Acts 7:42 Komentář

When our Lord Jesus called his apostles out to be employed in services and sufferings for him, he told them that yet the last should be first, and the first last, which was remarkably fulfilled in St. Stephen and St. Paul, who were both of them late converts, in comparison of the apostles, and yet got the start of them both in services and sufferings; for God, in conferring honours and favours, often crosses hands. In this chapter we have the martyrdom of Stephen, the first martyr of the Christian church, who led the van in the noble army. And therefore his sufferings and death are more largely related than those of any other, for direction and encouragement to all those who are called out to resist unto blood, as he did. Here is, I. His defence of himself before the council, in answer to the matters and things he stood charged with, the scope of which is to show that it was no blasphemy against God, nor any injury at all to the glory of his name, to say that the temple should be destroyed and the customs of the ceremonial law changed. And, 1. He shows this by going over the history of the Old Testament, and observing that God never intended to confine his favours to that place, or that ceremonial law; and that they had no reason to expect he should, for the people of the Jews had always been a provoking people, and had forfeited the privileges of their peculiarity: nay, that that holy place and that law were but figures of good things to come, and it was no disparagement at all to them to say that they must give place to better things (v. 1-50). And then, 2. He applies this to those that prosecuted him, and sat in judgment upon him, sharply reproving them for their wickedness, by which they had brought upon themselves the ruin of their place and nation, and then could not bear to hear of it (Act 7:51-53). II. The putting of him to death by stoning him, and his patient, cheerful, pious submission to it (Act 7:54-60).

