Heaven is my throne and the earth my footstool. What house will you build me (saith the Lord)? Or what is the place of my resting?
ο ουρανος μοι θρονος η δε γη υποποδιον των ποδων μου ποιον οικον οικοδομησετε μοι λεγει κυριος η τις τοπος της καταπαυσεως μου
7 Church Fathers comment on this verse
Even these, heaven and earth, are unworthy to be God’s dwelling, since they are created things and works of His hand. See how he persuades them little by little. From the prophet he proves that even these created things cannot be called worthy to be God’s dwelling. Why then, they will say, does he afterward speak so reprovingly? He had great boldness, as one ready for death. I think he knew this by revelation.
This should not be understood in a fleshly sense, as though God had members arranged in heaven and on earth as we do when we sit. On the contrary, He Himself indicates that He is both deeper and higher than all things. He has heaven as His throne and earth as the foundation for His feet.
To show that He embraces all things in Himself, elsewhere He says that He measures heaven with His span and holds the earth in His handful. Cf. Is 40:12.
In the spiritual sense, heaven signifies the saints, and earth signifies sinners. God surely sits over the former in their heavenly dwelling. The latter He casts down to the earth by condemning them.
Certainly the dwelling is not an earthly habitation of gold or marble. It is the one of which the prophet speaks afterward: "But upon whom shall My Spirit rest, if not upon the humble and quiet man who trembles at My word?" Cf. Is 66:2.
Finally, Stephen also defends himself against the charge of insulting the temple. In this case he tries to show, from the very history of God's guidance of the Israelite people, that the temple should not have eternal significance as the only place of true worship of God.
God accepted worship from the fathers of the Israelite people in Mesopotamia, in Egypt, and in the wilderness of Arabia. Even here, in the promised land, at first there was not only no temple, but not even a tabernacle.
Then God commanded Moses to make the tabernacle. By this same point Saint Stephen expresses his holy reverence for the God-established place of Old Testament worship. The tabernacle was made by Moses not only according to God's command, but also according to the pattern shown by God (v. 44).
Stephen expresses the same reverence for the temple. It was built by God's special favor toward David, though the actual accomplishment of the work belonged to Solomon (vv. 46-47).
Yet, by pointing out that in the promised land the Israelites had only the tabernacle until David (v. 45), Stephen wishes to show the nonessential significance of the temple in the work of worship. Then he states this thought directly and confirms it by the word of the prophet Isaiah (vv. 48-50).
But the temple itself is not the only place of God’s presence. Though Solomon built Him a house, in his very prayer of dedication he expressed the great thought that “the Most High does not dwell in temples made with hands,” as the prophet says: “Heaven is My throne, and earth is the footstool of My feet” (3 Kingdoms 8:27).
The prophetic saying is cited almost literally according to the LXX translation. The thought of the prophetic saying is this: heaven and earth, the whole universe, are filled with My presence. They constitute My dwelling and My rest.
Therefore no temple created by man, however magnificent it may be, can be the exclusive place of My presence and revelation. If I Myself am the Creator of all that exists, then I do not need human help to arrange the place of My rest. The whole world is the place of My rest.
By this prophetic saying Stephen shatters the error of a Judaism that is outliving itself and dying. That error held that the temple in Jerusalem was the necessary and only place of true worship of God.
Thus Stephen grounds the truth of the great transformation which Christianity must bring about concerning the place of worship. This is the same thing that Christ once said to the Samaritan woman: "Believe Me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father." Then true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth (Jn 4:21; Jn 4:23).
The false witnesses accused Stephen of saying that Jesus of Nazareth would destroy this place, the temple, and change the customs Moses commanded concerning temple worship (Acts 6:14). By the prophetic word, Stephen indicates in what sense and on what foundation he spoke about this.
Thus he defends himself against this accusation, indicating, though not directly, that this Jewish cultic temple worship can and must come to an end. Upon the prophetic word he bases the divine right to such a change in the order of things with the founding of the kingdom of the Messiah.
