Acts 7: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The high priest asks Stephen whether the charges against him are true, and Stephen answers with a long retelling of Israel's history: Abraham's call, Joseph's betrayal by his brothers, Moses' rescue and rejection, the golden calf, the tent in the wilderness, and Solomon's temple. He argues that the Most High does not live in houses built by human hands, then accuses his hearers of resisting the Holy Spirit as their fathers did, fathers who killed the prophets, and of betraying and murdering the Righteous One themselves. The council reacts with fury; when Stephen says he sees the Son of Man standing at God's right hand, they drag him out of the city and stone him, and the witnesses lay their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul. Stephen dies asking the Lord not to hold the sin against them.

Claim by Claim

1. 7:1
   • The high priest spoke.
   • The high priest asked whether these things were so.
2. 7:2
   • Stephen answered.
   • He addressed them as men, brothers, and fathers.
   • He told them to listen.
   • The God of glory appeared to Abraham.
   • Abraham is called our father.
   • Abraham was in Mesopotamia when God appeared to him.
   • This appearing happened before Abraham lived in Haran.
3. 7:3
   • God told Abraham to go out from his country.
   • God told Abraham to go out from his kindred.
   • God told Abraham to come into a land that God would show him.
4. 7:4
   • Abraham then went out of the land of the Chaldeans.
   • Abraham settled in Haran.
   • Abraham's father died.
   • After his father's death God moved him from Haran into this land.
   • This land is the one in which the hearers now live.
5. 7:5
   • God gave Abraham no inheritance in that land.
   • God gave him not even a foot's length of it.
   • God promised to give the land to Abraham as a possession.
   • God promised to give it to Abraham's seed after him.
   • Abraham had no child at the time of the promise.
6. 7:6
   • God spoke in this manner.
   • God said Abraham's seed would live as foreigners in a land not theirs.
   • God said they would be brought into bondage.
   • God said they would be mistreated four hundred years.
7. 7:7
   • God said he would judge the nation that enslaves them.
   • God said that after that they would come out.
   • God said they would serve him in this place.
8. 7:8
   • God gave Abraham the covenant of circumcision.
   • Abraham fathered Isaac.
   • Abraham circumcised Isaac on the eighth day.
   • Isaac fathered Jacob.
   • Jacob fathered the twelve patriarchs.
9. 7:9
   • The patriarchs were moved with envy against Joseph.
   • The patriarchs sold Joseph into Egypt.
   • God was with Joseph.
10. 7:10
    • God delivered Joseph out of all his afflictions.
    • God gave Joseph favor before Pharaoh king of Egypt.
    • God gave Joseph wisdom before Pharaoh king of Egypt.
    • Joseph was made governor over Egypt.
    • Joseph was made governor over all of Pharaoh's household.
11. 7:11
    • A famine came over all the land of Egypt and Canaan.
    • Great affliction came with it.
    • Our fathers found no food.
12. 7:12
    • Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt.
    • Jacob sent our fathers to Egypt on a first visit.
13. 7:13
    • At the second visit Joseph was made known to his brothers.
    • Joseph's family became known to Pharaoh.
14. 7:14
    • Joseph sent and summoned his father Jacob to him.
    • Joseph summoned all his kindred.
    • They numbered seventy-five persons.
15. 7:15
    • Jacob went down into Egypt.
    • Jacob died.
    • Our fathers died.
16. 7:16
    • They were carried over to Shechem.
    • They were laid in a tomb.
    • Abraham had bought that tomb for a sum of silver.
    • Abraham bought it from the sons of Emmor.
    • Emmor was the father of Shechem.
17. 7:17
    • The time of the promise drew near.
    • God had sworn that promise to Abraham.
    • The people grew in Egypt.
    • The people multiplied in Egypt.
18. 7:18
    • Another king arose over Egypt.
    • That king did not know Joseph.
19. 7:19
    • This king dealt craftily with our people.
    • He mistreated our fathers.
    • He made them expose their infants.
    • The purpose was that the infants would not live.
20. 7:20
    • Moses was born at that time.
    • Moses was beautiful in God's sight.
    • Moses was nourished three months in his father's house.
21. 7:21
    • Moses was cast out.
    • Pharaoh's daughter took him up.
    • She brought him up as her own son.
22. 7:22
    • Moses was taught in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.
    • Moses was mighty in his words.
    • Moses was mighty in his deeds.
23. 7:23
    • Moses reached the age of forty years.
    • It came into his heart to visit his brothers.
    • His brothers are the children of Israel.
24. 7:24
    • Moses saw one of them being wronged.
    • Moses defended him.
    • Moses avenged the one who was oppressed.
    • Moses struck down the Egyptian.
25. 7:25
    • Moses supposed his brothers would understand that God was giving them deliverance by his hand.
    • His brothers did not understand.
26. 7:26
    • The next day Moses appeared to them while they were fighting.
    • Moses tried to reconcile them to peace.
    • Moses said they were brothers.
    • Moses asked why they wronged one another.
27. 7:27
    • The man who was wronging his neighbor thrust Moses away.
    • He asked who made Moses a ruler and a judge over them.
28. 7:28
    • He asked whether Moses meant to kill him.
    • He said Moses had killed the Egyptian the day before.
29. 7:29
    • Moses fled at this saying.
    • Moses became a sojourner in the land of Midian.
