Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Acts 7:51
Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers [did,] so [do] ye.
51. Ye stiffnecked ] A charge often brought against the Jews in the Old Testament, cp. Exo 32:9; Exo 33:3, &c., so that it is a very suitable expression when Stephen is declaring that the people of his time were “as their fathers.”
and uncircumcised in heart and ears ] As the rite of circumcision was the sign of submission to the Jewish religion in its fullest requirements, so the word uncircumcised became a synonym for obstinate resistance to what God had revealed, and the phrase in the text consequently signifies “ye who shut your heart and ears against the truth.” For this metaphorical application cp. Lev 26:41; Deu 10:16; Jer 6:10.
It seems very likely that at this part of his discourse Stephen saw that the language he had been using was distasteful to his audience, and therefore he applied to them words which implied how far they were from being God’s people though they called themselves Israelites. They were in his eyes as those whom they called “sinners of the Gentiles.” (Gal 2:15.)
ye do always resist the Holy Ghost ] From the days of Moses, whom their fathers would not obey, down to the days of Jesus, whom they had crucified.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Ye stiff-necked – The discourse of Stephen has every appearance of having been interrupted by the clamors and opposition of the Sanhedrin. This verse has no immediate connection with what precedes, and appears to have been spoken in the midst of opposition and clamor. If we may conjecture in this case, it would seem that the Jews saw the drift of his argument; that they interrupted him; and that when the tumult had somewhat subsided, he addressed them in the language of this verse, showing them that they sustained a character precisely similar to their rebellious fathers. The word stiff-necked is often used in the Old Testament, Exo 32:9; Exo 33:3, Exo 33:5; Exo 34:9; Deu 9:6, Deu 9:13; Deu 10:16, etc. It is a figurative expression taken from oxen that are refractory, and that will not submit to be yoked. Applied to people, it means that they are stubborn, contumacious, and unwilling to submit to the restraints of Law.
Uncircumcised in heart – Circumcision was a sign of being a Jew – of acknowledging the authority of the laws of Moses. It was also emblematic of purity, and of submission to the Law of God. The expression uncircumcised in heart denotes those who were not willing to acknowledge that Law, and submit to it. They had hearts filled with vicious and unsubdued affections and desires.
And ears – That is, who are unwilling to hear what God says. Compare Lev 26:41; Jer 9:26. See the notes on Rom 2:28-29.
Resist the Holy Ghost – You oppose the message which is brought to you by the authority of God and the inspiration of his Spirit. The message brought by Moses; by the prophets; by the Saviour; and by the apostles – all by the infallible direction of the Holy Spirit – they and their fathers opposed.
As your fathers did … – As he had specified in Act 7:27, Act 7:35, Act 7:39-43.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Act 7:51-53
Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears.
Stephens change of tone
I. Justified.
1. This was not the first Christian sermon that the Jews or the Sanhedrin had heard. Otherwise, possibly, such vehement and unsparing denunciations had been out of place. They had already heard of Christ twice from His inspired messengers, and he did not speak till the ecclesiastical rulers had shown a determined animus to put their foot on the gospel. It was to a council who had, and still were, resisting grace that Stephen spoke.
2. Stephen was addressing the authorities, and the tone of Peter towards them had been very different from his tone with the people (Act 3:17; cf Act 4:11; Act 6:30). There was deep reason and equity in this difference. It was the Sanhedrin which had all along fomented the hostility of the people to Christ. The common people heard Christ gladly, and shouted Hosannah; and in the closing scene it was only at the persuasion of the chief priests and elders that they were induced to ask Barabbas and destroy Jesus. They had, no doubt, their full share of guilt, and Peter charges them with being accomplices; but, as at the Fall, God recognises a difference in degree of guilt between man and the serpent, so those who are of the same mind with God draw a distinction between those who sin through weakness, and those who sin of malice prepense. It is against the latter that Stephen hurls his indignant invective.
II. Accounted for.
1. There was the natural friction which his own argument produced in his mind. As he traced the history of his nation, view after view opened upon him of the perversity, bigotry, and wilful opposition to truth which had characterised them at every period. They had only been too consistent in rejecting Divine messengers, and now by their rejection of the love and Spirit of God they had put the finishing stroke upon their sin. This repeated defiance of God galls Him, and kindles His holy indignation.
2. In all probability his quotation from Isaiah, so palpably adverse to their view of the temple, and so impossible to be answered stung them to the quick. This is indicated in the narrative, They while in the act of listening were cut to the heart and kept gnashing upon him with their teeth. It is not difficult to picture the scene. Audible murmurs are heard as Stephen says, The Most High dwelleth not in temples, etc. They make menacing gestures as wild beasts would spring upon their prey. There two scribes, reaching across to one another, have got a scroll between them, in which they are pointing to passages which they think confute him. One finger is on the words, I have hallowed this house, etc.; the fist of the other contracts and is raised towards the prisoner. The young man from the Cicilian synagogue glances to and fro from the accused to Gamaliel. The great doctor had in a previous council made a diversion in favour of the apostles. But on that occasion it appears that the high priest had been under the influence of the Sadducees. Stephens speech brought out into full prominence the anti-Pharisaic element of the gospel. And as he did so the eyes of Saul are turned wistfully to his great authority mutely asking, Will you plead for these Galileans now? And Gamaliels contracted brow answers No. Then catching the symptoms of the storm long brewing, with that, quick apprehension which always characterises an earnest speaker, and seeing in a moment the wicked husbandmen before him, he bursts forth in the words of the text. In the early part of his speech he is cautious, and avoids giving offence; He keeps his mouth, as it were, with a bridle, while the ungodly is in sight. But at last his heart grows hot within him, and while he is musing upon the circumstances he has recited, the fire kindles; and at the last he throws away his caution and speaks in accents of burning indignation. Conclusion: What has been said may read us a needful lesson on the subject of spurious charity. Charity is not uniform suavity under all circumstances; it has in it a stern element of moral indignation which is the salt that keeps it from corruption. Charity never flatters a man in wilful sin, but tells him plainly that continuance means death; just as a surgeon, who desires nothing but the health of his patient, does not hesitate to perform a painful operation. And because heresy is mischievous to souls charity pays it no compliments. If some safeguards are required with perfect righteousness of indignation–
1. Rid the mind of personal resentment.
2. Be sure that it is vital error, and do not confound it with your view of it. (Dean Goulburn.)
Ye do always resist the Holy Ghost.—
Resisting the Holy Ghost
I. The character here given of impenitent and ungodly men.
1. Their leading feature is obduracy, which the Scriptures call hardness of heart. There may be a variety of dispositions, yet all merging in this spirit.
(1) Stiff-neeked means nearly the same as stout-hearted; one who is unyielding and obstinate; who sets at nought the councils of God and follows his own.
(2) Uncircumcised in heart and ears. Circumcision was a rite intended to point out the nature and necessity of spiritual renovation (Deu 10:16-18).
