Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Acts 7:36
He brought them out, after that he had showed wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, and in the Red sea, and in the wilderness forty years.
36. He brought [ led ] them out ] Having God’s power with him in all these wanderings.
after that he had skewed wonders and signs in the land of Egypt ] The oldest MSS. omit “the land of.” Read, having wrought wonders and signs in Egypt.
and in the Red sea, and in the wilderness forty years ] The Jewish traditions make the plagues sent on the Egyptians at the Red Sea more than those which had been sent to them in Egypt. Thus in the Mechilta (ed. Weiss, p. 41) the Egyptians are said to have received ten plagues in Egypt, but fifty at the Red Sea, because the magicians speak of the afflictions in Egypt (Exo 8:19) as “the finger of God,” while at the Red Sea it is said (Exo 14:31) “And Israel saw that great work [Heb. hand ] which the Lord did upon the Egyptians.”
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Wonders and signs – Miracles, and remarkable interpositions of God. See the notes on Act 2:22.
In the land of Egypt – By the ten plagues. Exo. 412.
In the Red sea – Dividing it, and conducting the Israelites in safety, and overthrowing the Egyptians, Exo. 14.
In the wilderness – During their forty years journey to the promised land. The wonders or miracles were, providing them with manna daily; with flesh in a miraculous manner; with water from the rock, etc., Exo. 16; Exo. 17; etc.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 36. He brought them out, after that he had showed wonders, &c.] Thus the very person whom they had rejected, and, in effect, delivered up into the hands of Pharaoh that he might be slain, was the person alone by whom they were redeemed from their Egyptian bondage. And does not St. Stephen plainly say by this, that the very person, Jesus Christ, whom they had rejected and delivered up into the hands of Pilate to be crucified, was the person alone by whom they could be delivered out of their spiritual bondage, and made partakers of the inheritance among the saints in light? No doubt they felt that this was the drift of his speech.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
After that he had showed wonders and signs: God could with the least word or motion of his will save his people; but he chooseth so to do his wonderful works, that they may be had in remembrance.
In the Red sea; it is not agreed why it is so called; but this name of that sea is mentioned in profane authors. This whole verse, as divers others, refer to the history of it in Exodus, from Exo 1:1-14:31.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
He brought them out,…. Of Egypt, and delivered them from all their oppressions in it:
after that he had shown wonders and signs in the land of Egypt; by turning his rod into a serpent, and by his rod swallowing up the rods of the Egyptians, and by the ten plagues, which were inflicted on Pharaoh, and his people, for not letting the children of Israel go:
and in the Red sea; by dividing the waters of it, so that the people of Israel went through it as on dry ground, which Pharaoh and his army attempting to do, were drowned. This sea is called the Red sea, not from the natural colour of the water, which is the same with that of other seas; nor from the appearance of it through the rays of the sun upon it, or the shade of the red mountains near it; but from Erythrus, to whom it formerly belonged, and whose name signifies red; and is no other than Esau, whose name was Edom, which signifies the same; it lay near his country: it is called in the Hebrew tongue the sea of Suph, from the weeds that grew in it; and so it is in the Syriac version here:
and in the wilderness forty years; where wonders were wrought for the people in providing food for them, and in preserving them from their enemies, when at last they were brought out of it into Canaan’s land, by Joshua. This exactly agrees with what has been before observed on Ac 7:23 from the Jewish writings, that Moses was forty years in Pharaoh’s court, forty years in Midian, and forty years in the wilderness.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
1) “He brought them out,” (houtos ekeagigen autous) “This man led them out,” out of the land of Egypt; He rescued them as if from a sinking ship, a burning building, or quick-sand pit, even like Joseph, he had formerly been rejected and derided and betrayed by his brethren, Exo 3:10; Exo 12:41; Exo 12:43; Exo 12:51; Gen 37:27-28.
2) “After that he had shewed wonders and signs in the land of Egypt,” (poiesas terata kai semeia en ge Aigupto) “After he had done (made or showed) wonders and signs in the land of Egypt;” After he had ministered the ten plagues with his rod over Egypt, a miraculous demonstration, seal or evidence of his credentials of commission from God, Exo 7:8 to Exo 12:30.
3) “And in the Red Sea,” (kai en eruthra thalasse) “As well as in the Red Sea,” as the waters were rolled back, the Israelites passed through the sea dry shod, and the Egyptians trying to follow them were drowned therein, Exo 14:10-31.
