Acts 7:38Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

"And who received living words." Moses is wondrous in everything, but especially when it was necessary to give the law. What does "living words" mean? He means those whose fulfillment was unfolded in his words, or prophecies.

He rightly said "living words," showing thereby that there are also words that are not living. Ezekiel mentions them when he says, "and I gave them statutes that were not good" (Ezek 20:25). In contrast to such words he added, "living."

Do not marvel, he says, that Christ does good even to those who reject His Kingdom. The same was true under Moses. He brought them not only out of Egypt, but also through their wanderings in the wilderness.

Do you see that those signs too were for them? Stephen proves that the prophecy of the one who conversed with God must certainly be fulfilled. He was saved in a wondrous manner, did so much, and had such power. He cannot contradict himself.

Yet let us return to what was said above. This is that Moses who said, "The Lord God will raise up for you a Prophet like me." It seems to me that Christ also pointed to this saying when He said, "For salvation is from the Jews" (Jn 4:22), meaning Himself.

"This is he who was in the assembly in the wilderness with the Angel who spoke to him." See how again he indicates that Christ gave the law. He was with him, Moses, in the assembly in the wilderness.

The word also means "church."

"Who received living words..." He calls "living" words of a particular kind, whose meaning is clarified by ordinary words, or else prophecies. For the prophet Ezekiel says, "I gave them statutes that were not good" (Ezek 20:25).

With these words of the prophet in mind, Stephen called the prophetic words "living words."

Then the person of Moses is fully honored in his dignity and significance. This appears when Stephen describes his call by God to the work of Israel's deliverance (vv. 30-35), and the deliverance itself. It also appears in his leading Israel toward the promised land with many signs and wonders (v. 36).

To express still more fully the dignity of Moses, Stephen shows him as a type of the Messiah, as one who conversed with angels, and as mediator between God and Israel (vv. 37-38). By this alone Stephen's whole reverence for the Mosaic law is fully expressed. Yet it is expressed still more when he calls this law "living words" (v. 38).

At the same time, however, this speech is accusatory. In reading it, one cannot fail to notice that Stephen tries, wherever possible, to contrast the benefactions of the saving God with the ingratitude and unbelief of the Israelites.

Thus, even in the life of the patriarchs, he points to Joseph's suffering from the envy of his brothers, the forefathers of the Israelite people (v. 9). In Egypt, the descendants of these sons of Jacob reject the saving hand of Moses (vv. 25-28, 35). In the wilderness they reject Moses and God (vv. 39-43).

Therefore he is presented as standing, as it were, between God and the people. He receives the words of the first and transmits them to the second. He receives the law from God and hands it on to the people.

"With the Angel": in Exodus the utterance of the law to Moses is ascribed to Jehovah Himself. Stephen, however, together with the Septuagint, which Josephus also follows (Ant. 15.5.3), ascribes it to the Angel.

This means that God spoke and gave the law to Moses on Sinai through the mediation of an angel or angels. So also says the holy Apostle Paul (Gal 3:19; Heb 2:2).

Or perhaps Stephen here calls God Himself the Angel, just as above, at Moses' calling, He is called the Angel (v. 30).

"Living words": that is, sayings, or in general legal ordinances, which are not dead and therefore not ineffective. They are living and life-giving. As the self-revelation of the living God, they contain active living power.

This is true both in relation to their influence on the moral ordering of life and in relation to the fulfillment of the promises and threats contained in them (cf. 1 Pet 1:23; Heb 4:12; Deut 32:47).

The Apostle Paul also says that the law in itself is spiritual, holy, righteous, and given for life (Rom 7:10, 12). If it leads to sin, death, and curse, this comes from the abuse of the law, to which man's sin brings him (Rom 7:13; 1 Cor 15:56).

The false witnesses asserted that Stephen did not cease speaking blasphemous words against the law (Acts 6:13). Yet with these words Stephen praises the law. He confesses himself its reverent worshiper, as the revelation of God and as living and life-giving words.

It is worthy of note that the holy Apostle Paul also speaks of the giving of the law by the hand of an Angel (see Gal 3:19; Heb 2:2).

Was this not a consequence of the fact that in the last times before the coming of Jesus Christ the Jews revered the name Jehovah? They wrote it conventionally and in abbreviated form. They even left a blank space entirely, or wrote only "the name," meaning the name Jehovah.

Those who translated Exodus 19 from Hebrew into Greek, the Seventy, inserted "Angel" here instead of Jehovah. This was accepted by Stephen and by the holy Apostle Paul. This was all the more natural because the prophet Isaiah had already called the Messiah the Angel of Jehovah (see Is 9:6).

According to the explanation of blessed Theophylact, Saint Stephen "calls 'living words' words of a special kind, whose meaning is clarified by ordinary words. Or he called the prophetic words living words."

"The word of God is living and powerful," said the Apostle Paul in the Epistle to the Hebrews (Heb 4:12). Perhaps he was recalling this profound observation about the word of God.