2. The obduracy of an ungodly man may be resolved into–
(1) Sensuality (Deu 21:18-20).
(2) Pride and prejudice (Jer 6:10-13).
(3) Habitual negligence and the spirit of slumber (Isa 66:8; Isa 66:4; Isa 29:9-13).
II. How ungodly men resist the Holy Ghost. That a creature should rise in rebellion against the great Creator might seem incredible, had we not demonstration of the fact. Gamaliel said, If this council, or this work, be of God, ye cannot overthrow it, lest ye haply be found even to fight against God. There are many ways in which men do fight against God; but the most awful is in resisting the Holy Ghost. The Sovereign of the universe maintains a communication with our fallen world by the agency of His Spirit. Now this Divine Spirit is called–
1. The Spirit of Truth. He revealed the will of God to us. When any one opposes Divine truth, he resists the Holy Ghost. The grand doctrines of the gospel are confessedly clear and plain in the Word. How then is it that they are not received? (Isa 30:8-13; Joh 3:19.) To those who prefer agreeable things, which flatter the roving imagination, and the unrenewed heart, a full exhibition of Divine truth, will ever be unwelcome. Herein consists the guilt of obstinate unbelief and impenitence. Hence, too, arises the sophistry which contrives a thousand subtle devices to nullify the Word of God.
2. The spirit of purity. He is the sole source and efficient author of sanctity. He has given a hallowed and peculiar stamp to the various precepts, ordinances, and institutions of true religion. Now, the man who labours to stain this stamp of purity resists the Holy Ghost.
3. The Spirit of Grace. God engaged to pour out the spirit of grace and of supplication. The favour of Jehovah is eminently manifested through the agency of the Holy Ghost. Yet, alas I great numbers resist this Divine Agent of mercy, stifling those convictions which are produced by His power. The truth is heard, but not heeded and applied.
III. The tremendous consequences of resisting the Holy Ghost.
1. Those persons who have long and obstinately opposed truth, are usually given over to a reprobate mind. The light which they have laboured so hard to exclude is withdrawn, and they are enveloped in the thick darkness they love. Compunction of conscience gradually abates till they are past feeling. My Spirit shall not always strive with man, etc. Ephraim is joined to idols, let him alone. For it is impossible for those who were once enlighted, etc.
2. The future punishment of those who have resisted the Holy Ghost will be beyond expression dreadful. Though for a time they may be hardened, so as to have little or no fear, the justice of God is preparing their doom. He that despised Moses law, died without mercy, under two or three witnesses; of how much sorer punishment, etc. Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! (Essex Congregational Remembrancer.)
Resisting the Holy Ghost
I. The office of the Holy Spirit.
1. Convincing.
2. Entreating.
3. Admonishing.
4. Threatening.
II. The means He uses.
1. The Word.
2. Examples.
3. Conscience.
4. Providential dealings.
III. The modes of resisting Him.
1. Inattention.
2. Procrastination.
3. Contradiction. (W. W. Wythe.)
On resisting the Holy Spirit
To resist the Holy Ghost is a sin of the deepest guilt. It is the basest ingratitude against God; for it is resisting the very means which God of His infinite mercy freely offers for recovering our souls from sin, and bringing us to Christ, our only Saviour. Does it not seem strange that against one so good, so merciful, so willing to help, and comfort us, we should ever be led to commit wilful sin?
1. Christians of the present day approach towards this sin several ways; and first whenever they despise or ridicule things belonging unto God. Should they persevere in these sinful habits, they may in the end lose all reverence for holy things; and then, if, with a soul indifferent to things spiritual, they die, have they a hope that their sin can be forgiven? Like the Pharisees of old, they seemed to have refused the very means by which they might have been brought to Christ.
2. There is another way by which Christians resist the Holy Ghost; and this, in the language of Scripture, is called grieving, or quenching, the Holy Spirit. In one sense every sin wilfully committed against God, every known Christian duty wilfully omitted, is grieving the Holy Spirit. But in a more especial manner Christians grieve the Holy Ghost when they refuse to receive those doctrines of the gospel of Jesus Christ which He hath Himself revealed; when the plain teachings of the Scriptures seem unto them foolishness.
3. Gods Holy Spirit is resisted also by every one who, in direct opposition to conscience, refusing the holy aid which alone could have preserved him, wilfully commits sin, knowingly violates the moral law of God. Such are some of the very awful considerations arising from the subject before us. Warned of the danger, let us watch and pray against it. Let us not resist the Holy Ghost in this our accepted time, and He will fit us for the full enjoyment of the salvation purchased by the blood and secured by the intercession of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. (H. Marriott, M. A.)
Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted.—
Devotion to the conventional
I. The rejection of Christ was the national sin of the Jewish people. It was the act of the whole nation, the result of the full development of the then Jewish mode of looking at the world–the spirit of the age.
1. The term, a national sin, wants a clear definition. It is used at present recklessly. Every party declares its opponents guilty of a national sin. But a national sin is not an evil done by any one party to the nation, but an evil done by the nation itself. I might mention courses of political action in which England has persisted for years, through all changes of party, which are of the character of national sins, but I will content myself with saying that one of the worst of national sins is the rejection or neglect of the great men whom God has sent to save or to teach the nation. It is a proof of the perfect culture of a people, when it recognises its great men, puts them forward at once and obeys them.
2. The man of noble genius, the prophet, or whatever else you call him, is the test of the nation. Those are lost who reject him–the whole nation is lost if the whole nation rejects him–for it is not he so much whom it rejects as the saving ideas of which he is the vehicle. The question whether Christ shall be accepted or rejected has again and again been placed before the nations. It was placed most completely before the Jews at the appearance of the perfect Man–is placed before each of us–since He was the representation of that which is noblest in humanity. This passive work was recognised by Simeon when he said, This child is set for the fall and the rising again of many in Israel. It was recognised by Christ Himself when He said, For judgment, i.e. for division, for sifting of the chaff from the wheat, am I come into the world. And so it was, wherever He went He was the touchstone of men. Those who were pure and true-hearted saw Him and loved Him; those who were conscious of their need and sin believed in Him, drank deep of His Spirit, and found redemption and repose. Those who were base or false of heart naturally recoiled from Him, and, to get rid of Him, hanged Him on a tree. In doing so–and this was the deed of the mass of the people–they destroyed their nationality which was hidden in their reception of Christ. In a coincidence with this, the priesthood rejected Christ in words which repudiated their distinct existence as a nation–We have no king but Caesar. He did nothing overt to produce this. He simply lived His life, and it acted on the Jewish world as an electric current upon the water; it separated its elements.
II. The cause of this rejection was primarily devotion to the conventional, which is practically identical with want of individuality, one of the most painful deficiencies in our present society.
1. Now the rectification of that evil lies at the root of Christianity. Christ came to ensure the distinct life, the originality of each man, to rescue men from being mingled up, indistinguishable atoms, with the mass of man.
