Acts 7:31

7:30-41 Men deceive themselves, if they think God cannot do what he sees to be good any where; he can bring his people into a wilderness, and there speak comfortably to them. He appeared to Moses in a flame of fire, yet the bush was not consumed; which represented the state of Israel in Egypt, where, though they were in the fire of affliction, yet they were not consumed. It may also be looked upon as a type of Christ's taking upon him the nature of man, and the union between the Divine and human nature. The death of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, cannot break the covenant relation between God and them. Our Saviour by this proves the future state, Mt 22:31. Abraham is dead, yet God is still his God, therefore Abraham is still alive. Now, this is that life and immortality which are brought to light by the gospel. Stephen here shows that Moses was an eminent type of Christ, as he was Israel's deliverer. God has compassion for the troubles of his church, and the groans of his persecuted people; and their deliverance takes rise from his pity. And that deliverance was typical of what Christ did, when, for us men, and for our salvation, he came down from heaven. This Jesus, whom they now refused, as their fathers did Moses, even this same has God advanced to be a Prince and Saviour. It does not at all take from the just honour of Moses to say, that he was but an instrument, and that he is infinitely outshone by Jesus.

In asserting that Jesus should change the customs of the ceremonial law. Stephen was so far from blaspheming Moses, that really he honoured him, by showing how the prophecy of Moses was come to pass, which was so clear. God who gave them those customs by his servant Moses, might, no doubt, change the custom by his Son Jesus. But Israel thrust Moses from them, and would have returned to their bondage; so men in general will not obey Jesus, because they love this present evil world, and rejoice in their own works and devices.

Verse 31. - And when for when , A.V.; behold for behold it , A.V.; there came a voice of the Lord for the voice of the Lord came unto him , A.V. There came a voice. The A.V. is surely right. The Lord has only one voice; and φωνὴ Κυρίου ισ that voice. The grammatical effect of Κυρίου υπον φωνὴ is to make it definite, as in ἄγγελος Κυρίου (see Acts 5:19 , note). Acts 7:31

(31) The voice of the Lord came unto him. —The speech agrees with Exodus 3:4 in ascribing the voice to the Lord, the Eternal, while the visible manifestation was that of the angel of the Lord. It hardly belongs to the interpretation of the speech to discuss the relation between the two statements. Speaking generally, it may be said that all, or nearly all, theophanies, or divine manifestations, in the Old Testament addressed to the sense of sight resolve themselves into angelophanies, all manifestations addressed exclusively to the sense of hearing into revelations by the Son, as the LOGOS, or eternal WORD.

Acts 7:31-33 . See Exodus 3:3-5 . τὸ ὅραμα ] spectaculum . See on Matthew 17:9 . κατανοῆσαι ] to contemplate , Luke 12:24 ; Luke 12:27 ; Acts 11:6 . φωνὴ κυρίου ] as the angel represents Jehovah Himself, so is he identified with Him. When the angel of the Lord speaks, that is the voice of God, as it is His representative servant, the angel, who speaks. To understand, with Chrysostom, Calovius, and others, the angelus increatus ( i.e. Christ as the λόγος ) as meant, is consequently unnecessary, and also not in keeping with the anarthrous ἄγγελος , which Hengstenberg, Christol . III. 2, p. 70, wrongly denies. Comp. Acts 12:7 ; Acts 12:23 . λῦσον τὸ ὑπόδημα τῶν ποδ . σου ] The holiness of the presence of God required, as it was in keeping generally with the religious feeling of the East,[206] that he who held intercourse with Jehovah should be barefooted, lest the sandals charged with dust should pollute ( Joshua 5:15 ) the holy ground ( γῆ ἁγία ); hence also the priests in the temple waited on their service with bare feet. See Wetstein; also Carpzov. Appar. p. 769 ff. [206] Even in the present day the Arabs , as is well known, enter their mosques barefooted. The precept of Pythagoras, ἀνυπόδητος θῦε καὶ προσκύνει , was derived from an Egyptian custom. Jamblich. Vit. Pyth. 23. The Samaritan trode barefoot the holiest place on Gerizim, Robinson, III. p. 320.

Acts 7:31 . κατανοῆσαι : this careful observation is implied in the narrative of Exodus though the word is not employed. It is a favourite word with St. Luke, and is used by him four times in his Gospel and four times in Acts, elsewhere in Gospels only in Matthew 7:3 (five times in Epistles). On its force see Westcott on Hebrews 3:1 : “oculos vel mentem defigere in aliquo” Grimm; properly = to take notice of, so in classical Greek; it is used also in the sense of observing, looking at, cf. Jam 1:27 ; and in a general sense, to see, cf. LXX, Ps. 93:9, cf. Psalm 90:8 ; and also, to consider, Hebrews 10:24 (Mayor, note on Jam 1:27 ). In the LXX, where it is frequent, it is used with both shades of meaning.