Acts 7
7
Stephen's Defense
1Then said the high priest, Are these things so? 2#Gen 12.1. And he said,
Men, brethren, and fathers, hearken; The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopota´mi-a, before he dwelt in Haran, 3and said unto him, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and come into the land which I shall show thee. 4#Gen 11.31; Gen 12.4. Then came he out of the land of the Chalde´ans, and dwelt in Haran: and from thence, when his father was dead, he removed him into this land, wherein ye now dwell. 5#Gen 12.7; 13.15; 15.18; 17.8. And he gave him none inheritance in it, no, not so much as to set his foot on: yet he promised that he would give it to him for a possession, and to his seed after him, when as yet he had no child. 6#Gen 15.13,14. And God spake on this wise, That his seed should sojourn in a strange land; and that they should bring them into bondage, and entreat them evil four hundred years. 7And the nation to whom they shall be in bondage will I judge, said God: and after that shall they come forth, and serve me in this place. 8#Gen 17.10-14; Gen 21.2-4; Gen 25.26; Gen 29.31—35.18. And he gave him the covenant of circumcision: and so Abraham begat Isaac, and circumcised him the eighth day; and Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob begat the twelve patriarchs.
9 #
Gen 37.11;
Gen 37.28;
Gen 39.2,21. And the patriarchs, moved with envy, sold Joseph into Egypt: but God was with him, 10#Gen 41.39-41. and delivered him out of all his afflictions, and gave him favor and wisdom in the sight of Pharaoh king of Egypt; and he made him governor over Egypt and all his house. 11#Gen 41.54-57. Now there came a dearth over all the land of Egypt and Canaan, and great affliction: and our fathers found no sustenance. 12#Gen 42.1,2. But when Jacob heard that there was corn in Egypt, he sent out our fathers first. 13#Gen 45.1; Gen 45.16. And at the second time Joseph was made known to his brethren; and Joseph's kindred was made known unto Pharaoh. 14#Gen 45.9,10,17,18; Gen 46.27. Then sent Joseph, and called his father Jacob to him, and all his kindred, threescore and fifteen souls. 15#Gen 46.1-7; Gen 49.33. So Jacob went down into Egypt, and died, he, and our fathers, 16#Gen 23.3-16; 33.19; 50.7-13; Josh 24.32. and were carried over into Shechem, and laid in the sepulchre that Abraham bought for a sum of money of the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem.#7.16 the father of Shechem. Some early manuscripts have in Shechem.
17 #
Exod 1.7,8. But when the time of the promise drew nigh, which God had sworn to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt, 18till another king arose, which knew not Joseph. 19#Exod 1.10,11; Exod 1.22. The same dealt subtilely with our kindred, and evil entreated our fathers, so that they cast out their young children, to the end they might not live. 20#Exod 2.2. In which time Moses was born, and was exceeding fair, and nourished up in his father's house three months: 21#Exod 2.3-10. and when he was cast out, Pharaoh's daughter took him up, and nourished him for her own son. 22And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds.
23 #
Exod 2.11-15. And when he was full forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren the children of Israel. 24And seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended him, and avenged him that was oppressed, and smote the Egyptian: 25for he supposed his brethren would have understood how that God by his hand would deliver them; but they understood not. 26And the next day he showed himself unto them as they strove, and would have set them at one again, saying, Sirs, ye are brethren; why do ye wrong one to another? 27But he that did his neighbor wrong thrust him away, saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge over us? 28Wilt thou kill me, as thou didst the Egyptian yesterday? 29#Exod 18.3,4. Then fled Moses at this saying, and was a stranger in the land of Mid´i-an, where he begat two sons.