2. The spirit of the world is in exact opposition to this. Its tendency is to reduce all men and women to one pattern. There must be nothing original in the worlds language, eccentric, erratic. Custom is to be despot. We must all dress in the same way, read the same books, talk of the same things. We do not object to progress, but everybody must be levelled, and then collectively advance; no one must leave the ranks or step to the front.
3. This is the spirit which either cannot see, or, seeing, hates men of genius. They are in conflict with the known and the accredited modes of action. So it comes to pass that they are depreciated and neglected; or, if they are too great and persist, persecuted and killed. And, indeed, it is not difficult to get rid of them, for men of genius cannot breathe in this atmosphere, it kills them. The pitiable thing in English society now is, that it is in danger of becoming of so dreadful a uniformity that no original man can be developed in it at all. This, if anything, will become the ruin of Englands greatness.
4. There is, it is true, a kind of re-action going on at present against this tyranny. Young men and women, weary of monotonous pleasures, are in rebellion, but the whole social condition has been so degraded that they rush into still more artificial and unnatural pleasures and excitements; in endeavouring to become free, they enslave themselves the more.
5. Those who might do much, do little. It is one of the advantages of wealth and high position that those who possess them may initiate the uncustomary without a cry being raised against them. But even with every opportunity, how little imagination do they ever display, how little invention, how little they do to relieve the melancholy uniformity of our pleasures, or the intense joylessness of our work!
6. Now this was precisely the spirit of the Jewish religious world at the time of Christ. Men were bound down to a multitude of fixed rules and maxims;. they were hedged in on all sides. It was the most finished conventionalism of religion, in spite of the different sects, which the world has ever seen. Then came Christ, entirely original, proclaiming new ideas, or, old truths in a new form, overthrowing worn-out ceremonies, denouncing things gray with the dust of ages, letting in the light of truth into the chambers where the priests and lawyers spun their webs of theology to ensnare the free souls of men, trampling down relentlessly the darling customs of the old conservatism, shocking and bewildering the religious society. He did not keep, they said, the Sabbath day. He ate and drank–abominable iniquity!–with publicans and sinners. He allowed a fallen woman to touch Him. Worse still, He did not wash His hands before He ate bread. He did not teach as the scribes did. He did not live the time-honoured and ascetic life of a prophet. He dared to speak against the priesthood and the aristocracy. He came from Nazareth, that was enough; no good could come from Nazareth. He was a carpenters son, and illiterate, and no prophet was made, or could be made, out of such materials. And this man! He dares to disturb us, to contest our maxims, to set at nought our customs, to array Himself against our despotism. Come, let us kill Him; and so they crucified Him. They did not see, the wretched men, that in murdering Him they murdered their nation also.
III. Take the question now out of the realm of thought and history, and apply it practically. Ask yourselves two questions:–
1. What would be the fate of Christ if He were suddenly to appear as a teacher in the middle of London? How would our orthodox religious society and our conventional social world receive Him? Desiring to speak with all reverence, He would horrify the one by His heterodox opinions, the other by His absolute scorn of many of the very palladia of society. Supposing He were to denounce–as He would in no measured terms–our system of caste; attack our most cherished maxims about property and rights; live in opposition to certain social rules, contemn with scorn our accredited hypocrisies; live among us His free, bold, unconventional, outspoken life; how should we receive Him? It is a question which it is worth while that society should ask itself. I trust more would hail His advent than we think. I believe the time is come when men are sick of the tyranny of custom of living in unreality; that they are longing for a new life and a new order of things, for some fresh ideas to come and stir, like the angel, the stagnant pool. I believe there are thousands who would join themselves to Him, thousands of true men from all religious bodies, and from those who are now plentifully sprinkled with the epithets of rationalists, infidels, heretics, and atheists; but there are thousands who call themselves by His name who would neglect or persecute Him, for He Would come among our old conservatisms of religion, our doctrinal systems, superstitions, priesthoods, and ritualisms, as He came of old. If we could accept the revolution He would make, our nation and religion Would be saved, if not it would be enervated by the blow and die. Realising these things, realising Christ speaking to us as He would speak now, we ought to feel our falseness. We may save our nation if we resolve, each one here for himself, to free ourselves from cant, and formalism, and superstition, to step into the clear air of freedom, individuality, truth, and holiness.
2. How far is the spirit of the world preventing you personally from receiving Christ?
(1) Is your sole aim the endeavour to please your party, forfeiting your individuality? Then you cannot receive Christ, for He demands that you should be true to your own soul.
(2) Are you permitting yourself to chime in with the low morality of the day, to accept the common standard, repudiating the desire to be better than your neighbours, and so coming at last to join in the light laugh with which the world treats immoralities of society or trade, or the more flagrant shame, dishonesty, and folly which adorn the turf–Letting evils take their course, till gradually the evils appear to you at first endurable, and then even beautiful, being protected by the deities of custom and fashion, which we enthrone instead of God? Are you drifting into such a state of heart? If so, you cannot expect to be able to receive Christ, for He demands that life should be Godlike; not the prudence of silence about evil, but the imprudence of bold separation from evil.
3. And to come home to the inner spiritual life, is your religion only the creature of custom, not of conviction? Have you received and adopted current opinions because they are current, orthodox because it is the fashion to be orthodox, or heterodox because it is the fashion to be heterodox? How can you receive Christ?–for where He comes He claims reality. Ye must be born again; born out of a dead, Pharisaic, conventional form of religion into a living individual union with the life of God. Two things, then, are laid before you this day–conventional religion, a whited sepulchre; personal religion, a fair temple, whose sure foundations are bound together by the twisted strength of the innermost fibres of the soul. (Stopford A. Brooke, M. A.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 51. Ye stiff-necked] . A metaphor taken from untoward oxen, who cannot be broken into the yoke; and whose strong necks cannot be bended to the right or the left.
Uncircumcised in heart and ears] This was a Jewish mode of speech, often used by the prophets. Circumcision was instituted, not only as a sign and seal of the covenant into which the Israelites entered with their Maker, but also as a type of that purity and holiness which the law of God requires; hence there was an excision of what was deemed not only superfluous but also injurious; and by this cutting off, the propensity to that crime which ruins the body, debases the mind, and was generally the forerunner of idolatry, was happily lessened. It would be easy to prove this, were not the subject too delicate. Where the spirit of disobedience was found, where the heart was prone to iniquity, and the ears impatient of reproof and counsel, the person is represented as uncircumcised in those parts, because devoted to iniquity, impatient of reproof, and refusing to obey. In Pirkey Eliezer, chap. 29, “Rabbi Seira said, There are five species of uncircumcision in the world; four in man, and one in trees. Those in man are the following:-
“1. Uncircumcision of the EAR. Behold, their EAR is uncircumcised, and they cannot hearken, Jer 6:10.
“2. The uncircumcision of the LIPS. How shall Pharaoh hear me, who am of uncircumcised LIPS? Ex 6:12.
“3. Uncircumcision of HEART. If then their uncircumcised HEARTS be humbled, Le 26:41.
