Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Acts 6:13
And set up false witnesses, which said, This man ceaseth not to speak blasphemous words against this holy place, and the law:
13. and set up false witnesses which said ] Their falseness consists in the perverted turn which they gave to the words of Stephen. Though we have no words of his hitherto recorded, we can see from the character of his defence in the next chapter that he must have been heard to declare that the worship of God was no longer to be restricted as it had been to the Temple at Jerusalem. And just as in the accusation of Christ (Mat 26:61) the witnesses (called, as here, false, and for a like reason) perverted a saying of Jesus, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up,” which St John (Joh 2:21) explains, into “I am able to destroy the temple of God and to build it in three days,” so the words of Stephen which spake of a worship now “to be bound to no fixed spot, and fettered by no inflexible externality” (Zeller), were twisted into blasphemy against the Temple and the law, called in Act 6:11 blasphemy against Moses and against God; and by the use of these two phrases as equivalent the one to the other, they shew us how God and Moses meant for them no more than their Temple and its ritual.
This man ceaseth not to speak blasphemous words ] The best authorities omit blasphemous.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
And set up false witnesses – It has been made a question why these persons are called false witnesses, since it is supposed by many that they reported merely the words of Stephen. It may be replied that if they did report merely his words; if Stephen had actually said what they affirmed, yet they perverted his meaning. They accused him of blasphemy; that is, of calumnious and reproachful words against Moses and against God That Stephen had spoken in such a manner, or had designed to reproach Moses, there is no evidence. What was said in the mildest manner, and in the way of cool argument, might easily be perverted so as in their view to amount to blasphemy. But there is no evidence whatever that Stephen had ever used these words on any occasion, and it is altogether improbable that he ever did, for the following reasons:
- Jesus himself never affirmed that he would destroy that place. He uniformly taught that it would be done by the Gentiles, Matt. 24. It is altogether improbable, therefore, that Stephen should declare any such thing.
(2)It is equally improbable that he taught that Jesus would abolish the special customs and rites of the Jews. It was long, and after much discussion, before the apostles themselves were convinced that they were to be changed, and when they were changed it was done gradually. See Act 10:14, etc.; Act 11:2, etc.; Act 15:20; Act 21:20, etc. The probability therefore is, that the whole testimony was false, and was artfully invented to produce the utmost exasperation among the people, and yet was at the same time so plausible as to be easily believed. For on this point the Jews were particularly sensitive; and it is clear that they had some expectations that the Messiah would produce some such changes. Compare Mat 26:61 with Dan 9:26-27. The same charge was afterward brought against Paul, which he promptly denied. See Act 25:8.
This holy place – The temple.
The law – The Law of Moses.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 13. Against this holy place] The temple, that it shall be destroyed.
And the law] That it cannot give life, nor save from death. It is very likely that they had heard him speak words to this amount, which were all as true as the spirit from which they proceeded; but they gave them a very false colouring, as we see in the succeeding verse.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
They mingled in their testimony false things with truths, as they who witnessed against our Saviour had done. St. Stephen might possibly have inculcated what our Saviour had foretold, Luk 19:43,44, and both have been very innocent; for neither of them spake with any abhorrence of, much less blasphemy against, the law or the temple; but in that the witnesses perverted and added to their words, they are deservedly branded as false witnesses. Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus, is a granted maxim in the case of witness bearing.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
And set up false witnesses,…. Having hired them, they brought them and set them before the sanhedrim, to bear witness against Stephen:
which said, this man; meaning Stephen, who was now before the council, at whom they pointed, and whose name, through contempt, they would not mention:
ceaseth not to speak blasphemous words against this holy place; either the city of Jerusalem, which is sometimes called the holy city, and which was foretold by the angel to Daniel, and by Christ, that it should be destroyed, and which Stephen might speak of; or rather the temple, so the Ethiopic version; in a part of which, or in a place contiguous to it, the sanhedrim might now be sitting:
and the law; the ceremonial law: the sense is, that Stephen was continually telling the people, that in a little time their temple would be destroyed, and an end be put to temple worship, and to all the rituals and ceremonies of the law of Moses; the Vulgate Latin and Syriac versions leave out the word “blasphemous”; and so do the Alexandrian copy, and Beza’s most ancient one; but as Beza observes, it is certain, or at least it is most likely, that it was not omitted by the false witnesses; though speaking against the temple and the law was sufficient to make good a charge of blasphemy.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
False witnesses ( ). Just as Caiaphas did with Jesus.
Ceaseth not ( ). Wild charge just like a false witness that Stephen talks in the synagogues against the law and the holy temple.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
1) “And set up false witnesses, which said,” (estesan te marturas pseudeis legontas) “And lined up false witnesses who repeatedly claimed that,” who twisted, distorted, perverted, and took his words out of contextual setting. “Coating” rather than “quoting” what Stephen had taught and preached, that the gospel of Jesus Christ and the new covenant church was superior to and to supersede (replace) the law of Moses, even as our Lord taught, Mat 5:17-19; Luk 16:16; Heb 3:1-6; 1Ti 3:15; Mar 13:34-35.
