They that were scattered abroad. — These. As has been said above, would in all probability be Stephen’s Hellenistic fellow-workers and followers. As in later ages, the axiom that “the blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church,” held true from the beginning. The attempt to stamp out the new faith did but give it a wider scope of action, and urged it on to pass the limits within which it might otherwise have been confined for a much longer period.
Preaching the word. — Better, preaching the glad tidings of the word.