Circumcise therefore the FORESKIN of your HEART, De 10:16; Jer 4:4.
For all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in the HEART, Jer 9:26.
“4. The uncircumcision of the FLESH. Ye shall circumcise the FLESH of your FORESKIN, c., Ge 17:11.”
Ye do always resist the Holy Ghost]
1. Because they were uncircumcised in heart, they always resisted the influences of the Holy Spirit, bringing light and conviction to their minds in consequence of which they became hardened through the deceitfulness of sin, and neither repented at the preaching of John, nor credited the glad tidings told them by Christ and the apostles.
2. Because they were uncircumcised in ears, they would neither hear nor obey Moses, the prophets, Christ, nor the apostles.
As your fathers did, so do ye.] They were disobedient children, of disobedient parents: in all their generations they had been disobedient and perverse. This whole people, as well as this text, are fearful proofs that the Holy Spirit, the almighty energy of the living God, may be resisted and rendered of none effect. This Spirit is not sent to stocks, stones, or machines, but to human beings endued with rational souls; therefore it is not to work on them with that irresistible energy which it must exert on inert matter, in order to conquer the vis inertiae or disposition to abide eternally in a motionless state, which is the state of all inanimate beings; but it works upon understanding, will, judgment, conscience, c., in order to enlighten, convince, and persuade. If, after all, the understanding, the eye of the mind, refuses to behold the light the will determines to remain obstinate; the judgment purposes to draw false inferences; and the conscience hardens itself against every check and remonstrance, (and all this is possible to a rational soul, which must be dealt with in a rational way,) then the Spirit of God, being thus resisted, is grieved, and the sinner is left to reap the fruit of his doings. To force the man to see, feel, repent, believe, and be saved, would be to alter the essential principles of his creation and the nature of mind, and reduce him into the state of a machine, the vis inertiae of which was to be overcome and conducted by a certain quantum of physical force, superior to that resistance which would be the natural effect of the certain quantum of the vis inertiae possessed by the subject on and by which this agent was to operate. Now, man cannot be operated on in this way, because it is contrary to the laws of his creation and nature; nor can the Holy Ghost work on that as a machine which himself has made a free agent. Man therefore may, and generally does, resist the Holy Ghost; and the whole revelation of God bears unequivocal testimony to this most dreadful possibility, and most awful truth. It is trifling with the sacred text to say that resisting the Holy Ghost here means resisting the laws of Moses, the exhortations, threatenings, and promises of the prophets, c. These, it is true, the uncircumcised ear may resist but the uncircumcised heart is that alone to which the Spirit that gave the laws, exhortations, promises, c, speaks; and, as matter resists matter, so spirit resists spirit. These were not only uncircumcised in ear, but uncircumcised also in heart; and therefore they resisted the Holy Ghost, not only in his declarations and institutions, but also in his actual energetic operations upon their minds.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Stiff necked; a metaphor taken from heifers that are unaccustomed to the yoke.
Uncircumcised in heart; such as had still depraved affections, which they ought to have put away rather than the foreskin of their flesh; for they were commanded to circumcise their hearts, Deu 10:16, which also God promised to do for his people, Deu 30:6. And St. Paul was not the first who spake of a twofold circumcision, Rom 2:28,29 but God looked always to the inward and spiritual part of his own ordinances, and mens observance of them.
And ears; such as were not so much as willing to hear and know their duty.
Ye do always resist the Holy Ghost, speaking by his prophets and ministers, and exhorting to true and serious piety: by this St. Stephen would abate their glorying in circumcision, which they so much boasted of,
As your fathers did, so do ye: thus the prophet Ezekiel, Eze 16:44, unto which may be here alluded, As is the mother, so is her daughter.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
51-53. Ye stiffnecked . . . ye doalways resist the Holy Ghost, &c.It has been thought thatsymptoms of impatience and irritation in the audience induced Stephento cut short his historical sketch. But as little farther light couldhave been thrown upon Israel’s obstinacy from subsequent periods ofthe national history on the testimony of their own Scriptures, weshould view this as the summing up, the brief import of thewhole Israelitish historygrossness of heart, spiritualdeafness, continuous resistance of the Holy Ghost, down to the verycouncil before whom Stephen was pleading.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Ye stiffnecked,…. Or “hard necked”, the same with
, which is a character frequently given of this people, Ex 32:9 and elsewhere, and is expressive of their obstinacy, stubbornness and refractoriness; who would not submit their necks to the yoke of God’s law, and be obedient to his commands:
and uncircumcised in heart and ears; for though they had the mark of circumcision in their flesh, of which they boasted; yet they had not the true circumcision of the heart; their hearts were not circumcised to fear and love the Lord, nor their ears to hear the word of the Lord and the Gospel of Christ; so that notwithstanding their confidence in carnal privileges, they were uncircumcised persons:
ye do always resist the Holy Ghost; the resistance made by these persons was not to the Spirit of God in them, of which they were destitute, but to the Spirit of God in his ministers, in his apostles, and particularly in Stephen; nor to any internal operation of his grace, but to the external ministry of the word, and to all that objective light, knowledge, evidence, and conviction that it gave of Jesus’s being the Messiah: and such who resist Christ’s ministers, resist him, and such who resist him, may be said to resist his Holy Spirit; and the word here used signifies a rushing against, and falling upon, in a rude and hostile way, and fitly expresses their ill treatment of Christ and his ministers, by falling upon them and putting them to death: which is the resistance here designed, as appears by the following verse: so that this passage is no proof of the resistance of the Holy Spirit, and the operations of his grace in conversion, when he is in men, and acts with a purpose and will to convert them; since it does not appear that he was in these persons, and was acting in them, with a design to convert them; and if he was, it wilt be difficult to prove that they so resisted, and continued to resist, as that they were not hereafter converted; since it is certain that one of them, Saul, was really and truly converted, and how many more we know not. Though it will be allowed, that the Holy Ghost in the operations of his grace upon the heart in conversion may be resisted, that is, opposed; but not so as to be overcome or be hindered in, or be obliged to cease from, the work of conversion, insomuch that may come to nothing:
as your fathers did, so do ye; or as “your fathers were, so are ye”; as they were stiffnecked, self-willed, obstinate, and inflexible, so are ye; as they were uncircumcised in heart and ears, so are ye; and as they resisted the Spirit of God in his prophets, so do ye resist him in the apostles and ministers of the Gospel.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
| Stephen’s Address. |
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51 Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye. 52 Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which showed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers: 53 Who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it.