2) “This man ceaseth not to speak blasphemous (kata ho anthropos houtos ou pauetai lalon hremata) “This man (Stephen continually speaks blasphemous words against;” Who ceases not to speak profanely against. That anything or anyone should replace the law and worship order of Moses’ law was considered to be profane and blasphemous by the Jews of the five orders of synagogues of the Libertines, etc. Act 6:9.
3) “This holy place, and the law:” (tou topou tou hagiou toutou kai tou nomou) “This (very) holy place and the law,” referring to the temple of the Jews, as Paul was later falsely accused, Act 21:28; Matthew 4; Matthew 5; The holy place may have referred to the holy city, holy temple, and the place where the Sanhedrin met in council, Act 6:14-15.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
17.
STEPHEN BEFORE THE SANHEDRIN. Act. 6:13Act. 7:57.
a.
The testimony of the false witnesses. Act. 6:13-14.
Act. 6:13
and set up false witnesses, who said, This man ceaseth not to speak words against this holy place, and the law:
Act. 6:14
for we have heard him say, that this Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place, and shall change the customs which Moses delivered unto us.
Act. 6:13-14 With Stephen before the council the false witnesses came forward with their specific charge:
This man ceaseth not to speak words against this holy place, and the law: For we have heard him say, that this Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place, and shall change the customs which Moses delivered unto us.
The general charge of blasphemy is now made specific. The accusation prior to this time was general; these men had hurled the charge of blasphemy with no explanation; now we hear their explanation. They said:
He blasphemed because he said Jesus of Nazareth would destroy this place, and in so doing the customs of worship which Moses gave would perish with the temple.
This accusation was nothing but a black lie concocted by twisting Stephens words. Stephen had probably in his preaching spoken of the destruction of the temple as Jesus had prophesied (Mat. 24:1-2) and he may have also given the words of the Master as to the destruction of His body (Joh. 2:19-22). By accommodating these words to their own evil purpose and they formulated the charge.
b.
The glowing face of Stephen. Act. 6:15.
Act. 6:15
And all that sat in the council, fastening their eyes on him, saw his face as it had been the face of an angel.
Act. 6:15 We like the words of McGarvey upon this verse, we quote here from his commentary upon this verse:
There is no need to suppose anything supernatural in his appearance. He was standing just where his Master had stood when condemned to die; he was arraigned on a similar charge; he had the same judges; and he knew perfectly well that the court had come together not to try him, but to condemn him. He knew that the supreme hour of his life had come; and the emotions which stirred his soul as he thought of the past, of death, of heaven, of the cause which he had pleaded, and of the foul murder about to be perpetrated, necessarily lit up his countenance with a glow almost supernatural. (Page 115.)
218.
State in your own words the specific objection urged by the false witnesses.
219.
How had these charges been formulated?
220.
Why did the face of Stephen glow as he stood before the council?
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
(13) Against this holy place.The new feature of Stephens preaching comes into greater prominence.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
13. Set up Made stand.
False witnesses Before the council or Sanhedrin. The facts adduced by these witnesses were mainly true; but the witnesses infused a false spirit and intent into them as to make facts be lies.
There were five things of which Stephen is charged with blasphemously predicting a change, namely: Moses, Jehovah, (Moses taking precedence in their talk,) this holy place, (the temple and perhaps city,) the law, ( place takes precedence of law with them,) and the customs, or entire body of ritual observances. Touching all these, the predictions of Stephen have become history. The perjury of the witnesses which unjustly produced his death consisted in inventing a blasphemous or hostile animus. Stephen announced the disappearance of all that was transient in these, yet not as necessarily, destroyed, but living essentially in their permanent elements with a renewed vitality in the new Christianity. Hence in his defence Stephen seeks to give such a rehearsal of Israel’s whole history as to show that his Christianity joins on to it as the latest and most natural development of the New from the Old. So far from hostility or blasphemy against these venerable five, he reverently claims them as among the antecedents to the divine consequents embraced in Jesus Messiah, and would urge his countrymen to identify themselves while they may with the coming New.
And here commences the great fracture anticipated in our note on Act 4:1, between Judaism and Christianity, which scattered the Pentecostal Church, and has lasted for ages. (See note on Act 10:1.) Its termination is indicated in Rom 11:32-36.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘And set up false witnesses, who said, “This man does not cease from speaking words against this holy place, and the law, for we have heard him say, that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place, and will change the customs which Moses delivered to us.”
