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Acts 7:1-53. Stephen’s Defence

1. Then said the high priest, Are these things so?] Read, And the high priest said, &c. Thus he called upon Stephen to answer the charges laid against him.

2. And he said, Men, brethren, and fathers, hearken] Omit men. Cp. Acts 1:16, note. For an account of the argument in Stephen’s speech and its connection with the whole design of the writer of the Acts, see Introduction pp. ix. x.

The God of glory] A not very common expression (see Psalm 29:3), but probably chosen designedly as an introduction to this discourse, which deals with the several stages of God’s manifestation of Himself. The term is applied (John 1:14) to the incarnate Word; “we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father.”

appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia] The ancestral home of Abraham is called “Ur of the Chaldees” (Genesis 11:31), and it is said (Joshua 24:2-3) to have been “on the other side of the flood,” i.e. beyond the Euphrates. It is not possible to determine the site of Ur, but the most probable opinion seems to be that which places it at Edessa, now called Orfah, and said to have been called Orrha in early times. If this were the place the journey thence to Charran (O.T. Haran), i.e. Carrhæ, would not have been so very formidable for the father of the patriarch to undertake, and at Charran Terah remained till he died (Genesis 11:32). Abraham when without his father could remove with greater ease to the distant Canaan.

our father Abraham] If Stephen were merely a proselyte he might yet use this expression, for Abraham is regarded as the father of proselytes. On Genesis 12:5, “The souls which they had gotten [Heb. made] in Haran,” the Targum of Onkelos explains “The souls which they (Abraham and his family) had brought to serve the Law,” i.e. made them proselytes: and on the same text Berashith Rabbah, par. 39, has “Rabbi Eliezer, the son of Zimra, said: If all the men in the world were to combine to create even a single gnat, they could not infuse into it a soul; and thou sayest, ‘The souls which they made.’ But these are the proselytes whom they brought in. Yet, if so, why does it say they made them? This is to teach thee that when anybody brings near the stranger, and makes him a proselyte, it is as good as if he had created him.”

before he dwelt in Charran] The Greek verb rendered dwelt is one which implies a settled residence, though it conveys no idea of permanent abode. It is used (Matthew 2:23) of Joseph and Mary dwelling at Nazareth, and (Matthew 4:13) of Christ’s less fixed dwelling in Capernaum.

3. and said unto him] It does not appear from the narrative in Genesis whether there had been some Divine communication which caused the first removal from Ur to Haran. We are only told (Genesis 11:31) that Terah took his family and removed, but as it is there added “to go into the land of Canaan,” and as in the following chapter, where God’s order to remove is expressly given (Genesis 12:1), it is also said that “they went forth to go into the land of Canaan,” we may conclude that the first removal had been enjoined by God, and that it was only on account of Terah’s age that the country for which they set forth was not reached at once. In Genesis 15:7 God says “I am the Lord that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees,” language which implies a command given for the first removal. Cp. Nehemiah 9:7. Genesis 12:1 should be rendered “Now the Lord said unto Abram,” not “had said,” as A. V.

Get thee out of thy country [land], and from thy kindred, and come into the land which I shall shew thee] The word for land is the same in both clauses. In Genesis 12:1 the words “and from thy father’s house” are added after “kindred.” The destination of the emigrants was known before they started from Ur.

4. Then came he out of the land of the Chaldeans, and dwelt in Charran] The Chaldæans were the people of that country which had Babylon for its capital. The extent of the country signified by “the land of the Chaldæans” must have varied at different periods.

when his father was dead] According to the order of the narrative in Genesis, this seems to be so, but when the ages of Terah and Abraham are noticed, it appears that Abraham left Haran before his father’s death. For Terah was 70 years old when Abraham was born (Genesis 11:26), and Abraham was 75 years old when he departed out of Haran (Genesis 12:4), so that of Terah’s 205 years there were yet (205–145) = 60 years unexpired when his son went away. On this Jewish literature has the explanation (Midrash Rabbah on Genesis, cap. 39) that God absolved Abraham from the care of his father, and yet, that Abraham’s departure from Terah should not lead others to claim the same relaxation of a commandment for themselves, Terah’s death is noticed in Holy Writ before Abraham’s departure, and it is also added, to explain the mention of death, that “the wicked (and among them Terah is reckoned, see Joshua 24:2) are called dead while they are alive.”

he removed him] i.e. God caused him to migrate. There is a slight vagueness in the English, but none in the Greek.

5. And he gave him none inheritance in it] The first settlement of Abraham in Canaan is said (Genesis 12:6) to have been at the place of Sichem [Shechem] at the plain [rather, oak] of Moreh. He next dwelt on the east of Bethel, and in both these places he probably purchased land, for he built an altar at each; and on returning from Egypt (Acts 13:3) he came “to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Hai,” which he hardly could have done unless the land had been his own, for he “was very rich in cattle.”

no, not so much as to set his foot on] For the land, when God gave it, would be held in very different manner from that in which Abraham held the land which he had bought or hired.

yet he promised] Better, and he promised. The conjunction is the ordinary copulative.

that he would give it to him for a possession] More literally, in possession. The promise “unto thy seed will I give this land” was first made (Genesis 12:7) when Abraham was at the place of Shechem, and in its greater fulness when he returned from Egypt (Acts 13:15-16).

when as yet he had no child] We cannot learn from Holy Writ how long a time Abraham lived after the promise before Isaac was born, but we can see that it was a long period, for when he went down to Egypt Sarah was a fair woman in the prime of her beauty (Genesis 12:14), and she was “waxed old” (Acts 18:12) before her son was born.

6. And God spake on this wise] The words are substantially those which we find in Genesis 15:13-14.

four hundred years] This number agrees with the number stated in Genesis; but in Exodus 12:40, and also by St Paul (Galatians 3:17), the time is said to have been four hundred and thirty years. The period is reckoned so as to include part of the lives of the patriarchs in Canaan, and the variation may be accounted for if one number dates back to the first call, and the second only to the departure from Haran; or the one may be reckoned from the time of the covenant of circumcision, and the other from the promise of the land. Or it may be that one is merely a round number and the other an attempt at greater exactness. We can come to no certain conclusion in the matter, but we can see that both numbers were current among the Jews, for Josephus (Ant. ii. 15. 2) makes the time 430 years, and elsewhere (Ant. ii. 9. 1, and Bell. Jud. v. 9. 4) 400 years.

7. after that shall they come forth] The first prophecy (Genesis 15:14) of this Exodus adds “with great substance.”

and serve me in this place] These words are not in the promise given to Abraham, but are taken from Exodus 3:12, where the original promise is repeated and sent to the Israelites through Moses, and the place meant in that verse is Sinai, called there Horeb, the mountain of God. Stephen in his speech combines the two that he may describe the promise in its fulness, and he mentions the worship of God in that place, because the one great object of his address is to demonstrate that what is laid to his charge concerning the highest worship of God being no longer restricted to the Temple and Jerusalem, is nothing more than they were taught by a study of their own history.