Stephen was going on in his discourse (as it should seem by the thread of it) to show that, as the temple, so the temple-service must come to an end, and it would be the glory of both to give way to that worship of the Father in spirit and in truth which was to be established in the kingdom of the Messiah, stripped of the pompous ceremonies of the old law, and so he was going to apply all this which he had said more closely to his present purpose; but he perceived they could not bear it. They could patiently hear the history of the Old Testament told (it was a piece of learning which they themselves dealt much in); but if Stephen go about to tell them that their power and tyranny must come down, and that the church must be governed by a spirit of holiness and love, and heavenly-mindedness, they will not so much as give him the hearing. It is probable that he perceived this, and that they were going to silence him; and therefore he breaks off abruptly in the midst of his discourse, and by that spirit of wisdom, courage, and power, wherewith he was filled, he sharply rebuked his persecutors, and exposed their true character; for, if they will not admit the testimony of the gospel to them, it shall become a testimony against them.
I. They, like their fathers, were stubborn and wilful, and would not be wrought upon by the various methods God took to reclaim and reform them; they were like their fathers, inflexible both to the word of God and to his providences. 1. They were stiff-necked (v. 51), and would not submit their necks to the sweet and easy yoke of God’s government, nor draw in it, but were like a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke; or they would not bow their heads, no, not to God himself, would not do obeisance to him, would not humble themselves before him. The stiff neck is the same with the hard heart, obstinate and contumacious, and that will not yield–the general character of the Jewish nation, Exo 32:9; Exo 33:3; Exo 33:5; Deu 9:6; Deu 9:13; Deu 31:27; Eze 2:4. 2. They were uncircumcised in heart and ears their hearts and ears were not devoted and given up to God, as the body of the people were in profession by the sign of circumcision: “In name and show you are circumcised Jews, but in heart and ears you are still uncircumcised heathens, and pay no more deference to the authority of your God than they do, Jer. ix. 26. You are under the power of unmortified lusts and corruptions, which stop your ears to the voice of God, and harden your hearts to that which is both most commanding and most affecting.” They had not that circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, Col. ii. 11.
II. They, like their fathers, were not only not influenced by the methods God took to reform them, but they were enraged and incensed against them: You do always resist the Holy Ghost. 1. They resisted the Holy Ghost speaking to them by the prophets, whom they opposed and contradicted, hated and ridiculed; this seems especially meant here, by the following explication, Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? In persecuting and silencing those that spoke by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost they resisted the Holy Ghost. Their fathers resisted the Holy Ghost in the prophets that God raised up to them, and so did they in Christ’s apostles and ministers, who spoke by the same Spirit, and had greater measures of his gifts than the prophets of the Old Testament had, and yet were more resisted. 2. They resisted the Holy Ghost striving with them by their own consciences, and would not comply with the convictions and dictates of them. God’s Spirit strove with them as with the old world, but in vain; they resisted him, took part with their corruptions against their convictions, and rebelled against the light. There is that in our sinful hearts that always resists the Holy Ghost, a flesh that lusts against the Spirit, and wars against his motions; but in the hearts of God’s elect, when the fulness of time comes, this resistance is overcomer and overpowered, and after a struggle the throne of Christ is set up in the soul, and every thought that had exalted itself against it is brought into captivity to it, 2Co 10:4; 2Co 10:5. That grace therefore which effects this change might more fitly be called victorious grace than irresistible.
III. They, like their fathers, persecuted and slew those whom God sent unto them to call them to duty, and make them offers of mercy. 1. Their fathers had been the cruel and constant persecutors of the Old-Testament prophets (v. 51): Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? More or less, one time or other, they had a blow at them all. With regard even to those that lived in the best reigns, when the princes did not persecute them, there was a malignant party in the nation that mocked at them and abused them, and most of them were at last, either by colour of law or popular fury, put to death; and that which aggravated the sin of persecuting the prophets was, that the business of the prophets they were so spiteful at was to show before of the coming of the just One, to give notice of God’s kind intentions towards that people, to send the Messiah among them in the fulness of time. Those that were the messengers of such glad tidings should have been courted and caressed, and have had the preferments of the best of benefactors; but, instead of this, they had the treatment of the worst of malefactors. 2. They had been the betrayers and murderers of the just One himself, as Peter had told them, Act 3:14; Act 3:15; Act 5:30. They had hired Judas to betray him, and had in a manner forced Pilate to condemn him; and therefore it is charged upon them that they were his betrayers and murders. Thus they were the genuine seed of those who slew the prophets that foretold his coming, which, by slaying him, they showed they would have done if they had lived then; and thus, as our Saviour had told them, they brought upon themselves the guilt of the blood of all the prophets. To which of the prophets would those have shown any respect who had no regard to the Son of God himself?
IV. They, like their fathers, put contempt upon divine revelation, and would not be guided and governed by it; and this was the aggravation of their sin, that God had given, as to their fathers his law, so to them his gospel, in vain. 1. Their fathers received the law, and did not observe it, v. 53. God wrote to them the great things of his law, after he had first spoken them to them; and yet they were counted by them as a strange or foreign thing, which they were no way concerned in. The law is said to be received by the disposition of angels, because angels were employed in the solemnity of giving the law, in the thunderings and lightnings, and the sound of the trumpet. It is said to be ordained by angels (Gal. iii. 19), God is said to come with ten thousand of his saints to give the law (Deut. xxxiii. 2), and it was a word spoken by angels, Heb. ii. 2. This put an honour both upon the law and the Lawgiver, and should increase our veneration for both. But those that thus received the law yet kept it not, but by making the golden calf broke it immediately in a capital instance. 2. They received the gospel now, by the disposition, not of angels, but of the Holy Ghost,–not with the sound of a trumpet, but, which was more strange, in the gift of tongues, and yet they did not embrace it. They would not yield to the plainest demonstrations, any more than their fathers before them did, for they were resolved not to comply with God either in his law or in his gospel.
We have reason to think Stephen had a great deal more to say, and would have said it if they would have suffered him; but they were wicked and unreasonable men with whom he had to do, that could no more hear reason than they could speak it.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
Stiffnecked (). From (hard) and , neck, both old words, but this compound only in the LXX and here alone in the N.T. Critics assume that Stephen was interrupted at this point because of the sharp tone of the speech. That may be true, but the natural climax is sufficient explanation.
Uncircumcised in heart ( ). Late adjective common in LXX and here only in the N.T. Verbal of , to cut around and privative. Both of these epithets are applied to the Jews in the O.T. (Exod 32:9; Exod 33:3; Exod 33:5; Exod 34:9; Lev 26:41; Deut 9:6; Jer 6:10). is locative plural like (ears), but some MSS. have genitive singular (objective genitive). No epithet could have been more galling to these Pharisees than to be turned “uncircumcised in heart” (Ro 2:29). They had only the physical circumcision which was useless.
Ye always ( ). Emphatic position of humeis and “always” looks backward over the history of their forefathers which Stephen had reviewed.
