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ch. v. 39.

see Exod.

iv. 12. Isa. p1 Kings xxi.

liv. 17.

10, 13. Matt. xxvi. 59, 60.

andrians, and of them of Cilicia and of Asia, disputing

o Luke xxi. 15 with Stephen. 10 And they were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he spake. 11 P Then they suborned men, i which said, We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and [ against] God. 12 And they stirred up the people, and the elders, and the scribes, and came upon him, and caught him, and brought him to the council, 13 and set up false witnesses, i which said, This man ceaseth not to speak blasphemous words against this holy place, and the law: 149 for we have r Dan. ix. 26. heard him say, that this Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place, and shall change the customs which Moses delivered us. 15 And all that sat in the council, looking stedfastly on him, saw his face as it had been the face of an angel.

q ch. xxv. 8.

i render, to say.

1 Many ancient authorities read, the holy place. the agent of the mischief. Here then we have abundant reason for numbers of these Jews of libertine race having come to Jerusalem, being among the rest, who were ordered to quit Italy: and what place so likely a refuge for Jews as Jerusalem ?-Those who find a difficulty in this interpretation suppose them to have been inhabitants of Libertum, a town in proper or proconsular Africa, from which we find a bishop of Libertum sitting in the synod of Carthage in 411. But none of their suppositions will bear examination, and the best interpretation is the usual one -that they were the descendants of Jewish freedmen at Rome, who had been expelled by Tiberius.-There is no difficulty in their having had a synagogue of their own: for there were 460 or 480 synagogues at Jerusalem.

note.

Cyrenians] See ch. ii. 10, Alexandrians] Two of the five regions of Alexandria were inhabited by Jews. It was also the seat of the learning and philosophy of the Grecian Jews, which was now at its height. This metropolis of the Hellenists would certainly have a synagogue in Jerusalem. I understand three distinct synagogues to be meant, notwithstanding the somewhat equivocal construction, and the words "which is called" only to apply to the unusual term "Libertines." Cilicia was at this time a Roman province, the capital being the free city of Tarsus, see note on ch. ix. 11. -Asia,—not exactly as in ch. ii. 9, where it is distinguished from Phrygia,—here and usually in the Acts implies proconsular

komit.

Asia, a large and important Roman province, including Mysia, Lydia, Caria, and Phrygia-known also as "Asia this side of the Taurus." 11.] Neander well remarks that this false charge, coupled with the character of Stephen's apologetic speech, shews the real character of his arguments with his opponents:-that he seems to have been the first who plainly set forth the transitory nature of the law and temple, as compared with the permanence of the latter and better covenant, thus being in a remarkable manner the forerunner of St. Paul. 12.] the people, first,—that by means of the popular feeling they might act upon the elders and scribes, the members of the Sanhedrim. came upon him] The same persons,-acting now by the authority of the Sanhedrim; Saul, among those from Cilicia, being, as is afterwards (ch. vii. 58) implied, among the foremost,- came upon him, and seized him. nesses] The falsehood of their witness consisted, as in the similar case of our Lord, in taking Stephen's words out of their context, and misrepresenting what perhaps in so many words he had actually said. this holy place] The temple: see Matt. xxiv. 15; ch. xxi. 28. 15.] It is a question with regard to this verse, Does it relate any supernatural appearance, glorifying the face of Stephen,-or merely describe the calm and holy aspect with which he stood before the council? The majority of commentators suppose the latter: and certainly the foregoing description of

13. false wit

VII. 1 m Then said the high priest, Are these things so?

2 And he said, an Men, brethren, and fathers, hearken; a ch. xxii. 1. The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham,

m render, But the high priest said.
n render, Brethren: see ch. i. 16.

Stephen would lead us to infer, that there was something remarkably striking in his appearance and demeanour, which overawed his adversaries. But both from the plain language of our text, well understood among the Jews to signify supernatural brightness, and from the fact that in St. Luke's own narrative we have supernatural brightness associated with angelic appearances more than once (see Luke ii. 9; ch. xii. 7), I should be inclined to think that the face of the martyr was lighted up with a divine radiance. That the effect on those present was not such as to prevent the examination proceeding, is no argument against this view: in the very mildness of the question of the High Priest which follows, I see the trace of some unusual incident exercising an influence over him. Chrysostom explains well the effect on the council: "God seems to me to have made him beautiful to look at, perhaps to prepare the way for his speech, and that he might immediately strike them with his look. For there is, yea there is, in faces full of spiritual grace that which is lovely to those that love them, and strikes awe and fear into those that hate them. Or perhaps the Evangelist mentions it to account for their tolerating his speech. For what answer does the High Priest make? Do you see, how mildly and unreproachfully he puts his question ?" CHAP. VII. 1.] On the High Priest's ques tion, see Chrysostom just quoted.-It is parallel with Matt. xxvi. 62, but singularly distinguished from that question by its mildness: see above. 2-53.] STEPHEN'S DEFENCE. In order to understand this wonderful and somewhat difficult speech, it will be well to bear in mind, (1) that the general character of it is apologetic, referring to the charge made against him: but (2) that in this apology, forgetting himself in the vast subject which he is vindicating, he every where mixes in the polemic and didactic element. A general synopsis of it may be thus given: (1) He shews (apologetically) that, so far from dishonouring Moses or God, he believes, and holds in mind, God's dealings with Abraham and Moses, and grounds upon them his preaching; that, so far from dishonouring the temple, he bears in mind its history and the sayings of the prophets