‘Set up false witnesses’ may simply indicate that they set up as witnesses the ones who had been spreading false rumours and were demanding that something be done. It does not necessarily mean that the council were involved in actually themselves fabricating evidence. And even then we must recognise that there was probably some partial truth in what the false witnesses had to say, as Stephen’s own words make clear. Half truths are usually more effective than total lies which can easily be disproved. The accusations were close enough to what Stephen had said to be uncomfortable.
These false witnesses claimed that he had spoken against ‘this holy place’ (the Temple) and against ‘the Law’. This would be seen as an attack on both the things that were important to the chief priests (the Temple) and to the Pharisees (the Law). They then amplified this by pointing out that what he had actually said was that Jesus of Nazareth would destroy the Temple and would change the customs which Moses had delivered to them.
The probability is that they were exaggerating what he had said rather than totally making it all up. We can compare, with regard to their statement about the Temple, how false witnesses at Jesus trial had claimed, “We heard him say, I will destroy this temple which is made with hands, and within three days I will build another made without hands” (Mar 14:58). That too we know was probably a distortion of a genuine saying of Jesus (e.g. Joh 2:19).
Stephen may well have let slip that Jesus had said that the Temple was shortly to be destroyed (Matthew 24; Mark 13; Luke 21), which would appear blasphemous enough to those who believed in the inviolability of the Temple. And he may certainly have given the impression that Jesus had amplified some of what the Law taught (as indeed we see in the Sermon on the Mount – ‘But I say to you’ – Matthew 5) and that He had put on the Law a different emphasis from the Pharisees (e.g. Mar 7:5-23). So they might well have seen this as ‘changing the customs of Moses’. The distortions were based on half truths, which are always the most dangerous kind of lie.
He was therefore brought to stand before the council in order to defend himself. And when we consider this we must not assume immediately that the council was at fault, or even antagonistic. We must remember that the council did have the responsibility to look into charges of blasphemy. It was not the fact of the investigation that demonstrated their unreasonableness, but its aftermath.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
13 And set up false witnesses, which said, This man ceaseth not to speak blasphemous words against this holy place, and the law:
Ver. 13. Blasphemous words ] So was Athanasius accused.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
13. ] The falsehood of their witness consisted, as in the similar case of our Lord, in taking Stephen’s words out of their context, and misrepresenting what perhaps, totidem verbis, he had actually said .
. . . ] The temple , see reff.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Act 6:13 . : here and in Act 6:14 used contemptuously, iste , so Vulgate; cf. Act 7:40 , Act 18:18 , Act 19:26 , . : the words in themselves are sufficient to indicate the exaggerated and biassed character of the testimony brought against Stephen “invidiam facere conantur,” Bengel, omitted, see above. , “false,” inasmuch as they perverted the meaning of Stephen’s words, which were no blasphemy against Moses or against God, although no doubt he had taught the transitory nature of the Mosaic law, and that the true worship of God was not confined to the Temple (see Weizscker, Apostolic Age , i., 64, 83, E.T., and Wendt, p. 148 (1899)). So also in the very same manner Christ’s words had been perverted (Joh 2:21 , cf. Mar 14:56 , Mat 27:63 ), and it is likely enough that the spirit of His teaching as to the Sabbath, the laws of purifying, the fulfilling of the law, breathed again in the words of His disciples. But such utterances were blasphemous in the eyes of the Jewish legalists, and Stephen’s own words, Act 7:48-49 , might well seem to them an affirmation rather than a denial of the charges brought against him. : if is retained (W.H [198] ), phrase could refer not only to the Temple as the holy place, but also to the place of assembly of the Sanhedrim, where according to Act 6:15 the charge was brought, which was probably situated on the Temple Mount on the western side of the enclosing wall, Schrer, Jewish People , div. ii., vol. i., p. 190, E.T., so Hilgenfeld and Wendt, and also Blass, who adds “itaque etiam (, cf. 14) recte se habet,” although he omits the word in his own text. Weiss thinks that the word dropped out because it could have no reference to a scene in the Sanhedrim.
[198] Westcott and Hort’s The New Testament in Greek: Critical Text and Notes.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
witnesses. Greek. martur. See Act 1:8.
man. App-123.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
13. ] The falsehood of their witness consisted, as in the similar case of our Lord, in taking Stephens words out of their context, and misrepresenting what perhaps, totidem verbis, he had actually said.