Two things we have in these verses: - I. Stephen upbraids them with the idolatry of their fathers, which God gave them up to, as a punishment for their early forsaking him in worshipping the golden calf; and this was the saddest punishment of all for that sin, as it was of the idolatry of the Gentile world that God gave them up to a reprobate mind. When Israel was joined to idols, joined to the golden calf, and not long after to Baal-peor, God said, Let them alone; let them go on (Act 7:42): Then God turned, and gave them up to worship the host of heaven. He particularly cautioned them not to do it, at their peril, and gave them reasons why they should not; but, when they were bent upon it, he gave them up to their own hearts; lust, withdrew his restraining grace, and then they walked in their own counsels, and were so scandalously mad upon their idols as never any people were. Compare Deu 4:19 with Jer 8:2. For this he quotes a passage out of Amo 5:25. For it would be less invidious to tell them their own [character and doom] from an Old Testament prophet, who upbraids them, 1. For not sacrificing to their own God in the wilderness (Act 7:42): Have you offered to me slain beasts, and sacrifices, by the space of forty years in the wilderness? No; during all that time sacrifices to God were intermitted; they did not so much as keep the passover after the second year. It was God's condescension to them that he did not insist upon it during their unsettled state; but then let them consider how ill they requited him in offering sacrifices to idols, when God dispensed with their offering them to him. This is also a check to their zeal for the customs that Moses delivered to them, and their fear of having them changed by this Jesus, that immediately after they were delivered these customs were for forty years together disused as needless things. 2. For sacrificing to other gods after they came to Canaan (Act 7:43): You took up the tabernacle of Moloch. Moloch was the idol of the children of Ammon, to which they barbarously offered their own children in sacrifice, which they could not do without great terror and grief to themselves and their families; yet this unnatural idolatry they arrived at, when God gave them up to worship the host of heaven. See Ch2 28:3. It was surely the strongest delusion that ever people were given up to, and the greatest instance of the power of Satan in the children of disobedience, and therefore it is here spoken of emphatically: Yea, you took up the tabernacle of Moloch, you submitted even to that, and to the worship of the star of your god Remphan. Some think Remphan signifies the moon, as Moloch does the sun; others take it for Saturn, for that planet is called Remphan in the Syriac and Persian languages. The Septuagint puts it for Chiun, as being a name more commonly known. They had images representing the star, like the silver shrines for Diana, here called the figures which they made to worship. Dr. Lightfoot thinks they had figures representing the whole starry firmament, with all the constellations, and the planets, and these are called Remphan - "the high representation," like the celestial globe: a poor thing to make an idol of, and yet better than a golden calf! Now for this it is threatened, I will carry you away beyond Babylon. In Amos it is beyond Damascus, meaning to Babylon, the land of the north. But Stephen changes it, with an eye to the captivity of the ten tribes, who were carried away beyond Babylon, by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes, Kg2 17:6. Let it not therefore seem strange to them to hear of the destruction of this place, for they had heard of it many a time from the prophets of the Old Testament, who were not therefore accused as blasphemers by any but the wicked rulers. It was observed, in the debate on Jeremiah's case, that Micah was not called to an account though he prophesied, saying, Zion shall be ploughed as a field, Jer 26:18, Jer 26:19. II. He gives an answer particularly to the charge exhibited against him relating to the temple, that he spoke blasphemous words against that holy place, Act 7:44-50. He was accused for saying that Jesus would destroy this holy place: "And what if I did say so?" (saith Stephen) "the glory of the holy God is not bound up in the glory of this holy place, but that may be preserved untouched, though this be laid in the dust;" for, 1. "It was not till our fathers came into the wilderness, in their way to Canaan, that they had any fixed place of worship; and yet the patriarchs, many ages before, worshipped God acceptably at the altars they had adjoining to their own tents in the open air - sub dio; and he that was worshipped without a holy place in the first, and best, and purest ages of the Old Testament church, may and will be so when this holy place is destroyed, without any diminution to his glory." 2. The holy place was at first but a tabernacle, mean and movable, showing itself to be short-lived, and not designed to continue always. Why might not this holy place, though built of stones, be decently brought to its end, and give place to its betters, as well as that though framed of curtains? As it was no dishonour, but an honour to God, that the tabernacle gave way to the temple, so it is now that the material temple gives way to the spiritual one, and so it will be when, at last, the spiritual temple shall give way to the eternal one. 3. That tabernacle was a tabernacle of witness, or of testimony, a figure of good things to come, of the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched, and not men, Heb 8:2. This was the glory both of the tabernacle and temple, that they were erected for a testimony of that temple of God which in the latter days should be opened in heaven (Rev 11:19), and of Christ's tabernacling on earth (as the word is, Joh 1:14), and of the temple of his body. 4. That tabernacle was framed just as God appointed, and according to the fashion which Moses saw in the mount, which plainly intimates that it had reference to good things to come. Its rise being heavenly, its meaning and tendency were so; and therefore it was no diminution at all to its glory to say that this temple made with hands should be destroyed, in order to the building of another made without hands, which was Christ's crime (Mar 14:58), and Stephen's. 5. That tabernacle was pitched first in the wilderness; it was not a native of this land of yours (to which you think it must for ever be confined), but was brought in in the next age, by our fathers, who came after those who first erected it, into the possession of the Gentiles, into the land of Canaan, which had long been in the possession of the devoted nations whom God drove out before the face of our fathers. And why may not God set up his spiritual temple, as he had done the material tabernacle, in those countries that were now the possession of the Gentiles? That tabernacle was brought in by those who came with Jesus, that is, Joshua. And I think, for distinction sake, and to prevent mistakes, it ought to be so read, both here and Heb 4:8. Yet in naming Joshua here, which in Greek is Jesus, there may be a tacit intimation that as the Old Testament Joshua brought in that typical tabernacle, so the New Testament Joshua should bring in the true tabernacle into the possession of the Gentiles. 6. That tabernacle continued for many ages, even to the days of David, above four hundred years, before there was any thought of building a temple, Act 7:45. David, having found favour before God, did indeed desire this further favour, to have leave to build God a house, to be a constant settled tabernacle, or dwelling-place, for the Shechinah, or the tokens of the presence of the God of Jacob, Act 7:46. Those who have found favour with God should show themselves forward to advance the interests of his kingdom among men. 7. God had his heart so little upon a temple, or such a holy place as they were so jealous for, that, when David desired to build one, he was forbidden to do it; God was in no haste for one, as he told David (Sa2 7:7), and therefore it was not he, but his son Solomon, some years after, that built him a house. David had all that sweet communion with God in public worship which we read of in his Psalms before there was any temple built. 8. God often declared that temples made with hands were not his delight, nor could add any thing to the perfection of his rest and joy. Solomon, when he dedicated the temple, acknowledged that God dwelleth not in temples made with hands; he has not need of them, is not benefited by them, cannot be confined to them. The whole world is his temple, in which he is every where present, and fills it with his glory; and what occasion has he for a temple then to manifest himself in? Indeed the pretended deities of the heathen needed temples made with hands, for they were gods made with hands (Act 7:41), and had no other place to manifest themselves in than in their own temples; but the one only true and living God needs no temple, for the heaven is his throne, in which he rests, and the earth is his footstool, over which he rules (Act 7:49, Act 7:50), and therefore, What house will you build me, comparable to this which I have already? Or, what is the place of my rest? What need have I of a house, either to repose myself in or to show myself? Hath not my hand made all these things? And these show his eternal power and Godhead (Rom 1:20); they so show themselves to all mankind that those who worship other gods are without excuse. And as the world is thus God's temple, wherein he is manifested, so it is God's temple in which he will be worshipped. As the earth is full of his glory, and is therefore his temple (Isa 6:3), so the earth is, or shall be, full of his praise (Hab 3:3), and all the ends of the earth shall fear him (Psa 67:7), and upon this account it is his temple. It was therefore no reflection at all upon this holy place, however they might take it, to say that Jesus should destroy this temple, and set up another, into which all nations should be admitted, Act 15:16, Act 15:17. And it would not seem strange to those who considered that scripture which Stephen here quotes (Isa 66:1-3), which, as it expressed God's comparative contempt of the external part of his service, so it plainly foretold the rejection of the unbelieving Jews, and the welcome of the Gentiles that were of a contrite spirit into the church.