    • Moses fathered two sons there.
30. 7:30
    • Forty years were completed.
    • An angel of the Lord appeared to Moses.
    • The appearance was in the wilderness of Mount Sinai.
    • The angel appeared in a flame of fire in a bush.
31. 7:31
    • Moses saw it.
    • Moses marveled at the sight.
    • Moses drew near to look at it.
    • The voice of the Lord came to him.
32. 7:32
    • The voice said, I am the God of your fathers.
    • The voice named itself the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob.
    • Moses began to tremble.
    • Moses did not dare to look.
33. 7:33
    • The Lord told Moses to take the sandals off his feet.
    • The Lord said the place where Moses stood is holy ground.
34. 7:34
    • The Lord said he had surely seen the affliction of his people in Egypt.
    • The Lord said he had heard their groaning.
    • The Lord said he had come down to deliver them.
    • The Lord told Moses to come now.
    • The Lord said he would send Moses into Egypt.
35. 7:35
    • The people refused this Moses.
    • They had said, Who made you a ruler and a judge?
    • God sent this same Moses to be a ruler.
    • God sent him to be a deliverer.
    • God sent him by the hand of the angel that appeared to him in the bush.
36. 7:36
    • Moses brought them out.
    • Moses performed wonders and signs in the land of Egypt.
    • Moses performed wonders and signs at the Red Sea.
    • Moses performed wonders and signs in the wilderness for forty years.
37. 7:37
    • This is the Moses who spoke to the children of Israel.
    • He said the Lord their God would raise up for them a prophet from among their brothers.
    • He said that prophet would be like himself.
    • He said they should hear that prophet.
38. 7:38
    • This is the one who was in the assembly in the wilderness.
    • He was there with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai.
    • He was there with our fathers.
    • He received living oracles.
    • He received them in order to give them to us.
39. 7:39
    • Our fathers refused to obey Moses.
    • They thrust him away from them.
    • In their hearts they turned back to Egypt.
40. 7:40
    • They said to Aaron, Make us gods to go before us.
    • They said this Moses brought them out of the land of Egypt.
    • They said they did not know what had become of him.
41. 7:41
    • They made a calf in those days.
    • They offered sacrifice to the idol.
    • They rejoiced in the works of their own hands.
42. 7:42
    • God turned away.
    • God gave them up to worship the host of heaven.
    • This is written in the book of the prophets.
    • The prophets ask whether they offered slain beasts and sacrifices to God for forty years in the wilderness.
    • The question is addressed to the house of Israel.
43. 7:43
    • They took up the tabernacle of Moloch.
    • They took up the star of their god Remphan.
    • These were figures which they made.
    • They made them in order to worship them.
    • God says he will carry them away beyond Babylon.
44. 7:44
    • Our fathers had the tabernacle of witness in the wilderness.
    • God appointed it when he spoke to Moses.
    • Moses was to make it according to the pattern he had seen.
45. 7:45
    • Our fathers who came after brought the tabernacle in.
    • They brought it in with Joshua.
    • They brought it into the possession of the nations.
    • God drove those nations out before the face of our fathers.
    • This continued until the days of David.
46. 7:46
    • David found favor before God.
    • David desired to find a dwelling place for the God of Jacob.
47. 7:47
    • Solomon built God a house.
48. 7:48
    • The Most High does not dwell in houses made with hands.
    • The prophet says so.
49. 7:49
    • Heaven is God's throne.
    • The earth is the footstool of his feet.
    • God asks what house they will build for him.
    • The Lord is the one speaking.
    • God asks what the place of his rest is.
50. 7:50
    • God asks whether his hand did not make all these things.
51. 7:51
    • Stephen calls them stiffnecked.
    • Stephen calls them uncircumcised in heart and ears.
    • Stephen says they always resist the Holy Spirit.
    • Stephen says they do as their fathers did.
52. 7:52
    • Stephen asks which of the prophets their fathers did not persecute.
    • Their fathers killed those who foretold the coming of the Just One.
    • They have now become the betrayers of the Just One.
    • They have now become the murderers of the Just One.
53. 7:53
    • They received the law by the disposition of angels.
    • They have not kept the law.
54. 7:54
    • They heard these things.
    • They were cut to the heart.
    • They gnashed their teeth at him.
55. 7:55
    • Stephen was full of the Holy Spirit.
    • Stephen looked steadfastly into heaven.
    • Stephen saw the glory of God.
    • Stephen saw Jesus standing at the right hand of God.
56. 7:56
    • Stephen said he saw the heavens opened.
    • Stephen said he saw the Son of man standing at the right hand of God.
57. 7:57
    • They cried out with a loud voice.
    • They stopped their ears.
    • They rushed upon him with one accord.
58. 7:58
    • They cast him out of the city.
    • They stoned him.
    • The witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man.
    • The young man's name was Saul.
59. 7:59
    • They stoned Stephen.
    • Stephen called upon God.
    • Stephen said, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.
60. 7:60
    • Stephen kneeled down.
    • Stephen cried with a loud voice.
    • Stephen asked the Lord not to charge this sin against them.
    • After saying this he fell asleep.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