4) “And in the wilderness forty years,” (kai en te eremo ete tesserakonta) “And in the desert (or wilderness of Sinai) for a period of forty years,” as he led and fed them for a period of forty years, till his death at Mt Nebo. He fed them with quail, manna from heaven, and water from the rock, by supernatural intervention and provision, Exo 16:35; Deu 34:1-7. He cared for his own to the end, Php_4:19; Heb 13:5.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
(36) After that he had shewed wonders and signs.The two nouns are joined together, as in Deu. 6:22, Mat. 24:24. The words express different relations, it may be, of the same phenomena, rather than phenomena specifically different;the first emphasising the wonder which the miracle produces, and therefore answering more strictly to that word; the latter, the fact that the miracle is a token or evidence of something beyond itself. (See also Act. 2:22; Act. 6:8.)
In the Red sea.It may be worth while noting that the familiar name comes to us, not from the Hebrew word, which means, literally, the Weed Sea, but from the LXX. version, which Stephen, as a Hellenistic Jew, used, and which gave the word Erythran, or red, which had been used by Greek travellers from Herodotus onward. Why the name was given is an unsolved problem. Some have referred it to the colour of the coast; some to that of the sea-weed; some to an attempt to give an etymological translation of its name as the Sea of Edom (Edom, meaning red, as in Gen. 25:25; Gen. 36:1); some to a supposed connection with an early settlement of Phnicians, whose name had, with the Greeks, the same significance.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
36. Water The Spirit and the water, the reality and the symbol, are diffused through the world, refreshing both the moral and the material desert of this earth.
Baptized Baptism was indeed suggested in the very prophecy the eunuch was reading: “So shall he (Messiah) sprinkle many nations,” words which the Ethiopian, son of a distant nation, might feel rightly to include himself. Rightly, therefore, he asks, “What doth hinder ME to be baptized?”
Robinson plausibly decides that this was “a certain water,” as the Greek signifies, “standing along the bottom of the adjacent wady,” [or valley, namely, of Tell el-Hasy.] “This water is on the most direct route from Beit Jibrin to Gaza, on the most southern road from Jerusalem, and in the midst of the country now desert, that is, without villages or fixed habitations. There is no other similar water on this road.” Undoubtedly “many changes” may have occurred in the earth, rendering all such identifications somewhat uncertain; but the entire presumption is that the traveller stands on the very spot where Philip and the eunuch stood!
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘This man led them forth, having wrought wonders and signs in Egypt, and in the Red Sea, and in the wilderness forty years.’
And this Moses had revealed himself as ruler and deliverer in performing many signs and wonders both before and after the great deliverance. (The hint was that the One Who had come among them with signs and wonders, both before and after His death, wonders which even they had had to acknowledge, was the greater Moses. It was something that they could hardly fail to recognise).
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
36 He brought them out, after that he had shewed wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, and in the Red sea, and in the wilderness forty years.
Ver. 36. And in the wilderness ] Where their garments were no whit the worse for wearing. Why then should we question the incorruptibility of our bodies at the resurrection?
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Act 7:36 . On see Act 7:35 . , Exo 3:10 , . in LXX frequent, sometimes with, sometimes without the article, here as in the Heb. without: cf. the parallel in Assumption of Moses , iii., 11 (ed. Charles), and see below on Act 7:38 .
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
He = This one.
shewed. Literally done. See Deu 31:2; Deu 34:7.
wonders. Greek. teras. App-176.