Then said the high priest,.... The Ethiopic version adds, "to him"; that is, to Stephen; for to him he addressed himself: or he "asked him", as the Syriac version renders it; he put the following question to him: are these things so? is it true what they say, that thou hast spoken blasphemous words against the temple, and the law, and hast said that Jesus of Nazareth will destroy the one, and change the other? what hast thou to say for thyself, and in thine own defence? this high priest was either Annas, or rather Caiaphas; See Gill on Act 4:6.

Then God turned,.... Away from them, withdrew his presence, and his favours from them: and gave them up to worship the host of heaven; not angels, but the sun, moon, and stars; for since they liked not to retain the knowledge and worship of the true God, who made the heavens, and the earth, God in righteous judgment, in a judicial way, gave them up to a reprobate mind, to commit all the idolatry of the Gentiles, as a punishment of their former sin in making and worshipping the calf: as it is written in the book of the prophets; of the twelve lesser prophets, which were all in one book; and which, as the Jews say (e), were put together, that a book of them might not be lost through the smallness of it; among which Amos stands, a passage in whose prophecy is here referred to; namely, in Amo 5:25 "O ye house of Israel, have ye offered to me slain beasts and sacrifices by the space of forty years in the wilderness"; no; they offered to devils, and not to God, Deu 32:17 and though there were some few sacrifices offered up; yet since they were not frequently offered, nor freely, and with all the heart, and with faith, and without hypocrisy, they were looked upon by God as if they were not offered at all. (e) Kimchi praefat. ad Hoseam.

