Acts 7:19Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Here is another unexpected turn. The first was famine; the second, that they fell into the hands of their brother. The third was that the king issued a command to kill their descendants. Yet they were saved from all these things. By the words, "dealing craftily with our race," he indicates secret murder. The king did not wish to kill them openly. To express this, Stephen adds, "forcing them to cast out their children, so that they might not remain alive."

If, in the case of Joseph, it is worthy of wonder that he was sold by his brothers and, after being sold, delivered them from famine, then this is still more wondrous.

The king raised the very one who was to undermine his power, that is, Moses.

The one who was to be put to death by the person who had condemned him to death was being educated and raised to overthrow his educator.

The expression, “that they should cast out their infants, so that they might not live,” hints that he, the king, did not want the killing of the infants to be done openly.

Observe: God’s promise was strengthened through the very circumstances by which the devil strove to undermine it. Israel was afflicted, yet it grew and multiplied.

In the speech that Stephen delivered in the hall of the Sanhedrin, in answer to the high priest's interrogation, he recalls before his judges the history of the people of God. He begins with their forefather Abraham and ends with Solomon (vv. 1-50). In conclusion, he reproves the persecutors of Christians for resisting the Holy Spirit, who calls them to salvation (vv. 51-53). This speech of Stephen is as much a defense as it is a rebuke. The accusation reported that he had spoken blasphemous words against the law of Moses and the Temple of Jerusalem, and against Moses and God. The basis for this charge was that, in disputing with the Jews, Stephen had expressed the thought that in the New Testament the law of Moses was abolished.

"Forcing them to cast out their children": this expression characterizes the extreme degree of Pharaoh's oppression of the Hebrews. It was shown especially in his command to kill all male Hebrew children and cast them into the Nile (Ex 1:16-22). The turn of phrase was probably chosen with reference to the following account of how Moses was cast out in verse 21.

Archdeacon Stephen speaks in general terms about the oppression of the Hebrews by the Egyptians. Yet it is clear that he remembered the biblical narrative perfectly, both here and elsewhere, and cites everything according to the Greek translation of the Seventy. In particular, when he says that the children were commanded to be cast out, he is clearly adapting his words to the following narrative, that is, to Moses, who was cast into the Nile River (see Ex 1:16-22). As for the ascent to the Egyptian throne of a king who did not know Joseph's services, this is a common occurrence everywhere. In Egypt it could have happened especially often, since dynasties of kings changed there not infrequently. Even more than the state administration could change.