And he said, Men, brethren, and fathers, hearken; The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Charran,
And he said, Men, brethren, and fathers, hearken. In this long defense Stephen takes a much wider range, and answers the charges brought against him less directly, than we should have expected. But when we find his accusers stung to the quick by what seems a mere recital of historical facts-especially as the drift of them is expressed in the concluding summary-we may be sure that they were selected and presented with no ordinary skill. What was the precise object aimed at has occasioned much discussion and division of opinion. But it seems clearly to have been twofold: first, by an induction of facts, to show that the national platform which they now idolized, though divinely erected, had been of slow growth, and that the then existing state of things, which was no older than Solomon, had been expressly declared by the Lord Himself to be but external and shadowy, pointing to something else which was spiritual and far better; second, by a similar induction of facts, to show that the whole history of the nation, from the earliest period down to the latest, had, on their part, been little else than one continued misapprehension of God's designs toward fallen man through them, as His covenant people, and rebellion against these gracious purposes; while on God's part it was the triumphant establishment of His own plans, in spite of them, and even by means of them.
In their murderous treatment of the Lord Jesus, then, and their present opposition to His witnesses, Stephen would have them, to know that they were but filling up their fathers' iniquity; while God was, in spite of them and by means of them, laying the foundations of the kingdom that was never to be moved. Incidentally, this long historical sketch would serve another purpose-to clear himself of the charge of hostility to Moses, and the divinely-instituted religion of the nation; every sentence showing not merely such familiarity with even its minute details as devout and habitual study only could impart, but that reverence for all parts of the divine procedure, and the very words in which they are expressed and explained and vindicated, as only a profound faith in the God of Israel and His living oracles could have inspired. But this with Stephen was but a secondary object, or rather no object at all; his soul being filled with one purpose, to seize the opportunity now afforded him of vindicating before the highest tribunal of the nation the truth of God which in his person was on its trial.
That Stephen delivered this speech, not in the mother-tongue, but in Greek, is next to certain, from the conformity of its style to that of the Septuagint, and from the conformity of some of its details to that translation where it diverges from the Hebrew text; and if he was a Hellenistic or Greek-speaking Jew, as there is every reason to think he was, this would be to him the more natural language. In this case we have here no mere translation of the speech (as in the case of Paul's address on the castle stairs, Acts 22:1-30), but the original. But how, in this case (one may ask) could the speech have been preserved? That the whole is the composition of a later period is only what the Tubingen critics might have been expected to affirm, though on that supposition probably none but themselves would suppose it likely to be constructed as it is; and Hackett only expresses what every intelligent reader of it must feel, that 'its special character impresses upon it a seal of authenticity; because no one would think of framing a discourse of this kind for such an occasion.
Had it been composed ideally, or after some vague tradition, it would have been thrown into a different form, and its relevancy to the charge which called it forth would have been made more obvious.' That Saul of Tarsus, us a member of the Sanhedrim, wrote it down and afterward communicated it to our historian, his companion in travel, is certainly unlikely. But that notes of it were taken by several who were present is scarcely to be doubted, arrested as they would be by the angelic expression of his countenance (Acts 6:15), and expecting that in such circumstances something worth hearing would surely be spoken. And if they once began, they wore not likely to stop in recording so uncommon an address. And violent as was the rage of the Council at the closing words of the speech, it is not to be doubted that it made a deep impression on some at least, through whose notes of it the Christians might obtain it; and after Saul's conversion-whose part in the execution of Stephen (Acts 7:58) indelibly impressed the whole scene upon his memory (see Acts 22:20) - it is not impossible that when its echoes were once wakened up he may have been able to fill in some points in the narrative, or some features in the closing description of the effect produced, of which our historian has availed himself.
The God of glory - magnificent appellation! (as Bengel well calls it,) fitted at the very outset to rivet the devout attention of his audience. It denotes here not so much that visible glory (called the Shechinah) which attended so many of the divine manifestations (as DeWette, Meyer, Alford, and Hackett), as the glory of those manifestations themselves-of which every Jew regarded this manifestation to Abraham as the fundamental one. It is the glory of that free grace toward sinners of mankind, which, when it proceeded to concentrate itself in one family, did in pure sovereignty select Abraham to be the parent, and, through his seed, the depositary of that grace which in the fullness of time was to flow forth to all nations.
Appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Charran - or 'Haran' х Chaaraan (H2771); Septuagint, Charran (G5488) - in Greek writers, Karrai; Latin, Carroe, where Crassus fell, ignominiously defeated by the Parthians]. It lies about fifty miles from Ur. Though this first call of Abraham is not recorded in Genesis, it is clearly implied in Genesis 15:7, "I am the Lord that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees;" and the same statement is repeated in Nehemiah 9:7. The Jewish commentator Philo, and the historian Josephus (both nearly contemporary with Stephen), concur in representing the first call of Abraham as given when he was in Ur.