"Then God turned, and gave them up to worship the host of heaven; as it is written in the book of the Prophets, O ye house of Israel, have ye offered to me slain beasts and sacrifices by the space of forty years in the wilderness?" The expression, "gave them up," means, He suffered. Even when there was a Tabernacle, yet there were no sacrifices. "Did ye offer unto Me slain beasts and sacrifices?" There was "the tabernacle of witness," and yet it profited them nothing, but they were consumed. But neither before, nor afterwards, did the miracles profit them aught.

"As it is written in the Book of the Prophets"-and observe, he does not cite the text without a purpose, but shows by it that there is no need of sacrifices; saying: "Did ye offer slain beasts and sacrifice to Me?"-He lays an emphasis on this word (to Me?). "Ye cannot say that it was from sacrificing to Me, that ye proceeded to sacrifice to them:-"by the space of forty years:" and this too, "in the wilderness," where He had most signally shown Himself their Protector.

Consider that at first they brought them offering sacrifices, and then that they offered them to idols. For previously the name "sacrifices" is nowhere found, but there were precepts concerning living and rational animals. The testimony, however, does not introduce this randomly, but so as to show that there is no necessity for sacrifices, in that he says: "Did you not offer me victims and sacrifices," etc., as if he says: You cannot say that when you were sacrificing to God you also offered them to those idols, but that you first slaughtered them for those idols. And this indeed was in the desert where your delay was longest. See moreover the whole discourse, how boldly and without malice he perseveres throughout the accusation of them, almost saying: And if I were to say the temple ought to be dissolved, and the instituted sacrifices to be changed, I have said nothing new. For Moses, in whom you seem to boast most, for forty years neither offered sacrifices nor built a temple, nor did David, nor any one of the others placed in the midst of you, although the land was given to you. But the prophets also pronounce concerning these things as about unnecessary matters. In what way then do you now pretend to avenge Moses, whom both your fathers and you rejected? And to say it in one word, the whole discourse shows how wisely and at the same time modestly and keenly their accusation is unraveled.

Did you offer to me victims and sacrifices for forty years in the desert? Although they offered libations to the Lord out of necessity, they are said to have truly served idols with their hearts turned away, from the time when they transformed gold into the head of a calf. For afterwards, we read that they offered certain things to the Lord, not out of will, but as we learn from this place, out of the fear of punishments and the destruction of those who fell because of idols. However, the Lord regards not what is offered, but the will of the one offering. Therefore, wherever there was an occasion, they always turned back to Egypt in their hearts.

And he handed them over to serve the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets. He says this in the singular because among the Hebrews there is one book of the twelve prophets, and not twelve books, according to the number of those same prophets. The host of heaven, however, is sometimes referred to as the army of angels: but in this place, it seems more consistent that he called the host of heaven the stars, since he immediately adds the testimony of the prophet, in which the star of their god is taken in place of God; they are convicted of having accepted the tabernacle of Moloch instead of the tabernacle of the true God.

The expression "gave over… to serve" is used in place of "permitted," just as in the Apostle Paul's words "God gave them over to a debased mind" (Rom. 1:28) it is used in place of "permitted them to give themselves over." So he says: since the Jews had such a passion — to serve the creature instead of the Creator, God often reproached them through the prophets for such a disposition, and then, when they proved obstinate, permitted them to do what they wanted. And the word "turned away" is used in place of the expression "having turned away from another will," because the will of God is one thing, and what is permitted by condescension is another. For His will is the same as the law: "You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve" (Lk. 4:8). But those who persisted in impiety He permitted to remain in impiety as well, because He does not wish to be served out of necessity, so as not to constrain the one who possesses free will. "To the host of heaven" some think is equivalent to "the Angels." "The word spoken through Angels" (Heb. 2:2). But Stephen is speaking not of Angels, but of the stars, which the Jews rendered worship to, namely: the Calf, which substituted for the morning star — the day-star, and the moon, as the queen of heaven. This expression is used almost everywhere where the discussion concerns the luminaries and stars. "O house of Israel, did you offer Me slain beasts and sacrifices during forty years in the wilderness?" Notice that he first mentions that they offered sacrifices to Him, and then to idols. This is because before this, the word "sacrifice" is nowhere found, but only "commandments" and "living words." Moreover, he brings this testimony not without reason, but to show that there was no need for sacrifices. He says "did you offer Me slain beasts and sacrifices" instead of saying: "You cannot say that you offer sacrifices to idols because you offered them to God; on the contrary, you first offered sacrifices to them, and this in the wilderness, where I especially watched over you. Therefore, if I said that this temple would be destroyed and the rites and sacrifices would be changed, I said nothing new. For Moses, of whom you seem to have a high opinion, for forty years neither offered sacrifices nor built a temple, and neither did David do this, even though you already possessed this land, divided by lot. The prophets also speak of them as unnecessary. But how can you appeal to Moses in your defense, when your fathers rejected him, and so did you?"

