Acts 7:51

Stiff-necked and uncircumcised (σκληροτράχηλοι καὶ ἀπερίτμητοι) Both only here in New Testament. Resist (ἀντιπίπτετε) It is a very strong expression, implying active resistance. Lit., to fall against or upon. Used of falling upon an enemy. Only here in New Testament. Ye have been (γεγένησθε) More correctly, as Rev., ye have become.

Acts 7:51-53 . Ye stiff-necked, &c. — Stephen, finding by a confused murmur in the place that they understood whither his discourse tended, and perceiving by the eagerness of their countenances that they would soon interrupt him, applied himself more closely to his persecutors in these remarkable words, which he boldly addressed to them under the influence of the Holy Spirit, by whose direction he spoke; Ye stiff-necked — Inflexible and obstinate sinners, not bowing your necks to God’s yoke; and uncircumcised in heart and ears — So that you will not hearken to instruction, or be seriously affected with it. This they immediately showed. See Acts 7:54 ; Acts 7:57 . So far were they from receiving the word of God with their hearts, that they would not hear it even with their ears. Ye — And your fathers; ye, as a people, in all ages; resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did — In former ages; so do ye now. This is the sum of what he had shown at large. Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? — Some have inferred from this, that many writings, containing the history of these persecutions, have been destroyed by the Jews; but it seems more natural to understand the words in a limited sense, as only intimating that most of the prophets had suffered such unworthy usage. Attempts, however, were sometimes made to cut off all the prophets of the Lord at once. See 1 Kings 19:10 ; 1 Kings 19:14 ; 2 Chronicles 36:16 .

They have slain them which showed before of the coming of the Just or righteous One — That is, Christ; so called by way of eminence, as being alone perfectly righteous: of whom — When you ought to have heard of him with delight, and to have received him with the most humble reverence and joyful gratitude; you have been now the perfidious betrayers, and cruel murderers. Who have received the law — Delivered from Sinai with astonishing circumstances of solemnity, majesty, and terror, by the disposition, or administration of angels, and have not kept, but continually violated it — When the Son of God gave the law on mount Sinai, he was attended with thousands of angels, Galatians 3:19 ; Psalm 68:17 . Dr. Doddridge renders the original expression, εις διαταγας αγγελων , through ranks of angels, “marshalled in solemn array upon that grand occasion:” and he thinks it is evident, from Hebrews 2:2 , that God made use of the instrumentality of angels to form the voice heard at that awful time.

Stiff necked; a metaphor taken from heifers that are unaccustomed to the yoke. Uncircumcised in heart; such as had still depraved affections, which they ought to have put away rather than the foreskin of their flesh; for they were commanded to circumcise their hearts, Deu 10:16 , which also God promised to do for his people, Deu 30:6 . And St. Paul was not the first who spake of a twofold circumcision, Romans 2:28,29 but God looked always to the inward and spiritual part of his own ordinances, and men’s observance of them. And ears; such as were not so much as willing to hear and know their duty. Ye do always resist the Holy Ghost, speaking by his prophets and ministers, and exhorting to true and serious piety: by this St. Stephen would abate their glorying in circumcision, which they so much boasted of, As your fathers did, so do ye: thus the prophet Ezekiel, Ezekiel 16:44 , unto which may be here alluded, As is the mother, so is her daughter.

Acts 7:51 . Σκληροτράχηλοι , stiff-necked ) The heart and tongue are required in confession: the heart, ears , and neck ,[55] are required in receiving the truth. Stephen weightily censures the Jews: and yet not too soon; for they had been before affectionately (courteously) invited by the apostles.— ἀπερίτμητοι , uncircumcised ) A just reproof: comp. Acts 7:8 .— τῇ καρδίᾳ , in heart ) Such they show themselves in Acts 7:54 .— τοῖς ὠσὶν , the ears ) Such they show themselves in Acts 7:57 , “They stopped their ears. ”— ὑμεῖς , ye ) not we, the witnesses of Jesus. He includes the ancient Jews; comp. the end of the ver.— ἀεὶ , always ) The sum of his discussion: always, as often soever as ye are called.— τῷ Πνεύματι τῷ Ἁγίῳ , the Holy Spirit ) who testifies concerning Jesus, and concerning the whole truth, by the prophets.— ἀντιπίπτετε , set yourselves against ) They were altogether differently minded from what is demanded in the second ver. of the same chapter of Isa. (66)— ὡς οἱ πατέρες ὑμῶν , καὶ ὑμεῖς , as your fathers, so ye ) Both are explained (illustrated) in Acts 7:52 . [55] Eagerly stretched out to hear: comp. καραδοκία .—E. and T.

{7} Ye stiffnecked and {x} uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye. (7) Steven, moved with the zeal of God, at length judges his own judges. (x) They are of uncircumcised hearts who still lie drowned in the sins of nature, and are stuck fast in them: for otherwise all the Jews were circumcised with regard to the flesh, and therefore there are two kinds of circumcision; Ro 2:28-29.

51-53. Ye stiffnecked … ye do always resist the Holy Ghost, &c.—It has been thought that symptoms of impatience and irritation in the audience induced Stephen to cut short his historical sketch. But as little farther light could have been thrown upon Israel's obstinacy from subsequent periods of the national history on the testimony of their own Scriptures, we should view this as the summing up, the brief import of the whole Israelitish history—grossness of heart, spiritual deafness, continuous resistance of the Holy Ghost, down to the very council before whom Stephen was pleading.

