Acts 7:6Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

The wisdom of God was especially revealed in this: even amid persecutions the people multiplied, though enslaved, afflicted, and slain.

So great is the power of the promise. If they had multiplied in their own land, it would not have been so wondrous. Nor was it a short time that they lived in a foreign land, but four hundred years.

But one must remember that it does not say they went out when four hundred years had been completed. It speaks approximately: “after four hundred years,” which does not exclude the remaining thirty years.

Twenty-five years of Abraham, from his seventy-fifth year to his hundredth; sixty years of Isaac; ninety-one years of Jacob; one hundred ten years of Joseph; and one hundred forty-four years in Egypt make altogether four hundred thirty years.

The saying may also be understood thus: the four hundred years of bondage are counted from the fifth year of Isaac’s life, when he began to suffer from the son of the maidservant (Gen. 21:9).

Hyperbaton is a rhetorical device in which the neutral order of words is disrupted. Words connected with one another are transposed, or many other words are inserted between words closely connected in meaning.

Augustine of Hippo, Quaestionum in heptateuchum libri septem 2.47.6 (CCSL 33:92).

The basis for this charge was that, in disputing with the Jews, Stephen had expressed the thought that the Law of Moses was abolished in the New Testament. This included all its many ordinances and institutions, not excluding the Jerusalem temple.

That temple was now no longer the only place of true worship (Jn 4:21 and following).

Stephen now briefly recounts the history of God’s divine economy for the salvation of Israel. By the mere presentation of this history, he defends himself against the charge of blasphemy.

Through it he makes clear what God he confesses and how he confesses Him. For this purpose, among other things, at the beginning of his speech he calls God “the God of glory” (v. 2).

By this he shows with what reverence he treats this holy Name. Then, by pointing in the history of Israel to the world-governing right hand of God, he confesses still more clearly the whole majesty of God.

Therefore the chief matter is not the place, against which Stephen supposedly spoke blasphemous words. It is the spiritual inheritance, whose representative was Abraham, and after him all Israel.

This inheritance was concentrated in Him by Whose name all nations were to be blessed.

“Thus his inheritance, Abraham’s, is preserved through his Seed, Who is Christ, since the saints also will reign with Him. The expression, ‘while he was still childless,’ shows Abraham’s obedience and faith.

“What was then happening to him inclined him to the opposite opinion, since he had not even a foot’s breadth.”

Besides this, it was revealed to him that his posterity would be in bondage. Despite all this, he believed the promise given to him when the covenant with God was made (see Gen. 15:13, 14, 18).

But those before whom there was the very manifestation of the promised Seed, and many other signs of the fulfillment of the promise, do not believe.

According to I. Artobolevsky, in his speech St. Stephen “unfolds the history of the providential guidance of the Jewish people, partly with an apologetic aim and partly with a polemical one.

“But the apologetic element here stands behind the fiery polemic. He gathers the whole content of his historical survey into a powerful reproach against the Jewish people for unbelief and perpetual resistance to the Holy One (vv. 51-52).

“That is, he reproaches them for failing to understand the true meaning and significance of all the guidances of God, or of the Holy Spirit. These point not only to Christ, but also to the character of His Kingdom.

“Stephen’s speech brought into the consciousness of the Church, with complete clarity, the thought of the independence of the Christian religion from Judaism and of its universality. He was undoubtedly a Hellenist and stood at their head.”