signs. Greek. semeion. App-176.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Act 7:36. -) The mention of the land and sea makes the language august.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
brought: Exo 12:41, Exo 33:1
after: Exo 7:1 – Exo 14:31, Deu 4:33-37, Deu 6:21, Deu 6:22, Neh 9:10, Psa 78:12, Psa 78:13, Psa 78:42-51, Psa 105:27-36, Psa 106:8-11, Psa 135:8-12, Psa 136:9-15
in the Red: Exo 14:21, Exo 14:27-29
and in the wilderness: Exo 15:23-25, Exo 16:1 – Exo 17:16, Exo 19:1 – Exo 20:26, Num 9:15-23, Num 11:1-35, Num 14:1-45, Num 16:1 – Num 17:13, Num 20:1 – Num 21:35, Deu 2:25-37, Deu 8:4, Neh 9:12-15, Neh 9:18-22, Psa 78:14-33, Psa 105:39-45, Psa 106:17, Psa 106:18, Psa 135:10-12, Psa 136:16-21
Reciprocal: Exo 3:10 – General Exo 3:20 – smite Exo 6:26 – Bring Exo 7:3 – multiply Exo 18:1 – God Deu 34:7 – an hundred Jos 24:6 – Egyptians Psa 77:20 – General Psa 105:43 – And he Psa 135:9 – sent tokens Psa 136:12 – General Jer 32:20 – hast set Mic 6:4 – I brought Act 13:17 – and with Act 13:18 – about Heb 3:9 – forty
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
6
Act 7:36. This brief verse covers the history from Exodus 7 to Joshua 5.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Act 7:36. He brought them out, after that he showed wonders and signs. Drawing the noble picture contained in this and the preceding verses of Moses our Rabbi, as the Jews love to call him, of whom they are so proud, Stephen shows how utterly absurd was any charge brought against him of blasphemy against one whom he admired with so ungrudging an admiration, and loved with so deep a love.
Thus, each of the first two epochs into which Stephen had divided Israels eventful story, in spite of the stubborn hard heart of their forefathers in rejecting
(a) Joseph,
(b) Moses,
had ended in their being delivered by their Divine Protector
(a) By the hand of Joseph,
(b) By the hand of Moses,
out of all the troubles and afflictions which surrounded them.
In the first epoch, the origin of the chosen people is recounted, and how the Lord God came to choose them out of all the tribes of the earth; but in it they never became more than a large family of wandering shepherds, and their difficulties and dangers were only those incidental to nomad shepherd life in the East.
In the second epoch, the shepherds are settled in a rich and fertile country. In the course of a couple of centuries they multiply with a wonderful (perhaps a supernatural) rapidity, and become, in numbers at least, a mighty people. Owing to political convulsions and other causes to us unknown, the whole race is reduced to a state of miserable slavery by the warlike caste then in power in Egypt; but their Divine Protector through all has not lost sight of them, and, literally against their will, by a mighty exercise of power, delivers them out of all their misery by the hand of His servant Moses.
The third and the greatest epoch in the history of the chosen people commences in the wilderness. The children of Israel, now free and strong, are united under the supreme command of that Moses whom they had so repeatedly refused to obey. The history of this epochlasting from the hour when Moses led the armies of Israel out of Egypt until that present day when Stephen was telling before the Sanhedrim the wondrous storywould have been closed, as were the first and second, with the recital of another but far grander Divine rescue, and that, too, in spite of all hard-hearted rejection by the people whom God loved with a love, as Stephen wished to show, that nothing could quench.
But this, as we shall see, was never destined to be told. We have, then, only a splendid fragment of the last and greatest portion of Stephens speech.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
See notes on verse 30
Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)
THE CHURCH
36-38. This is the one who is in the church in the wilderness along with the angel speaking to him in Mt. Sinai and with our fathers. As ecclesia, the word constantly used by the Holy Ghost for church, from ek, out, and kaleoo, call, simply means the called out, i. e., all the people in all ages who have responded to the call of the Holy Ghost, come out of the world and separated themselves unto God, therefore we find the church in the world from the days of Abel. Dispensations have changed, but the church never. The birth of the Spirit per se takes you out of the world and makes you a member of the church, though in the middle of a desert, or tossed mid-ocean, a thousand miles from a church edifice, a preacher, or a baptismal font, none of which ever did have anything to do with church membership, being only symbolic, indicative and catechetical. Another work of grace, so prominent in the New Testament as well as the Old, is sanctification for every church member. For this work the Holy Ghost says hagiadzoo, from a, not, and gee, the world. Hence it means to take the world out of you. Therefore these two works so plain and clear, regeneration taking you out of the world and constituting you a true member of Gods church in spiritual infancy, and sanctification, taking the world out of you, promoting you out of spiritual infancy into spiritual adultage, thus qualifying you for every office of the church to which the Holy Ghost may call you. Good Lord, help us all to be satisfied with Gods Word, come back to New Testament simplicity, losing sight of those human ecclesiasticisms which through the chicanery of Satan and carnal leaders have so covered up the church in the rubbish of Ashdod and the superfluities of Babylon that the multitudes of so-called Christendom have actually lost sight of the amiable, simple, pure, humble Bride of Christ, the loving companion of her ascended Lord, still surviving upon the earth to prepare all nations for the coming kingdom.