respecting it; and he is proceeding,-when (interrupted by their murmurs or inattention? but see note, ver. 51) he bursts forth into a holy vehemence of invective against their rejection of God, which provokes his tumultuary expulsion from the council, and execution. (2) But simultaneously and parallel with this apologetic procedure, he also proceeds didactically, shewing them that a future Prophet was pointed out by Moses as the final Lawgiver of God's people, that the Most High had revealed His spiritual and heavenly nature by the prophets, and did not dwell in temples made with hands. And (3) even more remarkably still does the polemic element run through the speech. "It is not I, but YOU, who from the first times till now have rejected and spoken against God." And this element, just appearing ver. 9, and again more plainly vv. 25-28, and again more pointedly still in ver. 35, becomes dominant in vv. 39-44, and finally prevails, to the exclusion of the apologetic and didactic, in vv. 51-53.-That other connected purposes have been discovered in the speech, as, for example, that so ably followed out by Chrysostom, of shewing that the covenant and promises were before the law, and sacrifice and the law before the temple, -is to be attributed to the wonderful depth of words uttered like these under the immediate inspiration of the Holy Spirit, presenting to us, from whichever side they are viewed, new and inimitable hues of heavenly wisdom. Many of these will be brought out as we advance.-The question, from what probable source St. Luke derived his report of this speech, so peculiar in its character and citations as to bear, even to the most prejudiced, decisive evidence of authenticity, can be only conjecturally answered: but in this case the conjecture can hardly be wrong. I have discussed the point in the Introduction to the Acts, ch. i. § ii. 12 (a). 2. Bre

thren (men who are brethren), and fathers] So Paul, ch. xxii. 1, before a mixed assembly of Jews. The brethren would embrace all: the fathers would be a title of respect to the members of the Sanhedrim, in this case, but hardly in ch. xxii. 1.

The

God of glory] Not equivalent to the glorious God, but the God of (i. e. who possesses and manifests Himself by) glory, viz. the

b Gen. xii. 1.

xii. 4, 5.

when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Charran, 3 and said unto him, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and come into the land which I shall e Gen. xi. 31: shew thee. 4 Then c came he out of the land of the Chaldæans, and dwell in Charran: and from thence, when his father was dead, he removed him into this land, wherein ye now dwell. 5 And he gave him none in3, 18: xvii. heritance in it, no, not so much as to set his foot on, d P yet

d Gen. xii. 7: xiii. 15: xv.

8. xxvi. 3.

• better, for perspicuity, God.

Shechinah, or divine appearance, see Exod. xxiv. 16, 17, and ver. 55.-The words our father decide nothing as to Stephen's genuine Hebrew extraction. Any Jew would thus speak. before he dwelt in Charran] This was the Jewish tradition, though not asserted in Genesis. Thus Philo, having paraphrased the divine command, says, "For this reason Abraham is said to have made his first move from the land of the Chaldæans to that of the Charræans."

But he accurately distinguishes between the divine command, which he obeyed in leaving Chaldæa, and the vision afterwards, adding a reason after his manner, why God could not be seen nor apprehended by him while he was yet a Chaldæan and an astrologer. The fact of his having left Ur by some divine intimation is plainly stated in Gen. xv. 7, and referred to in Neh. ix. 7. It was surely both natural and allowable to express this first command in the well-known words of the second. Charran] So the LXX for Haran, Gen. xi. 31, &c.; 4 Kings xix. 12; Ezek. xxvii. 23. It is in Mesopotamia, and is celebrated in Roman history as Carrhæ, where happened the defeat and slaughter of Crassus by the Parthians. It lay on an ancient road, in a large plain surrounded by mountains; it was still a great city in the days of the Arabian caliphs.