30 #
Exod 3.1-10. And when forty years were expired, there appeared to him in the wilderness of mount Si´nai an angel of the Lord in a flame of fire in a bush. 31When Moses saw it, he wondered at the sight: and as he drew near to behold it, the voice of the Lord came unto him, 32saying, I am the God of thy fathers, the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Then Moses trembled, and durst not behold. 33Then said the Lord to him, Put off thy shoes from thy feet: for the place where thou standest is holy ground. 34I have seen, I have seen the affliction of my people which is in Egypt, and I have heard their groaning, and am come down to deliver them. And now come, I will send thee into Egypt.
35This Moses whom they refused, saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge? the same did God send to be a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the angel which appeared to him in the bush. 36#Exod 7.3; Exod 14.21; Num 14.33. He brought them out, after that he had showed wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, and in the Red sea, and in the wilderness forty years. 37#Deut 18.15,18. This is that Moses, which said unto the children of Israel, A Prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear. 38#Exod 19.1—20.17; Deut 5.1-33. This is he, that was in the church#7.38 church or congregation. in the wilderness with the angel which spake to him in the mount Si´nai, and with our fathers: who received the lively oracles to give unto us: 39to whom our fathers would not obey, but thrust him from them, and in their hearts turned back again into Egypt, 40#Exod 32.1. saying unto Aaron, Make us gods to go before us: for as for this Moses, which brought us out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him. 41#Exod 32.2-6. And they made a calf in those days, and offered sacrifice unto the idol, and rejoiced in the works of their own hands. 42#Amos 5.25-27. Then God turned, and gave them up to worship the host of heaven; as it is written in the book of the prophets,
O ye house of Israel,
have ye offered to me slain beasts and sacrifices
by the space of forty years in the wilderness?
43Yea, ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch,
and the star of your god Remphan,
figures which ye made to worship them:
and I will carry you away beyond Babylon.
44 #
Exod 25.9,40. Our fathers had the tabernacle of witness in the wilderness, as he had appointed, speaking unto Moses, that he should make it according to the fashion that he had seen. 45#Josh 3.14-17. Which also our fathers that came after brought in with Joshua into the possession of the Gentiles, whom God drave out before the face of our fathers, unto the days of David; 46#2 Sam 7.1-16; 1 Chr 17.1-14. who found favor before God, and desired to find a tabernacle for the God of Jacob. 47#1 Kgs 6.1-38; 2 Chr 3.1-17. But Solomon built him a house. 48Howbeit the Most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands; as saith the prophet,
49 #
Isa 66.1,2. Heaven is my throne,
and earth is my footstool:
what house will ye build me? saith the Lord:
or what is the place of my rest?
50Hath not my hand made all these things?
51 #
Isa 63.10. Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye. 52Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which showed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers: 53who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it.
The Stoning of Stephen
54When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their teeth. 55But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, 56and said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God. 57Then they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and ran upon him with one accord, 58and cast him out of the city, and stoned him: and the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man's feet, whose name was Saul. 59And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. 60And he kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when he had said this, he fell asleep.
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King James Version 1611, spelling, punctuation and text formatting modernized by ABS in 1962; typesetting © 2010 American Bible Society.