Cf. Is 66:1-2. Concerning God's relation to the temple as His dwelling, holy Stephen speaks in the words of the greatest prophet, Isaiah. He was as eloquent as he was exalted in his prophetic vision, so that he is called the Old Testament evangelist.
Yet this evangelical character belongs chiefly to his prophetic clairvoyance. He foretold in such a way that he seemed to describe, as something seen, what he was predicting.
In spirit, however, he was a true prophet of his own time, that is, an accuser of impiety and every error.
Thus, rebuking the incorrect and narrow conception of God's dwelling among Israel in its holy places, he uttered these most significant words.
Their essential thought is that God is not contained in His visible receptacles in all His fullness. He is immeasurably greater than all that He has created.
If, for example, one imagines heaven as His throne and earth as His footstool, what kind of temple would be needed to exceed heaven and earth? And where could a place be found for such a greatest temple?
Clearly, this is impossible. Nor is it required, for God, as the true Spirit, has no need in Himself of dwellings ordinary for bodily beings.
Nor does He need such a dwelling for rest. He eternally lives and acts, and, being almighty, He never grows weary so as to need repose.
Temples are necessary for us. Through them we may have Him in our spiritual peace and in our possible approach to Him as the omnipresent One.
For this reason He can be in the temple, but not only in the one in Jerusalem. He can be in all temples, as everywhere, where God reveals Himself or commands that He be honored in one place or another more especially.
The time will come, Jesus Christ Himself said, when true worshipers will worship God in spirit and truth, not on Mount Gerizim nor only in Jerusalem, but everywhere (see Jn 4:21-23).
Perhaps holy Stephen had already expounded this teaching of the Lord. But they did not understand him and slandered him, saying that he spoke blasphemy about the temple as the place of God's dwelling.
By the cited words of the prophet Isaiah, he justifies his most important views concerning the place of God's dwelling.
Since all prophetic speeches were sacred in the eyes of the members of the Sanhedrin, they had to remain silent, even though these words rebuked their false views. They listened to the voice of the righteous man as to the voice of a new angel of God.
"For the correct understanding of St. Stephen's words, let us remember," says His Grace Philaret, "that his speech tended toward the rebuke of the Jews.
"They had seen the wondrous cloud that overshadowed the temple at its consecration. They had heard the promise by which God placed His heart in the temple.
"They therefore thought that the city of Jerusalem and the Jewish people, having the holy temple among them, were thereby also holy, inviolable, and not subject to abandonment by God.
"These thoughts were groundless and crude, though covered with piety. Among the Jews they became food for impiety and lawlessness.
"God lives with us in the temple, they said. Yet they did not care that God was not before their eyes.
"Trusting in the holy place and filled with sins (see Is 1:4-5), they fearlessly added lawlessness to lawlessness.
"When they were threatened, they deceived themselves with the hope that the holy place would save them. Holy men rebuked them, as Isaiah did.
"In this same spirit of rebuke, holy Stephen said that the Most High does not dwell in things made by hands. Therefore the omnipresence of the divine Being is not enclosed in temples, although grace is present in them.
"The Jewish temple was one in the universe, but Christian temples have been born everywhere.
"What was hidden in the Jewish temple beneath the veil of ceremonial shadows and prophetic figures appears in Christian temples in the light of the revealed word of God, and in the power and mighty operation of the Holy Spirit.
"Therefore the grace of the Jerusalem temple belongs preeminently to the Christian temple.
"Did not Christ, the Founder of the spiritual Church, and His apostles visit the temple? Did He not deliver the handmade forms of bread and wine for the celebration of the Mystery of His Body and Blood?
"Therefore do not be so crude as to stop at what is made by hands alone. Yet do not be so proud as to despise what is made by hands, through which God works wonders of grace."
And we, hearers, should not delay in yielding to the instruction of this lofty example. Let us call our heart to consider what these very stones speak to our eyes: the glory and beauty of the house of God.