4. when his father was dead] In Gen. xi. 26, we read that Terah lived 70 years and begot Abram, Nahor, and Haran; in xi. 32, that Terah lived 205 years, and died in Haran; and in xii. 4, that Abram was 75 years old when he left Haran. Since then 70 added to 75 makes 145, Terah must have lived about 60 years in Haran after Abram's departure. It seems evident, that the Jewish chronology, which Stephen follows, was at fault here, owing to the circumstance of Terah's death being mentioned Gen. xi. 32, before the command to Abram to leave Haran;-it not having been observed that the mention is anticipatory. And this is confirmed by Philo having fallen

P render, and.

into the same mistake, and stated the removal of Abraham from Haran, in almost these same words, to have been after his father's death. It is observable that the Samaritan Pentateuch, in Gen. xi. 32, for 205, reads 145, which has most probably been an alteration to remove the apparent inconsistency. The subterfuge of understanding the spiritual death of Terah, who is, as a further hypothesis, supposed to have relapsed into idolatry at Haran, appears to have originated with the Rabbis, on discovering that their tradition was at variance with the sacred chronology. They have not been without followers in modern Christendom. See in my Greek Testament instances of unworthy treatment of the assertion in the text in order to evade the difficulty. The way in which it has been met by some commentators, viz. that we have no right to assume that Abram was born when Terah was 70, but may regard him as the youngest son, would leave us in this equally unsatisfactory position:-Terah, in the course of nature, begets his son Abram at 130 (205 minus 75): yet this very son Abram regards it as incredible that he himself should beget a son at 99 (Gen. xvii. 1, 17); and on the fact of the birth of Isaac being out of the course of nature, most important Scriptural arguments and consequences are founded; cf. iv. 17-21; Heb. xi. 11, 12. We may fairly leave these commentators with their new difficulty: only remarking for our instruction, how sure those are to plunge into hopeless confusion, who, from motives however good, once begin to handle the word of God deceitfully. God removed him] In these words Stephen clearly recognizes the second command, to migrate from Haran to Canaan: and as clearly therefore made no mistake in ver. 2, but applied the expressed words of the second command to the first injunction.

5. gave him none inheritance in it] There is no occasion here to wrest our text in order to produce accordance with the

he promised that he would give it to him for a possession, and to his seed after him, when [1 as yet] he had no child.

e

с

16.

Gal. iii. 17.

h Gen. xvii. 9,

4.

11.

6 And God spake on this wise, That his seed should e Gen. xv. 13, sojourn in a strange land; and that they should bring them into bondage, and entreat them evil four hundred fExod. xii. 40. years. 7 And the nation to whom they shall be in bondage will I judge, said God: and after that shall they come forth, and r serve me in this place. 8 h And he gave g Exod. iii. 12. him the covenant of circumcision: and so Abraham begat i den. xxi. 2, 3, Isaac, and circumcised him the eighth day; and Isaac k Gen. xxv. 26. begat Jacob; and Jacob begat the twelve patriarchs. 1 Gen. xxix. 31, 9 m And the patriarchs, moved with envy, sold Joseph into Egypt: ns but God was with him, 10 and delivered him out of all his afflictions, ° and gave him favour and wisdom in the sight of Pharaoh king of Egypt; and he made him governor over Egypt and all his house. 11 P Now there p Gen. xli. 54. came a dearth over all the land of Egypt and Chanaan, and great affliction and our fathers found no sustenance.

&c.: xxx. 5, &c.: XXXV.

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23.

m Gen xxxvii.

n

cv. 17.

4, 11, 28. Ps. Gen. xxxix.

2, 21, 23.

o Gen. xli. 37:

x. 6.

16.

12 9 But when Jacob heard that there was corn in Egypt, a Gen. xlii. 1. he sent out our fathers first, 13 and at the second time r Gen. xlv. 4, Joseph was made known to his brethren: and Joseph's kindred was made known unto Pharaoh. 14 s Then sent 8 Gen. xlv. 9, Joseph, and called his father Jacob to him, and all his tGen. xlvi. 27. kindred, threescore and fifteen souls. 15 u So Jacob went u Gen. xlvi. 5.

I not expressed in the original.

t

27.

Deut. x. 22.

I render, worship.

8 render, and.

history. The field which Abraham bought for the burial of his dead surely did not come under the description of an inheritance, nor give him any standing as a possessor in the land. 6, 7.] A free citation from the LXX, with the words, " and they shall worship me in this place," adapted and added from Exod. iii. 12. The shifts of some commentators to avoid this plain fact are not worth recounting: but again, the student who would not handle the word of God deceitfully should be here and every where on his guard against them.-The round number, 400 years, given here and in Genesis, is further specified Exod. xii. 40, as 430. (See Gal. iii. 17, and note.)

7.] said God is inserted by Stephen in passing from the narrative form ("his seed") into the direct ("I will judge").