Resist (). Old word to fall against, to rush against. Only here in the N.T., but used in the O.T. which is here quoted (Nu 27:14). Their fathers had made “external worship a substitute for spiritual obedience” (Furneaux). Stephen has shown how God had revealed himself gradually, the revelation sloping upward to Christ Jesus. “And as he saw his countrymen repeating the old mistake–clinging to the present and the material, while God was calling them to higher spiritual levels–and still, as ever, resisting the Holy Spirit, treating the Messiah as the patriarchs had treated Joseph, and the Hebrews Moses–the pity of it overwhelmed him, and his mingled grief and indignation broke out in words of fire, such as burned of old on the lips of the prophets” (Furneaux). Stephen, the accused, is now the accuser, and the situation becomes intolerable to the Sanhedrin.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Stiff – necked and uncircumcised [ ] . Both only here in New Testament.
Resist [] . It is a very strong expression, implying active resistance. Lit., to fall against or upon. Used of falling upon an enemy. Only here in New Testament.
Ye have been [] . More correctly, as Rev., ye have become.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised,” (sklerotracheloi kai aperitmetoi) “You all (are) or (exist) hardnecked and uncircumcised;” To be such to an Israelite was to be an heathen. This was Stephen’s charge against those who had sanctioned the crucifixion of Jesus and persecution of Peter, John, and the other apostles of the twelve; Exo 32:9; Proud and obstinate, Lev 26:41; Deu 10:16; Isa 48:4.
2) “In heart and ears,” (kardiais kai tois osin) “In (your) hearts (affections) and in (your) ears,” in rejecting the spirit and voice of God, Jer 4:4; Jer 6:10; Rom 2:29; Col 2:11. They were destitute of any genuine disposition to honor God in spirit and truth, of which fleshly circumcision was supposed to be a sign.
3) “Ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: (humeis aei to pneumati to hagio antipiptete) “You all always oppose or press against (resist) the Holy Spirit,” Isa 63:9-10; Exo 24:15; Psa 78:40. The matter of rejecting the message of God’s prophets was a matter of resisting the Holy Spirit by which His prophets spoke.
4) “As your fathers did, so do ye,” (hos hoi pateres humon kai humeis) “As your fathers did, Hebrew fathers, so do you all,” Exo 33:3; Exo 33:5; Exo 34:9; Isa 7:13; Pro 1:22-30; Eph 4:30; Deu 9:6; Deu 9:13; Deu 10:16. Stephen was pulling the cover off of the hypocrisy of those of Israel who worshipped God with lip-service but hated His Son and the church, Mar 7:1-7; Joh 5:43.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
51. Forasmuch as Stephen doth not expressly answer the points of the accusation, I am of their mind who think that he would have said more, if his oration had not been broken off with some uproar. For we know what a session of judges he had; therefore, no marvel if they enforced him to hold his peace with noise and outcries. And we see, also, that he did use long insinuation of set purpose, that he might tame and appease them who were like brute beasts most cruel; but it is likely that their madness was then incensed, when he proved that they had most wickedly corrupted the law, that the temple was polluted with their superstitions, and that there is nothing sincere amongst them; because, whilst they did stick in bare figures, they did not worship God spiritually, because they did not refer the ceremonies unto the heavenly figure; but though Stephen did not enter the cause straightway, but essayed to make their fierce minds somewhat more gentle by little and little, yet did he reason very fitly, to purge himself of the crime laid to his charge.
These two things, as we have said, were the principal points of the question, that Stephen had blasphemed God and his temple; that he went about to disannul the law. That Stephen might clear himself of both these false slanders, he began at the calling of Abraham, and declareth that the Jews excelled the Gentiles, not of their own nature, not by any right of their own, not by any merits of works, but by a free privilege, because God had adopted them in the person of Abraham. This is also very pertinent to the cause, that the covenant of salvation was made with Abraham before any temple or ceremonies were, yea, before circumcision was appointed. Of which things the Jews did so boast, that they said there was no worship of God without them, neither any holiness. After that he set down how wonderful and manifold the goodness of God was towards Abraham’s stock, and again how wickedly and frowardly they had refused, so much as in them lay, the grace of God; whereby it appeareth that it cannot be ascribed to their own merits that they are counted God’s people, but because God did choose them of his own accord, being unworthy, and did not cease to do them good, though they were most unthankful. Their lofty and proud spirits might by this means have been subdued, tamed, and humbled, that being emptied of that wind of foolish glory they might come unto the Mediator. Thirdly, he declared that the Angel was the governor and chief, in giving the law and delivering the people, and that Moses did so serve in his function, that he taught that there should come other prophets hereafter, who should, notwithstanding, have one which should be the chief of them, that he might make an end of all prophecies, and that he might bring the perfect accomplishment of them all. Whereby it is gathered that those are nothing less than Moses’ disciples, who reject that kind of doctrine which was promised and commended in the law, together with the author thereof.
Last of all, he showeth that all the old worship which was prescribed by Moses is not to be esteemed of itself, but that it ought rather to be referred to another end, because it was made according to the heavenly pattern; and that the Jews have always been wicked interpreters of the law, because they conceived nothing but that which was earthly. Hereby is it proved that there is no injury done to the temple and the law when Christ is made, as it were, the end and truth of both, But because the state of the cause did consist chiefly in this, that the worship of God doth not properly consist in sacrifices and other things, and that all ceremonies did nothing else but shadow Christ, Stephen was purposed to stand upon this point if the Jews would have permitted him; but because, when he was come to the pith of the matter, they cannot abide to hear any more, (they were so incensed with fury,) the application of those things which he had said, unto this cause which he had in hand, is wanting. And he is enforced to use a sharp reprehension for a conclusion, Ye of an hard neck, saith he, (Exo 32:9.) We see how soon he is offended with them with an holy zeal, but because he saw that he spake many things to small end, especially before deaf men, he breaketh off his doctrine. This is a metaphor taken from horses or oxen, which Moses useth often, when he will say that his people is a rebellious people, and disobedient to God, and also unruly.
The upbraiding which followeth was of greater force with them. Circumcision was unto them a vail and covering to cover all vices. Therefore, when he calleth them uncircumcised in heart, he doth not only mean that they are rebellious against God and stubborn, but that they were found treacherous and covenant-breakers, even in that sign whereof they did so greatly boast; and so he turneth that back most fitly to their shame, whereof they made boast to their glory. For this is all one, as if he should have said that they had broken the covenant of the Lord, so that their circumcision was void and profane. This speech is taken out of the law and the prophets. For as God hath appointed the sign, so he would have the Jews know to what end they were circumcised; to wit, that they might circumcise their hearts and all their corrupt affections to the Lord, as we read, “And now circumcise your hearts to the Lord,” Wherefore, the letter of circumcision, as Paul calleth it, is a vain visor with God, (Rom 2:28.) So, forasmuch as at this day the spiritual washing is the truth of our baptism, it is to be feared, lest that may well be objected to us, that we are not partakers of baptism, because our souls and flesh are polluted with filthiness.
