Acts 7:58

7:54-60 Nothing is so comfortable to dying saints, or so encouraging to suffering saints, as to see Jesus at the right hand of God: blessed be God, by faith we may see him there. Stephen offered up two short prayers in his dying moments. Our Lord Jesus is God, to whom we are to seek, and in whom we are to trust and comfort ourselves, living and dying. And if this has been our care while we live, it will be our comfort when we die. Here is a prayer for his persecutors. Though the sin was very great, yet if they would lay it to their hearts, God would not lay it to their charge. Stephen died as much in a hurry as ever any man did, yet, when he died, the words used are, he fell asleep; he applied himself to his dying work with as much composure as if he had been going to sleep. He shall awake again in the morning of the resurrection, to be received into the presence of the Lord, where is fulness of joy, and to share the pleasures that are at his right hand, for evermore.

Stoned According to the Rabbis, the scaffold to which the criminal was to be led, with his hands bound, was to be twice the size of a man. One of the witnesses was to smite him with a stone upon the breast, so as to throw him down. If he were not killed, the second witness was to throw another stone at him. Then, if he were yet alive, all the people were to stone him until he was dead. The body was then to be suspended till sunset. A young man (νεανίου) Which, however, gives no indication of his age, since it is applied up to the age of forty-five. Thirty years after Stephen's martyrdom, Paul speaks of himself as the aged (Plm 1:9). Saul The first mention of the apostle to the Gentiles.

Cast him out of the city; that the city might not be polluted with his blasphemy. Stoned him; this punishment was appointed for such as seduced them to the worship of false gods, Deu 13:6,10 ; and though all power of capital punishment was taken from them, as they themselves confess, John 18:31 , yet what will not popular rage attempt? The witnesses; who were by the law to cast the first stones, Deu 17:7 , whereby the witnesses, if they had not testified true, did take upon themselves the guilt of the blood that was spilt, and freed the people, who only followed them in the execution. Laid down their clothes; their upper garments, that they might carry and cast down the heavier stones.

Acts 7:58 . Ἔξω τῆς πόλεως , out of the city ) They regard Stephen as having been injurious to the city, and therefore unworthy to die in it.— ἀπέθεντο , they laid down ) in order to be the less encumbered.— νεανίου , of a young man ) Saul already at that time seems to have held some degree of dignity among them. It was, however, so ordered by Providence, that he did not raise his hand against the martyr: ch. Acts 26:10 .— Σαύλου Saul ) He was perhaps of the progeny of King Saul .—Valla. At least they were of the same tribe.

58. cast him out of the city—according to Le 24:14; Nu 15:35; 1Ki 21:13; and see Heb 13:12. and stoned—"proceeded to stone" him. The actual stoning is recorded in Ac 7:59. and the witnesses—whose hands were to be first upon the criminal (De 17:7). laid down their clothes—their loose outer garments, to have them taken charge of. at a young man's feet whose name was Saul—How thrilling is this our first introduction to one to whom Christianity—whether as developed in the New Testament or as established in the world—owes more perhaps than to all the other apostles together! Here he is, having perhaps already a seat in the Sanhedrim, some thirty years of age, in the thick of this tumultuous murder of a distinguished witness for Christ, not only "consenting unto his death" (Ac 8:1), but doing his own part of the dark deed.

Verse 58. - They cast for cast , A.V. ; garments for clothes , A.V.; the feet of a young man for a young man's feet , A.V.; named Saul for whose name was Saul , A.V. They cast . We have here the identical phrase of Luke 4:29 . The witness. According to Deuteronomy 17:7 , "the hands of the witnesses were to be first upon" the idolater "to put him to death." They took off their clothes, their outer garments, so as to be free to hurl the stones at their victim with greater force. The feet of a young man . The word νεανίας is found only here and in Acts 20:9 ; Acts 23:17, 18, 22 ; and frequently in the LXX. for the Hebrew נַעִר . A man might be called a νεανίας probably to the age of thirty. This appearance of Saul upon the stage of St. Luke's narrative is an element which will soon change the whole current of the narrative, and divert it from Jerusalem to the whole earth. Nothing can be more striking than this introduction of the young man Saul to our view as an accomplice (albeit "ignorantly in unbelief") in the martyrdom of Stephen. Who that stood there and saw him keeping the clothes of the witnesses would have imagined that he would become the foremost apostle of the faith which he sought to destroy from off the face of the earth? Acts 7:58