8.] On the institution of circumcision, it is called a "covenant," Gen. xvii. 10, and the immediate promise of that covenant is contained in the same chapter,

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ver. 8.
so, i. e. in this new covenant
state;'-or, in fulfilment of the promise of
seed implied in the above words.' In this
word so lies hid the germ of the subsequent
teaching of the Holy Spirit by St. Paul,
Gal. iii. 9.] Here we have the first
hint of the rebellious spirit in Israel, which
the progress of the history brings out.
10.] Observe the simple coupling of the
clauses by and, as characteristic of this
speech. favour and wisdom] favour,

:

14.

so that he was acceptable to Pharaoh (see
reff.) and wisdom, so that Pharaoh con-
sulted him, and followed his suggestion,
especially in the important case recorded
Gen. xli. 38. he made him] viz.
Pharaoh a change of subject.
threescore and fifteen souls] In the Hebrew
text, Gen. xlvi. 27; Exod. i. 5; Deut. x.
22, seventy souls are reckoned, viz. sixty-
six born of Jacob, Jacob himself, Joseph,
and his two sons born in Egypt. So also
Josephus. But the LXX, whom Stephen

W

w Gen. xlix. 33. down into Egypt, and died, he, and our fathers, 16 and

Exod. i. 6.

x Exod. xiii.

19. Josh.
xxiv. 32.

y Gen. xxiii. 16: xxxiii. 19.

z Gen. xv. 13. ver. 6.

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were carried over into Sychem, and laid in the sepulchre that Abraham bought for a sum of money of the sons

of Emmor [the father] of Sychem. 17 But when the time of the promise drew nigh, which God had sworn to a Exod. 1.7, 8, Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt,

9. Ps. cv.

24, 25.

b Exod. i. 22.

c Exod. ii. 2.

d Heb. xi. 23.

e Exod. ii. 3-10.

b

18 till another king arose, which knew not Joseph. 19 The same dealt subtilly with our kindred, and evil entreated our fathers, so that they cast out their young children, to the end they might not live. 20 e In which time Moses was born, and was exceeding fair, and nourished up in his father's house three months: 21 and when he was cast out, Pharaoh's daughter took him up, and nourished him for her own son. 22 And Moses was learned in all the

d

not expressed in the original. I render, swore.

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a render, according as.
I literally, fair unto God: see note.

Z render, for perspicuity, instructed: see note.

follows, insert in Gen. xlvi. 20 an account of the children and grandchildren of Manasseh and Ephraim, five in number: and in ver. 27 read thus: "And the sons of Joseph, who were born to him in the land of Egypt, were nine souls. All the souls of the house of Jacob, which entered with Jacob into Egypt, were seventy-five :". reckoning, as it appears, curiously enough, among the sons of Joseph, Joseph himself, and his wife Asenath; for these are required to make up the nine, according to their ver. 20. And similarly in Exod. i. 5, and in some copies in Deut. x. 22. With regard to the various attempts to solve the difficulty, see in my Greek Testament.

16.] were carried over, viz. he and our fathers, not the latter only,-as some commentators have suggested, to evade part of the difficulty of the verse.-The facts, as related in the Old Testament, were these: Jacob, dying in Egypt, was (Gen. i. 13) taken into the land of Canaan, and buried in the cave of Macpelah, before Mamre (on the rest of the verse see below): Joseph, dying also in Egypt, was taken in a coffin (Gen. 1. 26) at the Exodus (Exod. xiii. 19), and finally buried (Josh. xxiv. 32) at Shechem. Of the burial of the other patriarchs the sacred text says nothing, but rather by the specification in Exod. xiii. 19, leaves it to be inferred that they were buried in Egypt. Josephus, Antt. ii. 8. 2, relates that they were taken and buried in Hebron, and adds, "of whom the graves are shewn even to my time in the fortress Hebron, of very beautiful marble, and sumptuously

She

that

wrought." The Rabbinical traditions report them to have been buried in Sychem : and Jerome, relating the pilgrimages of Paula to the sacred places, says, passed by Sychem, and turning aside there saw the sepulchre of the twelve patriarchs." These traditions probably Stephen followed; and, in haste or inadvertence, classed Jacob with the rest. Abraham bought] The burying-place which Abraham bought was not at Sychem, but (Gen. xxiii. 3—20) at Hebron, and was bought of Ephron the Hittite. It was Jacob who (Gen. xxxiii. 19) bought a field where he had pitched his tent, near Sychem, of the children of Hamor, Shechem's father and no mention is made of its being for a burying-place. The two incidents are certainly here confused; and no ingenuity of the commentators has ever devised an escape from the inference. I have mentioned a few such attempts in my Greek Testament. 17.] according as, i. e. in proportion as;' not “when,” as A. V. 20. fair unto God (so literally)] The expression here seems borrowed from tradition: Josephus calls the infant Moses "a child of divine beauty." Philo says, "The child at its very birth presented an appearance of beauty greater than that of ordinary men."

:

22.]

The word "learned," in our A. V. here, is used in its older meaning of "taught," as in the Prayer-book version of the Ps. cxix. 66, "Learn me true understanding and knowledge." This meaning having now become obsolete, the word here is misun

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