Then they suborned men - To suborn in law means to procure a person to take such a false oath as constitutes perjury (Webster). It has substantially this sense here. It means that they induced them to declare what was false, or to bring a false accusation against him. This was done, not by declaring a palpable and open falsehood, but by “perverting” his doctrines, and by stating their own “inferences” as what he had actually maintained - the common way in which people oppose doctrines from which they differ. The Syriac reads this place, “Then they sent certain men, and instructed them that they should say, etc.” This was repeating an artifice which they had before practiced so successfully in relation to the Lord Jesus Christ. See Matthew 26:60-61.
We have heard ... - When they alleged that they had heard this is not said. Probably, however, they referred to some of his discourses with the people when he performed miracles and wonders among them, Acts 6:8.
Blasphemous words - See the notes on Matthew 9:3. Moses was regarded with profound reverence. His laws they held to be unchangeable. Any intimation, therefore, that there was a greater Lawgiver than he, or that his institutions were mere shadows and types, and were no longer binding, would be regarded as blasphemy, even though it should be spoken with the highest professed respect for Moses. That the Mosaic institutions were to be changed, and give place to another and a better dispensation, all the Christian teachers would affirm; but this was not said with a design to blaspheme or revile Moses. “In the view of the Jews,” to say that was to speak blasphemy; and hence, instead of reporting what he actually “did” say, they accused him of “saying” what “they” regarded as blasphemy. If reports are made of what people say, their very “words” should be reported; and we should not report our inferences or impressions as what they said.
And against God - God was justly regarded by the Jews as the giver of theft law and the author of their institutions. But the Jews, either willfully or involuntarily, not knowing that they were a shadow of good things to come, and were therefore to pass away, regarded all intimations of such a change as blasphemy against God. God had a right to change or abolish those ceremonial observances, and it was “not” blasphemy in Stephen to declare it.