Ye have always resisted. At the first Stephen vouchsafed to call these men fathers and brethren, against whom he inveigheth thus sharply, Therefore, so long as there remained any hope that they might be made more gentle, he dealt not only friendly with them, but he spake honorably unto them. Now, so soon as he espieth their desperate stubbornness, he doth not only take from them all honor, but lest he should have any fellowship with them, he speaketh unto them as unto men of another kindred. You, saith he, are like to your fathers, who have always rebelled against the Spirit of God. But he himself came of the same fathers; and yet that he may couple himself to Christ, he forgetteth his kindred, inasmuch as it was wicked. And yet for all this, he bindeth them not all in one bundle, as they say, but he speaketh unto the multitude.
And those are said to resist the Spirit who reject (466) him when he speaketh in the prophets. Neither doth he speak in this place of secret revelations, wherewith God inspireth every one, but of the external ministry; which we must note diligently. He purposeth to take from the Jews all color of excuse; and, therefore, he upbraideth unto them, that they had purposely, and not of ignorance, resisted God. Whereby it appeareth what great account the Lord maketh of his word, and how reverently he will have us to receive the same. Therefore, lest, like giants, we make war against God, let us learn to hearken to the ministers by whose mouth he teacheth us.
(466) “ Contumaciter rejicient,” contumaciously reject.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(51) Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised . . .The sudden change of tone from calm argument to vehement indignation cannot be thought of as spontaneous. The excitement of the Sanhedrin, perhaps of the listening crowd also, at this point, would seem to have become uncontrollable. The accused seemed to them to be repeating his offence with defiant boldness, and loud clamours took the place of whispered murmurs. Both the adjectives had been applied to the sins of the older Israel; stiffnecked in Exo. 33:3; Exo. 33:5; Exo. 34:9; uncircumcised in Jer. 6:10. The actual phrase uncircumcised in heart had been used by Ezekiel (Eze. 44:7) of strangers. It was now applied to those who boasted of their exclusive privileges as Israelites, and it is scarcely possible for us to estimate the sharp incisiveness with which it, or its Aramaic equivalent, must have fallen on the ears of the Sanhedrin. It was to them all, and more than all, that heretic and infidel have been in the controversies of Christians. Here again, in St. Pauls circumcision of the heart (Rom. 2:29), we have another echo from St. Stephens speech.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
51-53. We agree with those commentators who hold that Stephen is here, by some interruption or sign of disapprobation from his audience, turned from his intended train of discourse.
From the four great revolutions in Israel’s past history he has shown negatively that there is no blasphemy in expecting a similar great change to come which should perfect, rather than fundamentally destroy, the previous. Next, following positively the lines of Peter’s argument at Pentecost (Act 2:22-36) and before the Sanhedrin, (Act 3:12-20,) he would bring the affirmative proof from prophecy and living testimony that the new epoch was Christianity and the new personality Jesus-Messiah, and then he would press them to repentance and acceptance of him.
That at the commencement of this paragraph, by the gift of “the discerning of spirits,” he saw in them a complete obduration of heart to their own destruction, was an ample justification of his burning rebukes. The terms are less severe than the Baptist’s “O generation of vipers,” etc., (Mat 3:4,) or our Lord’s “Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers; how can ye escape the damnation of hell?” Hence we see no demand for Kuinoel’s palliation of the martyr’s “bad temper,” drawn from his subsequent noble behaviour.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
51. Ye stiffnecked A customary epithet in Scripture, drawn, probably, from oxen refusing the yoke.
Uncircumcised in heart and ears Circumcision was the material sign of cutting off our sensual desires and all unholy feelings, so that to be uncircumcised in heart was to be religiously and morally corrupt. The phrase “uncircumcised in ears” is implied in Jer 6:10: “Behold, their ear is uncircumcised, and they cannot hearken: behold, the word of the Lord is unto them a reproach; they have no delight in it.” Now when we note that in Act 7:57 they stop their ears with many signs of fury, it may easily be believed that they had already given some such tokens that Stephen’s words were a reproach to them.
Ye do always resist so do ye These words clearly indicate a present manifestation of their resistance to the Holy Ghost appealing to them through the words of Stephen.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
“You stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you do always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you.”
Their attitude towards the Temple, exalting what God had not exalted, and turning from what God had provided, epitomised their whole attitude towards all that was of God. They altered what God had given. They altered His house, they changed His word, they resisted the Holy Spirit in every way, just as their fathers had before them (compare Isa 63:10). They were stiffnecked and their hearts were wrong (Deu 10:16) and their ears were deaf (Jer 6:10). And even now they were refusing to hear the Holy Spirit as He made His new approach to men.
The rebuke might seem extreme but these were precisely the words in which the Law had addressed the people (he could not be accused of speaking against the Law here). ‘Stiffnecked’ was a favourite description by God when speaking in the Law concerning the people (Exo 32:9; Exo 33:3; Exo 33:5; Exo 34:9; Deu 9:6; Deu 9:13; Deu 10:16). It was thus an ‘in’ word expressing their unwillingness to listen and bend their necks to it. And the idea of being uncircumcised in heart was also Mosaic (Lev 26:41; Deu 10:16, compare Jer 9:26), indicating hardened and blinded hearts. In fact it was language they themselves would quite willingly have used of the people whom they taught for that reason. But it was not something they were likely to accept from Stephen. It was one thing for them to pray humbly before God of themselves in this way, and address the people in this way, but it was quite another to be told it by this Hellenistic Jewish Christian.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
The peroration:
v. 51. Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost; as your fathers did, so do ye.
v. 52. Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? And they have slain them which showed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers;
v. 53. who have received the Law by the disposition of angels; and have not kept it. Stephen had now reviewed the whole history of the Jews, showing in what manner they had at all times acted toward the Lord and the leader whom the Lord had given them, relying rather upon outward forms and ceremonies, connected with a visible sanctuary, for a justification before God. Stephen’s just indignation therefore reaches its culmination at this point of his recital. Boldly he tells his judges that they are stiff-necked, obstinate, refractory, unwilling to listen to reason, Exo 33:3-5; Exo 34:9; Deu 9:6. And in addition to that, they are uncircumcised both as regards heart and ears, Lev 26:41; Jer 6:10; Eze 44:7-9. These were severe terms of reproach and contempt, placing the leaders of the Jews in a class with the heathen nations and with the apostate Jews. This severe denunciation Stephen corroborates by the charge that they were always, continually, resisting the Holy Ghost, literally throwing themselves in His way, against Him, thus shutting off the working of His grace in their hearts. The Holy Spirit wanted to convert also these enemies of Christ, He was giving them every evidence of His gracious will toward them by having the Gospel preached before them for such a long time; but they deliberately, willfully, refused to listen to His call. And herein they were following their fathers, of whose disobedience and obstinacy Stephen cited a number of cases. Every one of the ancient prophets the Jews had persecuted in one way or the other, and those that proclaimed in advance concerning the coming of the Righteous One they had killed. The prophets foretold the coming of Jesus Christ, the Just and Holy One, and their reward, at the hand of their countrymen, was death. And the spirit of these ancestors was yet alive, for those that were sitting in the Council to judge the present case had become the betrayers and murderers of this same just and holy Christ. And not only that, but Stephen declared that the very Law which was their boast, which they had received by the disposition of angels, probably in this manner, that the Lord spoke through the mouths of angels in proclaiming the Law on Mount Sinai, this Law they had not kept. Thus Stephen, in a burst of magnificent eloquence, preached the Law to these hardened hypocrites of the Sanhedrin, in order to work in them a true knowledge of their sin which might lead to repentance and faith. Note: The sermon of Stephen admonishes us Christians to be mindful of the great blessings of God under the new dispensation, lest we also become indifferent and then callous, and finally resist the work of the Holy Ghost.