Stephen, being permitted to answer for himself relative to the charge of blasphemy brought against him by his accusers, gives a circumstantial relation of the call of Abraham, when he dwelt in Mesopotamia, in Charran, etc., Act 7:1-8. The history of Jacob and Joseph, Act 7:9-17. The persecution of their fathers in Egypt, Act 7:18, Act 7:19. The history of Moses and his acts till the exodus from Egypt, vv. 20-37. The rebellion and idolatry of the Israelites in the wilderness, Act 7:38-43 The erection of the tabernacle of witness, which continued till the time of David, Act 7:44-46. Of the temple built by Solomon for that God who cannot be confined to temples built by hands, Act 7:47-50. Being probably interrupted in the prosecution of his discourse, he urges home the charge of rebellion against God, persecution of his prophets, the murder of Christ, and neglect of their own law against them, Act 7:51-53. They are filled with indignation, and proceed to violence, Act 7:54. He sees the glory of God, and Christ at the right hand of the Father; and declares the glorious vision, Act 7:55, Act 7:56. They rush upon him, drag him out of the city, and stone him, Act 7:57, Act 7:58. He involves the Lord Jesus, prays for his murderers, and expires, Act 7:59, Act 7:60.

Then God turned, and gave them up, etc. - He left them to themselves, and then they deified and worshipped the sun, moon, planets, and principal stars. In the book of the prophets - As this quotation is found in Amos, Amo 5:25, by the book of the prophets is meant the twelve minor prophets, which, in the ancient Jewish division of the sacred writings, formed only one book. Have ye offered to me slain beasts - It is certain that the Israelites did offer various sacrifices to God, while in the wilderness; and it is as certain that they scarcely ever did it with an upright heart. They were idolatrous, either in heart or act, in almost all their religious services; these were therefore so very imperfect that they were counted for nothing in the sight of God; for this seems to be strongly implied in the question here asked, Have ye offered to Me (exclusively and with an upright heart) slain beasts and sacrifices by the space of forty years? On the contrary, these forty years were little else than a tissue of rebellion and idolatry.

DEFENSE AND MARTYRDOM OF STEPHEN. (Acts 7:1-60) The God of glory--A magnificent appellation, fitted at the very outset to rivet the devout attention of his audience; denoting not that visible glory which attended many of the divine manifestations, but the glory of those manifestations themselves, of which this was regarded by every Jew as the fundamental one. It is the glory of absolutely free grace. appeared unto our father Abraham before he dwelt in Charran, and said, &c.--Though this first call is not expressly recorded in Genesis, it is clearly implied in Gen 15:7 and Neh 9:7; and the Jewish writers speak the same language.

gave them up--judicially. as . . . written in the book of the prophets--the twelve minor prophets, reckoned as one: the passage is from Amo 5:25. have ye offered to me . . . sacrifices?--The answer is, Yes, but as if ye did it not; for "neither did ye offer to Me only, nor always, nor with a perfect and willing heart" [BENGEL].