7:1

Stephen is on trial before the Sanhedrin, the council of seventy elders, chief priests and legal experts that governed Jewish religious life under Roman rule. The high priest presided over it. The charges are the ones brought at the end of the previous chapter: that Stephen had spoken against the Temple and the law of Moses. Everything from verse 2 to verse 53 is his answer.

7:2

"Men, brethren, and fathers" is a formal courtroom address, roughly "gentlemen of the council." Mesopotamia means "between the rivers," the land along the Tigris and Euphrates in what is now Iraq. Charran is the Greek spelling of Haran, a caravan town in the far north of that region; the Old Testament calls it Haran.

7:3

A near word for word quotation of God's first command to Abraham in Genesis 12:1.

7:4

The Chaldaeans were the people of southern Mesopotamia; Abraham's home city, Ur, lay in their territory. The KJV "from thence" simply means "from there."

7:5

Land was normally held by inheritance within a family, so to own "not so much as to set his foot on" is to be a permanent outsider. The only ground Abraham ever bought in Canaan was a burial plot.

7:6

A quotation of Genesis 15:13. The four hundred years is the round figure given there; Exodus 12:40 gives the period as four hundred and thirty years, and both numbers circulated.

7:8

A covenant is a binding agreement with stated terms and obligations on both sides. Circumcision is the surgical removal of the foreskin, performed here on a boy eight days after birth; it served as the permanent bodily mark that a male belonged to Abraham's people. The KJV "begat" means "fathered." The twelve patriarchs are Jacob's twelve sons, the men from whom the twelve tribes of Israel traced their descent; "patriarch" means the founding father of a family line.

7:9

Joseph was one of Jacob's twelve sons. His jealous brothers sold him to traders, who carried him to Egypt as a slave.

7:10

"Pharaoh" is a title, not a personal name. It comes from an Egyptian phrase meaning "great house," that is, the palace, and came to stand for the king himself.

7:11

Chanaan is the Greek spelling of Canaan, the land later called Israel. The KJV "dearth" means famine, and "sustenance" means food.