. . .] The temple, see reff.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Act 6:13. , ceaseth not) They attempt to create odium against him.- , to speak words of blasphemy) The same phrase occurs in Luk 12:10.- , the law) See Act 6:14, at the end. Comp. ch. Act 21:28.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
set: Act 6:11, Psa 27:12, Psa 35:11, Psa 56:5
Reciprocal: Exo 20:16 – General Deu 19:16 – a false witness 1Ki 21:10 – Thou didst blaspheme 2Ki 25:9 – he burnt Neh 6:13 – that Psa 109:2 – with Pro 6:19 – A false Pro 12:17 – but Ecc 8:10 – the place Jer 7:14 – wherein Jer 52:13 – burned Lam 2:7 – cast off Eze 21:2 – against Eze 24:21 – I will Dan 9:26 – the prince Hos 3:4 – without a sacrifice Mic 3:12 – Zion Hab 1:5 – for Zec 11:10 – Beauty Mat 5:17 – to destroy the law Mat 23:38 – General Mat 26:61 – I am Mar 14:57 – and bare Luk 13:35 – your Luk 21:6 – there Joh 16:2 – the time Act 7:1 – Are Act 7:58 – the witnesses Act 17:6 – they drew Act 18:13 – General Act 21:21 – that thou Act 21:28 – This is Act 24:5 – we have Act 25:8 – Neither Heb 7:12 – a change Jam 3:6 – a world
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
3
Act 6:13. Once within the grasp of that prejudiced assembly it was not hard to produce false witnesses, for they had already been prepared in mind for such a work by the crookedness mentioned in verse 11. The accusations of this verse are general, and if looked at without any explanation would certainly make an unfavorable impression on any court, and more so on one that was already ill-disposed toward a prisoner. It would be a very wicked thing to blaspheme the holy place (Jerusalem with its temple) and the law (of Moses). To blaspheme means to speak reproachfully, rail at, revile, calumniate” [falsely accuse.]
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Act 6:13. And set up false witnesses. These words have created some difficulty. In what sense were these witnesses false? At first sight Stephen seems to have used in his arguments words not very dissimilar from those which he was charged with uttering. But these witnesses, even perhaps quoting before the Sanhedrim the very words used by the eloquent Nazarene teacher, took them out of their original context, distorted them, and evidently represented him as unceasingly ( ) assailing the Temple and the holy Jewish rites, held him up, first before the people, and then in more guarded language before the great council, as a fanatical enemy of all that the devout Israelite looked upon as holy and divine.
The procedure of these jealous and angry Jews who suborned the false witnesses is curious, and deserves special notice. Firstly, When they wanted to excite the populace against Stephen, they did not scruple to charge him (Act 6:11) with the most awful blasphemy against Moses and even against the God of Israel. Secondly. When they had so far gained their point, and they had the people with them, and the accused was about to be brought before the state Jewish tribunal, the witnesses they instructed had considerably modified the grave and terrible accusation they had spread abroad among the people. The word blasphemous (Act 6:13) disappears (according to the reading of the better MSS.). Nothing is said about Stephen railing against the revered lawgiver or the Awful Name. His offence was, he had spoken against the Temple and the law. Thirdly. When face to face with the accused, these charges are again watered down to a simple statement, how they remembered Stephen quoting certain well-known words of the Crucified, which they construed as a threat against the Temple and the law; but even this was enough in the eyes of the hostile Sanhedrim to warrant a solemn trial for life or death.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
See notes on verse 11
Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)
6:13 {10} And set up false witnesses, which said, This man ceaseth not to speak blasphemous words against this holy place, and the law:
(10) An example of frivolous objectors or false accusers, who gather false conclusions from things that are well uttered and spoken.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
The false testimony against Stephen was that he was saying things about the temple and the Mosaic Law that the Jews regarded as untrue and unpatriotic (cf. Mat 26:59-61). Stephen appeared to be challenging the authority of the Pharisees, the Mosaic Law, and a major teaching of the Sadducees, namely, the importance of the temple. He was evidently saying the same things Jesus had said (cf. Mat 5:21-48; Mat 12:6; Mat 24:1-2; Mar 14:58; Joh 2:19-21).
"Like the similar charge against Jesus (Mat 26:61; Mar 14:58; cf. Joh 2:19-22), its falseness lay not so much in its wholesale fabrication but in its subtile and deadly misrepresentation of what was intended. Undoubtedly Stephen spoke regarding a recasting of Jewish life in terms of the supremacy of Jesus the Messiah. Undoubtedly he expressed in his manner and message something of the subsidiary significance of the Jerusalem temple and the Mosaic law, as did Jesus before him (e.g., Mar 2:23-28; Mar 3:1-6; Mar 7:14-15; Mar 10:5-9). But that is not the same as advocating the destruction of the temple or the changing of the law-though on these matters we must allow Stephen to speak for himself in Acts 7." [Note: Longenecker, p. 336.]
"For Luke, the Temple stands as a time-honored, traditional place for teaching and prayer in Israel, which serves God’s purpose but is not indispensable; the attitude with which worshippers use the temple makes all the difference." [Note: Francis D. Weinert, "Luke, Stephen, and the Temple in Luke-Acts," Biblical Theology Bulletin 17:3 (July 1987):88.]