Acts 7
7
Stephen’s Discourses. 1Then the high priest asked, “Is this so?” 2#Gn 11:31; 12:1; Ps 29:3. And he replied,#Stephen’s speech represents Luke’s description of Christianity’s break from its Jewish matrix. Two motifs become prominent in the speech: (1) Israel’s reaction to God’s chosen leaders in the past reveals that the people have consistently rejected them; and (2) Israel has misunderstood God’s choice of the Jerusalem temple as the place where he is to be worshiped. “My brothers and fathers, listen. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham while he was in Mesopotamia,#God…appeared to our father Abraham…in Mesopotamia: the first of a number of minor discrepancies between the data of the Old Testament and the data of Stephen’s discourse. According to Gn 12:1, God first spoke to Abraham in Haran. The main discrepancies are these: in Acts 7:16 it is said that Jacob was buried in Shechem, whereas Gn 50:13 says he was buried at Hebron; in the same verse it is said that the tomb was purchased by Abraham, but in Gn 33:19 and Jos 24:32 the purchase is attributed to Jacob himself. before he had settled in Haran, 3and said to him, ‘Go forth from your land and [from] your kinsfolk to the land that I will show you.’#Gn 12:1. 4So he went forth from the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran. And from there, after his father died, he made him migrate to this land where you now dwell.#Gn 12:5; 15:7. 5Yet he gave him no inheritance in it, not even a foot’s length, but he did promise to give it to him and his descendants as a possession, even though he was childless.#Gn 12:7; 13:15; 15:2; 16:1; Dt 2:5. 6And God spoke thus,#Gn 15:13–14. ‘His descendants shall be aliens in a land not their own, where they shall be enslaved and oppressed for four hundred years; 7but I will bring judgment on the nation they serve,’ God said, ‘and after that they will come out and worship me in this place.’#Ex 3:12. 8Then he gave him the covenant of circumcision, and so he became the father of Isaac, and circumcised him on the eighth day, as Isaac did Jacob, and Jacob the twelve patriarchs.#Gn 17:10–14; 21:2–4.
9“And the patriarchs, jealous of Joseph, sold him into slavery in Egypt; but God was with him#Gn 37:11, 28; 39:2, 3, 21, 23. 10and rescued him from all his afflictions. He granted him favor and wisdom before Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, who put him in charge of Egypt and [of] his entire household.#Gn 41:37–43; Ps 105:21; Wis 10:13–14. 11Then a famine and great affliction struck all Egypt and Canaan, and our ancestors could find no food;#Gn 41:54–57; 42:5. 12but when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent our ancestors there a first time.#Gn 42:1–2. 13The second time, Joseph made himself known to his brothers, and Joseph’s family became known to Pharaoh.#Gn 45:3–4, 16. 14Then Joseph sent for his father Jacob, inviting him and his whole clan, seventy-five persons;#Gn 45:9–11, 18–19; 46:27; Ex 1:5 LXX; Dt 10:22. 15and Jacob went down to Egypt. And he and our ancestors died#Gn 46:5–6; 49:33. 16and were brought back to Shechem and placed in the tomb that Abraham had purchased for a sum of money from the sons of Hamor at Shechem.#Gn 23:3–20; 33:19; 49:29–30; 50:13; Jos 24:32.
17“When the time drew near for the fulfillment of the promise that God pledged to Abraham, the people had increased and become very numerous in Egypt,#Ex 1:7. 18until another king who knew nothing of Joseph came to power [in Egypt].#Ex 1:8. 19He dealt shrewdly with our people and oppressed [our] ancestors by forcing them to expose their infants, that they might not survive. 20At this time Moses was born, and he was extremely beautiful. For three months he was nursed in his father’s house;#Ex 2:2; Heb 11:23. 21but when he was exposed, Pharaoh’s daughter adopted him and brought him up as her own son.#Ex 2:3–10. 22Moses was educated [in] all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in his words and deeds.
23#Ex 2:11–12. “When he was forty years old, he decided to visit his kinsfolk, the Israelites. 24When he saw one of them treated unjustly, he defended and avenged the oppressed man by striking down the Egyptian. 25He assumed [his] kinsfolk would understand that God was offering them deliverance through him, but they did not understand. 26#Ex 2:13–14. The next day he appeared to them as they were fighting and tried to reconcile them peacefully, saying, ‘Men, you are brothers. Why are you harming one another?’ 27Then the one who was harming his neighbor pushed him aside, saying, ‘Who appointed you ruler and judge over us? 28Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?’ 29Moses fled when he heard this and settled as an alien in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons.#Ex 2:15, 21–22; 18:3–4.