7:12

In 1611 English "corn" meant grain of any kind, usually wheat or barley. It did not mean maize, which is the American sense that the word later took on.

7:14

Genesis in its Hebrew form counts seventy people in Jacob's household; the Greek translation of Genesis used widely in Stephen's day counts seventy five. Stephen follows the Greek. The KJV "threescore and fifteen" is sixty plus fifteen, and "souls" here means persons.

7:16

Sychem is the Greek spelling of Shechem, a town in central Canaan; Emmor is the Greek spelling of Hamor. Genesis records two separate purchases: Abraham bought a burial cave at Hebron from Ephron, and Jacob bought ground at Shechem from the sons of Hamor. Stephen's summary combines them into a single sentence.

7:18

A new dynasty on the Egyptian throne had no reason to remember Joseph, who had saved Egypt from famine generations earlier. The new king saw only a large and growing foreign population.

7:19

The KJV "dealt subtilly" means dealt cunningly or by trickery, not "subtly" in the modern sense of faintly, and "evil entreated" means treated badly. Leaving an unwanted newborn outdoors to die of exposure was a recognized practice in the ancient world; the order described here forced Israelite parents to do it to their own sons.

7:20

The Greek behind the KJV "exceeding fair" reads literally "beautiful to God," a Hebrew style way of saying beautiful in the highest degree. "Nourished up" means raised or cared for.

7:21

Being taken by Pharaoh's daughter meant Moses grew up in the palace as an Egyptian prince, not as a slave.

7:22

This is the standard description of an elite Egyptian court education: reading and writing, law, mathematics, astronomy and medicine. "Mighty in words and in deeds" was a stock phrase for a man of commanding ability in both speech and action.

7:23

Stephen divides Moses' life into three periods of forty years: forty in Egypt, forty in Midian, forty leading Israel in the desert. Exodus does not give his age at this point; the scheme comes from later Jewish tradition. "Forty years" in the Bible often functions as a round figure for a full generation.

7:26

The KJV "as they strove" means as they were fighting, and "would have set them at one again" means tried to reconcile them, to make them one again.

7:27

A quotation of Exodus 2:14. The question is a challenge to Moses' authority: no one had appointed him to settle disputes.

7:29

Madian is the Greek spelling of Midian, a region east of the Gulf of Aqaba, well outside Egyptian control. "Begat" means fathered.

7:30

Sina is the Greek spelling of Sinai. The KJV "wilderness" means uninhabited desert country, not forest. "Were expired" simply means had passed.

7:32

The KJV "durst not" means did not dare.

7:33

Removing sandals before entering a sacred space was a normal mark of respect in the ancient Near East, much as one might uncover the head; priests served at the altar barefoot. "Holy" here means set apart from ordinary use.

7:34

"I have seen, I have seen" reproduces a Hebrew pattern in which a verb is doubled for emphasis, meaning "I have certainly seen." The Greek translation of Exodus that Stephen is quoting kept the doubling.

7:35

"Deliverer" translates a Greek word for someone who buys a captive out of slavery and sets them free, so it carries the idea of a price paid, not just a rescue.

7:36

"Wonders and signs" is the standard pair of terms for the plagues and other acts recorded in Exodus. The Hebrew name of the sea crossed in the escape is yam suph, "sea of reeds"; the ancient Greek translation rendered it "Red Sea," and that is the form quoted here.

7:37

A quotation of Deuteronomy 18:15, where Moses tells Israel that God will supply a prophet in his own line for them to listen to.

7:38

The KJV "church" here translates the ordinary Greek word ekklesia, meaning an assembly or gathering of citizens. It refers to Israel assembled in the desert, not to a Christian congregation or a building. "Lively oracles" means living utterances: "lively" in 1611 English meant living, and "oracles" meant words spoken by God.

7:40

The KJV "we wot not" means "we do not know." Aaron was Moses' older brother. The demand is quoted from Exodus 32:1.

7:41

The reference is to the golden calf of Exodus 32, an image molded from melted jewelry while Moses was on the mountain. A calf or young bull was a common figure for a god, or for a god's mount, in the surrounding cultures. "Idol" means a manufactured image treated as a god.