He whose throne is heaven and whose footstool is earth also, according to the seer's assurance, penetrates even the depths of Hades by His presence: "If I descend into Hades, Thou art there" (Ps 138:8).
He fills, encompasses, and "upholds all things by the word of His power" (Heb 1:3), so that "in Him we live, and move, and have our being" (Acts 17:28).
Can He be confined in a narrow and perishable dwelling? "What house will ye build for Me?" (Is 66:1), He asks those who think not to sanctify a place by His presence, but to limit His presence by the holiness of the place.
Yet the human heart has become so earthbound that it has no strength of its own to rise to heavenly sensations.
The mind has grown so dark that, even in the clear midday of the Lord's presence, it must walk by the touch of coarse senses before it reaches pure spiritual contemplation.
For "the invisible things of God are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made" (Rom 1:20).
Therefore God Himself bows the heavens in order to draw near the earthborn man to Himself. To teach him unceasing walking before Him, He, as it were, condenses His spiritual omnipresence into sensible signs and passing manifestations for man's finite and flesh-bearing spirit.
Man, for his part, seeks to keep himself in this saving nearness to God by the power of faith.
By natural impulse and by the inspiration of the Godhead Himself, he gathers the signs impressed by God. He observes the traces of divine manifestations.
Places capable, through such reminders, of renewing the sensation of God's gracious presence, he dedicates to God, setting them apart exclusively for solemn service to Him.
Thus Jacob, having seen in a dream the mystery of the union of man with God in the image of a ladder joining heaven to earth, calls the place of his sleep "the house of God" (Gen 28:19).
From that time he visits it only with special reverence.
Thus the tabernacle of Moses is built "according to the pattern shown on the mountain" (Ex 26:30), and is magnified by the wondrous memorials of the tablets, the manna, and the rod that budded.
Thus "the threshing floor of Ornan" (2 Chr 3:1), through the appearance of an angel, becomes the place of Solomon's temple.
Thus Christian temples also, according to ancient custom, preserve within themselves either entire tombs or at least portions of those sacred bodies in which God showed Himself wondrous in His saints.
They are also built as memorials either of certain acts by which God revealed and glorified Himself in the world, or of certain persons who went before us in gracious union with Him.
Therefore, in general, the house of God on earth is formed by God's condescension to man and by man's approach to God.
God communicates to it the glory of His gracious presence, and man gives it the beauty of living faith.
The glory of God makes it holy for man, and human beauty makes it pleasing to God.
They had seen the wondrous cloud that overshadowed the temple at its consecration. They had heard the promise by which God placed His "heart" in the temple.
They therefore thought that the temple of Jerusalem had become not only firm and constant for the appointed time, but also the necessary and eternal dwelling of God.
They thought that the city of Jerusalem and the Jewish people, having the holy temple among them, were thereby also holy, inviolable, and not subject to abandonment by God.
These thoughts were groundless and crude, though covered with piety. Among the Jews they became food for impiety and lawlessness.
God lives with us in the temple, they said, and they did not care that God was not before their eyes.
Trusting in the holy place, a sinful nation, in the expression of the prophet Isaiah, "a people laden with sins," fearlessly "added lawlessness to lawlessness" (Is 1:4-5).
When they were threatened that the sins multiplied among them would destroy them, they either did not heed this or became angry at it. They deceived themselves with the hope that the holy place would save them.
The holy men of the Jewish Church had long discerned this error of their people and repeatedly rebuked it with zeal.
That same Isaiah, whom holy Stephen also cited as a witness, refutes the audacious hope of the lawless in the holy temple. He speaks in the person of God Himself.
"Heaven is My throne, and earth is My footstool. What house will ye build for Me? And what is the place of My rest?"
So also through Jeremiah God says, "Do not trust in yourselves with lying words, for they will be of no profit to you, saying: The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord it is" (Jer 7:4).
Passages read together with this verse.
Greek text, 23 words with lemma, transliteration and Strong’s number. Tap to expand.
THEOSIS