.
- However, Stephen was full of the Holy Spirit. He looked up to heaven and saw God’s glory and Jesus standing at the right side of God.
- He told his listeners that he saw heaven opened and the Son of Man standing at God’s right side.
- They cried out loudly and covered their ears with their hands.
- Then they all rushed at him, threw him out of the city and stoned him to death. The witnesses left their cloaks with a young man named Saul.
- As they were stoning him, Stephen called out to Jesus to receive his spirit. Then he knelt down, cried out to Jesus not to remember this sin against them and then he died.
Nuggets of Wisdom
- Stephen was the first Christian martyr, i.e., the first Christian to die for his faith. His death was full of Christ. He saw Christ standing at the right hand of God in heaven; at his stoning, he asked Jesus to receive his spirit; and his last words were to Jesus, asking him to forgive his executioners for what they were doing.
- The disciple, consciously or uncon- sciously reflected his Master, the only difference being that Jesus addressed his prayers to the Father, while Stephen addressed them to Jesus. He called Jesus ‘Lord’ and put him on the same level with God the Father.
- In some versions, it was translated that Stephen ‘fell asleep’, a beautiful and peaceful description of such a brutal death, befitting someone who died giving up his spirit to Jesus his Lord.
- In contrast, Luke mentions the presence of Saul, who remained unmoved and who was not sorry to see Stephen die. Luke is probably hinting at how great a transformation it must have been for someone who was so dead set against the teach- ings of Jesus to turn around later to become Jesus’ disciple.
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