30#Ex 3:2–3. “Forty years later, an angel appeared to him in the desert near Mount Sinai in the flame of a burning bush. 31When Moses saw it, he was amazed at the sight, and as he drew near to look at it, the voice of the Lord came, 32‘I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob.’ Then Moses, trembling, did not dare to look at it. 33But the Lord said to him, ‘Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground. 34I have witnessed the affliction of my people in Egypt and have heard their groaning, and I have come down to rescue them. Come now, I will send you to Egypt.’ 35This Moses, whom they had rejected with the words, ‘Who appointed you ruler and judge?’ God sent as [both] ruler and deliverer, through the angel who appeared to him in the bush.#Ex 2:14. 36This man led them out, performing wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, at the Red Sea, and in the desert for forty years.#Ex 7:3, 10; 14:21; Nm 14:33. 37It was this Moses who said to the Israelites, ‘God will raise up for you, from among your own kinsfolk, a prophet like me.’#Dt 18:15; Acts 3:22. 38It was he who, in the assembly in the desert, was with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai and with our ancestors, and he received living utterances to hand on to us.#Ex 19:3; 20:1–17; Dt 5:4–22; 6:4–25.
39“Our ancestors were unwilling to obey him; instead, they pushed him aside and in their hearts turned back to Egypt,#Nm 14:3. 40saying to Aaron, ‘Make us gods who will be our leaders. As for that Moses who led us out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has happened to him.’#Ex 32:1, 23. 41#Ex 32:4–6. So they made a calf in those days, offered sacrifice to the idol, and reveled in the works of their hands. 42Then God turned and handed them over to worship the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets:#Am 5:25–27.
‘Did you bring me sacrifices and offerings
for forty years in the desert, O house of Israel?#Jer 7:18; 8:2; 19:13.
43No, you took up the tent of Moloch
and the star of [your] god Rephan,
the images that you made to worship.
So I shall take you into exile beyond Babylon.’
44Our ancestors had the tent of testimony in the desert just as the One who spoke to Moses directed him to make it according to the pattern he had seen.#Ex 25:9, 40. 45Our ancestors who inherited it brought it with Joshua when they dispossessed the nations that God drove out from before our ancestors, up to the time of David,#Jos 3:14–17; 18:1; 2 Sm 7:5–7. 46who found favor in the sight of God and asked that he might find a dwelling place for the house of Jacob.#2 Sm 7:1–2; 1 Kgs 8:17; Ps 132:1–5. 47But Solomon built a house for him.#1 Kgs 6:1; 1 Chr 17:12. 48Yet the Most High does not dwell in houses made by human hands. As the prophet says:#17:24.
49‘The heavens are my throne,
the earth is my footstool.
What kind of house can you build for me?
says the Lord,
or what is to be my resting place?#Is 66:1–2.
50Did not my hand make all these things?’
Conclusion. 51“You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always oppose the holy Spirit; you are just like your ancestors. 52Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute? They put to death those who foretold the coming of the righteous one, whose betrayers and murderers you have now become.#2 Chr 36:16; Mt 23:31, 34. 53You received the law as transmitted by angels, but you did not observe it.”#Gal 3:19; Heb 2:2.
Stephen’s Martyrdom. 54When they heard this, they were infuriated, and they ground their teeth at him. 55#Mt 26:64; Mk 14:62; Lk 22:69; Acts 2:34. But he, filled with the holy Spirit, looked up intently to heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God,#He…saw…Jesus standing at the right hand of God: Stephen affirms to the Sanhedrin that the prophecy Jesus made before them has been fulfilled (Mk 14:62). 56and he said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” 57But they cried out in a loud voice, covered their ears,#Covered their ears: Stephen’s declaration, like that of Jesus, is a scandal to the court, which regards it as blasphemy. and rushed upon him together. 58They threw him out of the city, and began to stone him. The witnesses laid down their cloaks at the feet of a young man named Saul.#22:20. 59As they were stoning Stephen,#Ps 31:6; Lk 23:46. he called out, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”#Compare Lk 23:34, 46. 60Then he fell to his knees and cried out in a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them”; and when he said this, he fell asleep.#Mt 27:46, 50; Mk 15:34; Lk 23:46.
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