58 . and cast him out of the city, and stoned him ] In accordance with the Law ( Leviticus 24:14 ) the person to be stoned must be carried without the camp, and to the people of Jerusalem the walls of the city were as the limits of the camp. Though there was much popular excitement exhibited in this proceeding, we are not to think that it was looked upon by those who were actors in it as other than the carrying out of the Law. There was a place set apart for such punishment. The person to be stoned was placed on an elevation twice the height of a man, from whence with his hands bound he was thrown down, and then a stone as much as two men could carry was rolled down upon him by the witnesses, after which all the people present cast stones upon him. and the witnesses laid down their clothes ] i.e. their loose outer garments, that they might be more ready for the task which they had to discharge. The law which ordained that the first stone should be thrown by the witnesses was meant to restrain hasty accusation. Men would only bring an accusation for grave reasons when they knew that their own hand must be first upon the condemned person. at a young man’s feet ] Saul was already of such an age that the authorities could entrust him ( Acts 9:2 ) with the duty of going to Damascus to arrest the Christians in that city. The Greek word is applied to persons up to the age of forty. In the Epistle to Philemon (9) St Paul speaks of himself as aged .

That Epistle was probably written about a.d. 63, and the death of Stephen took place about a.d. 35, therefore Saul may well have been between 30 and 40 years of age. whose name was Saul ] Lit. called Saul . The name is the same as that of the first King of Israel, and signifies “one asked for” (i.e. in prayer). This Saul was also of the tribe of Benjamin, and had come from his home at Tarsus in Cilicia to attend on the lessons of the great teacher Gamaliel ( Php 3:5-6 ; Acts 22:3 ).

(58) And stoned him. —Literally, were stoning him. The verb is repeated in Acts 7:59 , as if to show that the shower of stones went on even during the martyr’s prayers. The witnesses laid down their clothes.—The Law required, as if to impress on witnesses their solemn responsibility, that they should be the first, if the accused were condemned to death, to take part in his execution (Deuteronomy 17:7). Our Lord, it will be remembered, had applied the rule in the case of the woman taken in adultery (John 8:7). The loose, flowing cloak, which was worn as an outer garment, would have impeded the free action of their arms, and had therefore to be laid on one side. A young man’s feet, whose name was Saul.—As defined by Philo, on the authority of medical writers, the term thus used extended from twenty-one to twenty-eight years of age. Looking to the prominent position taken by Saul in this matter, and to his description of himself as “Paul the aged,” A.D. 64 (Philemon 1:9), it will be safe to assume that he had nearly attained the later limit. It will be convenient on this his first appearance to put together the chief facts of his life up to this period. He was of the tribe of Benjamin (Philippians 3:5), and had been named after its great hero-king. His father had obtained, perhaps as a freed-man, after a time of slavery at Rome, the privilege of Roman citizenship (Acts 22:28). He had settled at Tarsus.

The absence of any reference to him or to the Apostle’s mother makes it probable that they were both dead before he appears on the scene. The son of a married sister is found, apparently residing in Jerusalem, in Acts 23:16. At Tarsus the boy would probably receive a two-fold education, instructed at home in the Holy Scriptures daily, and in Greek literature and philosophy in the schools for which the city was famous. Traces of the knowledge thus acquired are found in his quotations from the Cilician poet Aratus (see Note on Acts 17:28), Menander (see 1Corinthians 15:33), Epimenides (see Titus 1:12), and the Festival Hymn quoted by him at Lystra (see Note on Acts 14:17). At twelve he would become a child of the Law (see Note on Luke 2:42); and showing great devotion to the studies which thus opened on him, was probably dedicated by his parents to the calling of a scribe. This, however, did not involve the abandonment of secular occupation; and after some years spent in Jerusalem, studying under Gamaliel (we may say, with almost absolute certainty, before the commencement of our Lord’s ministry), he returned to his native city, and became a “tent-maker” (Acts 18:3)—a manufacturer, i.e., of the coarse goats’ hair sail-cloth, for which Cilicia was famous. There seems reason to believe that somewhere about this time he became acquainted with Barnabas (see Note on Acts 4:36), and possibly also with St. Luke (see Note on Acts 13:1; Acts 16:10, and Introduction to St. Luke’s Gospel)