7:42

"Gave them up" means handed them over, let them have what they wanted. The quotation in verses 42 and 43 is from Amos 5:25 to 27, in its Greek version rather than the Hebrew. The KJV "by the space of" means "for a period of."

7:43

Moloch was a god associated with the Ammonites and with child sacrifice. Remphan, spelled Rephan elsewhere, appears in the Greek version of Amos where the Hebrew has Kiyyun, a name linked to the planet Saturn; the "star" is the planet treated as a god. A portable shrine tent carried in procession was a familiar way of transporting such an image. Amos wrote "beyond Damascus"; the form Stephen quotes reads "beyond Babylon," pointing to the later deportation of Judah.

7:44

The tabernacle was the portable tent sanctuary Israel carried through the desert, described in Exodus 25 to 40. It is called the tent "of witness" or "of the testimony" because it housed the stone tablets of the law, which stood as the testimony to the agreement between God and Israel. The KJV "fashion" means pattern or design.

7:45

"Jesus" here is not Jesus of Nazareth. Joshua and Jesus are the same name, Yeshua; the KJV transliterates the Greek form, so Joshua son of Nun, who led Israel into Canaan after Moses died, appears as "Jesus." "Gentiles" translates a word simply meaning the nations, that is, peoples other than Israel, and the KJV "drave" is the old past tense of drive.

7:46

"Found favour" means was looked on with approval. Some ancient manuscripts read that David wished to find a dwelling place for "the house of Jacob" rather than for "the God of Jacob"; both readings are old.

7:47

Solomon, David's son, built the first temple in Jerusalem in the tenth century BC. The Babylonians destroyed it, a smaller one replaced it, and the building standing in Stephen's day was that second temple, hugely enlarged by Herod the Great. Attacking the temple was the exact charge Stephen was on trial for.

7:48

"The most High" is a standard title for God, meaning the highest one. "Temples made with hands" uses a Greek word, cheiropoietos, that the Greek Old Testament regularly applies to manufactured idols; applying it to a building is pointed language.

7:49

A quotation of Isaiah 66:1 and 2. A footstool is the low stool a seated ruler rests his feet on, so heaven and earth together form a single throne. "The place of my rest" means a settled dwelling, a place to stay put.

7:51

"Stiffnecked" is an image from farming, of an ox that locks its neck against the yoke and will not be steered. To be "uncircumcised in heart and ears" is an Old Testament idiom, used by Jeremiah and by Moses, for being closed off and unable to take anything in; it turns the mark of belonging into a question about the inner person.

7:52

"The Just One" means the Righteous One, "just" in 1611 English meaning righteous or innocent rather than merely fair. It is used here as a title for Jesus. "Shewed before" means announced in advance.

7:53

The KJV "by the disposition of angels" means as arranged or administered through angels. Jewish tradition of this period held that the law was delivered at Sinai by angelic intermediaries rather than directly, a view also reflected in Galatians 3:19 and Hebrews 2:2.

7:54

"Cut to the heart" translates a Greek word meaning sawn through, a stronger image than the English suggests. Grinding or gnashing the teeth was a recognized public display of fury.

7:55

The position at a ruler's right hand was the place of highest honor and delegated authority in a royal court, occupied by the person who acted with the king's power. "Stedfastly" means with a fixed, unwavering gaze.

7:56

"The Son of man" is the phrase the gospels report Jesus using of himself. It draws on Daniel 7:13, where "one like a son of man" comes with the clouds and is given authority; in ordinary Aramaic the same phrase can mean simply "a human being," and both senses are in play.

7:57

Covering the ears was the customary reaction to hearing what one took to be blasphemy, so as not to be a party to it. "With one accord" means all together, as one.

7:58

Execution by stoning took place outside the city walls. Under Deuteronomy 17:7 the witnesses whose testimony had secured the conviction had to throw the first stones, which meant stripping off their outer cloaks to free their arms; someone had to mind the clothes. Saul, minding them here, is the man later known as Paul.

7:59

The KJV supplies the word "God"; the Greek says only that Stephen was calling out or appealing, and the words that follow show whom he addressed.

7:60

"Lay not this sin to their charge" means do not enter this sin on their account against them, an image from bookkeeping. "He fell asleep" was an ordinary way of saying that someone died, in Greek as in English.