Verse 51. - Stiff - necked ; hard of neck, inflexible. The word σκληροτράχηλος only occurs here in the New Testament. But it answers in the LXX. to the Hebrew קְשֵׁה־עֹרֶף (hard of neck); see Exodus 33:3, 5 , and elsewhere. In applying this expression to his hearers, Stephen was using the identical language of Moses when he conveyed God's rebuke to them. Considering that they professed to be standing on Moses' side against Stephen, this must have made his words doubly cutting to them. Uncircumcised in heart ; ἀπερίτμητος only occurs here in the New Testament, but it is found in 2 Macc. 1:51 2Macc. 2:46; and in the LXX. of Exodus 12:48 ; Judges 14:3 ; 1 Samuel 17:26 , and elsewhere for the Hebrew עֹרֵל . The word, in its application to his Jewish audience, contains a whole volume of rebuke. They prided themselves on their circumcision, they trusted in it as a sure ground of favor in the sight of God; but all the while they were on a level with the heathen whom they despised, and were to be reckoned among the uncircumcised whom they loathed. For they were without the true circumcision, that of the heart. Here again Stephen was teaching in the exact spirit and even words of Moses and the prophets. See Leviticus 26:41 ; Deuteronomy 10:16 (where Stephen's two reproaches occur together); Jeremiah 9:26 ; Ezekiel 44:7 ; and many other passages. Compare the teaching of St. Paul ( Romans 2:28, 29 ; Philippians 3:2, 3 ; Colossians 2:11 ; and elsewhere). Acts 7:51

51 . Ye stiffnecked ] A charge often brought against the Jews in the Old Testament, cp. Exodus 32:9 ; Exodus 33:3 , &c., so that it is a very suitable expression when Stephen is declaring that the people of his time were “as their fathers.” and uncircumcised in heart and ears ] As the rite of circumcision was the sign of submission to the Jewish religion in its fullest requirements, so the word uncircumcised became a synonym for obstinate resistance to what God had revealed, and the phrase in the text consequently signifies “ye who shut your heart and ears against the truth.” For this metaphorical application cp. Leviticus 26:41 ; Deuteronomy 10:16 ; Jeremiah 6:10 . It seems very likely that at this part of his discourse Stephen saw that the language he had been using was distasteful to his audience, and therefore he applied to them words which implied how far they were from being God’s people though they called themselves Israelites. They were in his eyes as those whom they called “sinners of the Gentiles.” ( Galatians 2:15 .) ye do always resist the Holy Ghost ] From the days of Moses, whom their fathers would not obey, down to the days of Jesus, whom they had crucified.

Acts 7:51 . The long—restrained direct offensive now breaks out, as is quite in keeping with the position of matters brought to this point.[211] This against Heinrichs, Kuinoel, Olshausen, and others, who quite arbitrarily suppose that after Acts 7:50 an interruption took place, either by the shouts of the hearers, or at least by their threatening gestures; as well as against Schwanbeck, p. 252, who sees here “an omission of the reporter.” Stephen has in Acts 7:50 ended his calm and detailed historical narrative. And now it is time that the accused should become the bold accuser, and at length throw in the face of his judges the result, the thoughts forming which were already clearly enough to be inferred from the previous historical course of the speech. Therefore he breaks off his calm, measured discourse, and falls upon his judges with deep moral indignation, like a reproving prophet: Ye stiff-necked ! etc. ἀπεριτμ . τῇ καρδ . κ . τ . ὠσίν ] an upbraiding of them with their unconverted carnal character, in severe contrast to the Jewish pride of circumcision. The meaning without figure is: Men whose management of their inner life, and whose spiritual perception, are heathenishly rude, without moral refinement, not open for the influence of the divine Spirit . Comp. Leviticus 26:41 ; Deuteronomy 10:16 ; Deuteronomy 30:6 ; Jeremiah 4:4 ; Jeremiah 6:10 ; Jeremiah 9:25 ; Romans 2:25 ; Romans 2:29 ; Barnabas, Ep. 9; Philo, de migrat. Abr.

I. p. 450; and from the Rabbins, Schoettgen in loc. ὑμεῖς ] with weighty emphasis. ἈΕΊ ] always ; even yet at this day! ὡς οἱ πατέρες ὑμῶν καὶ ὑμεῖς ] sc. ἀεὶ τῷ πν . ἁγ . ἀντιπ .; for the fathers are thought of in their resistance to God and to the vehicles of His Spirit, and therefore not the bare ἘΣΤΈ is to be supplied (with Beza and Bornemann in the Sächs. Stud. 1842, p. 72). The term ἀντιπίπτειν , not occurring elsewhere in the N. T., is here chosen as a strong designation. Comp. Polyb. iii. 19. 5 : ἀντέπεσαν ταῖς σπείραις καταπληκτικῶς . Numbers 27:14 ; Herodian. 6:3. 13. Bengel well puts it: “in adversum ruitis.” [211] Comp. Baur, I. p. 58, ed. 2; Ewald, p. 213.

(51) Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised . . . —The sudden change of tone from calm argument to vehement indignation cannot be thought of as spontaneous. The excitement of the Sanhedrin, perhaps of the listening crowd also, at this point, would seem to have become uncontrollable. The accused seemed to them to be repeating his offence with defiant boldness, and loud clamours took the place of whispered murmurs. Both the adjectives had been applied to the sins of the older Israel; “stiffnecked” in Exodus 33:3 ; Exodus 33:5 ; Exodus 34:9 ; “uncircumcised” in Jeremiah 6:10 . The actual phrase “uncircumcised in heart” had been used by Ezekiel ( Ezekiel 44:7 ) of “strangers.” It was now applied to those who boasted of their exclusive privileges as Israelites, and it is scarcely possible for us to estimate the sharp incisiveness with which it, or its Aramaic equivalent, must have fallen on the ears of the Sanhedrin. It was to them all, and more than all, that “heretic” and “infidel” have been in the controversies of Christians. Here again, in St. Paul’s “circumcision of the heart” ( Romans 2:29 ), we have another echo from St. Stephen’s speech.