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
Act 7:51-53. Ye stiff-necked, &c. “Thus have I given you a brief account of the various periods of revelation, or the several dispensations of God to man, from the time in which Abraham, our renowned ancestor, was called out of idolatry to the knowledge of the true God, unto this very day when the kingdom of the Messiah has begun to take placethat seed of Abraham, in whom all the nations of the earth are to be blessed. And what I would have you understand by all that has been said, is this: that, in various ages and circumstances, God hath made various revelations, and appointed different positive institutions; that temporal afflictions are consistent with being in the divine favour; and that a temporal Messiah is not to be expected: but that God, who of old laid the plan for the successive dispensations, is now going to introduce the last and best of them, by erecting his spiritual kingdom under the Messiah, who is none other than Jesus of Nazareth. And, it is no wonder that you should treat him as you did; for you are a stubborn, obdurate people, who, though you boast of the circumcision of the flesh, yet are uncircumcised in heart and ears, and incorrigibly bent upon your own wicked ways. You even reject the very means which oughtto bring you to repentance, refusing the gracious invitations and offers of the Spirit of God, and treading in the steps of your disobedient ancestors. Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? Nay, they even slew many who prophesied of the coming of that divine person, the Messiah, whom Abraham, Moses, Israel, David, Solomon,the tabernacle, the temple, the law, the prophets, and all the past dispensations, did unanimously point at, and did some way or other tend to prepare men for. And yet, notwithstanding all this vast apparatus of along succession of promises, prophesies, shadows, and representations, which God from age to age hath given, to prepare you for the reception of him;you, who ought to have received him with the greatest affection and regard, and protected him from any injurious treatment from others:You yourselves, I say, have basely betrayed, and wickedly murdered him. And as your sin is much greater than that of your fathers, who rejected only Moses and the prophets; you may reasonably expect (unless you speedilyand sincerely repent) that the judgments of God, which followed them, will come upon you to the uttermost. Nor will it be in the least wonderful, if God should depart from you, and if what you have charged me with asserting, should come to pass; namely, that your city and temple should be destroyed, and your whole nation slain, or carried away into a long and severe captivity. I have charged you with despising and murdering the Just One: but how should you be supposed to attend to one who came in so low and humble a manner, when the law, in which you so much boast,waspublishedinanawful pompous manner, amidst troops of angels;and yet, you have not kept it.” Christ was, by way of eminence, called the Just or Righteous One, as being alone perfectly righteous; Act 7:52. See ch. Act 3:14. Isa 53:11. Zec 9:9. It is a fine remark of Grotius, that the Sanhedrim was obliged, by virtue of its very constitution, to guard and defend the lives of the prophets with peculiar care. How much more to protect from anyinjurious assault, so divine a messenger as Christ was; instead of which, they had not only basely deserted him, but had themselves become principals in his murder. The word , rendered disposition, (Act 7:53.) is a militaryword, and signifies ranks or troops; so that the passage should be read, who have received the law through ranks of angels, who were marshalled in solemn array on that great occasion. Comp. Deu 33:2 and Psa 68:17. The sacred writer gives us an august idea of the majesty which attended the giving of the law. It was delivered with the utmost pomp and magnificence, amid the innumerable hosts of the Lord God Almighty. To what we have said on Act 7:2 respecting this speech of St. Stephen, we will here subjoin, in brief, the sum of his discourse. “I acknowledge the glory of God revealed to the fathers, Act 7:2,the calling of Moses, Act 7:34., &c.the dignity of the law, Act 7:8; Act 7:38; Act 7:44.the holiness of this place, Act 7:7; Act 7:45; Act 7:47And indeed the law is more ancient than the temple; the promise more ancient than the law: for God shewed himself the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and their children, freely, Act 7:2., &c. Act 7:9., &c. Act 7:17., &c. Act 7:32; Act 7:34; Act 7:45.And they shewed faith and obedience to God, Act 7:4; Act 7:20; Act 7:23 particularly by their regard for the law, Act 7:8 and the promised land, Act 7:16. Mean time, God never confined his presence to this one place, or to the observers of the law; for he has been acceptably worshipped before the law was given, or the temple built, and out of this land, Act 7:2; Act 7:9; Act 7:33; Act 7:44. And that our fathers, and their posterity, were not tied down to this land, their various sojournings and exiles shew, Act 7:4., &c. Act 7:14; Act 7:29; Act 7:43-44 but you and your fathers have always been evil, Act 7:9 have withstood Moses, Act 7:25., &c. Act 7:39., &c. have despised the land, Act 7:29 forsaken God, Act 7:40., &c. superstitiously honoured the temple, Act 7:48 resisted God and his spirit, Act 7:25 killed the prophets, and the Messiah himself, Act 7:52 and not kept the law for which ye contend, Act 7:53. Therefore, God is not bound to you, much less to you alone.”
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Act 7:51 . The long restrained direct offensive now breaks out, as is quite in keeping with the position of matters brought to this point. [211] This against Heinrichs, Kuinoel, Olshausen, and others, who quite arbitrarily suppose that after Act 7:50 an interruption took place, either by the shouts of the hearers, or at least by their threatening gestures; as well as against Schwanbeck, p. 252, who sees here “an omission of the reporter.” Stephen has in Act 7:50 ended his calm and detailed historical narrative. And now it is time that the accused should become the bold accuser, and at length throw in the face of his judges the result, the thoughts forming which were already clearly enough to be inferred from the previous historical course of the speech. Therefore he breaks off his calm, measured discourse, and falls upon his judges with deep moral indignation, like a reproving prophet: Ye stiff-necked ! etc.
. . . . ] an upbraiding of them with their unconverted carnal character, in severe contrast to the Jewish pride of circumcision. The meaning without figure is: Men whose management of their inner life, and whose spiritual perception, are heathenishly rude, without moral refinement, not open for the influence of the divine Spirit . Comp. Lev 26:41 ; Deu 10:16 ; Deu 30:6 ; Jer 4:4 ; Jer 6:10 ; Jer 9:25 ; Rom 2:25 ; Rom 2:29 ; Barnabas, Ep. 9; Philo, de migrat. Abr. I. p. 450; and from the Rabbins, Schoettgen in loc.
] with weighty emphasis.
] always ; even yet at this day!
] sc. . . .; for the fathers are thought of in their resistance to God and to the vehicles of His Spirit, and therefore not the bare is to be supplied (with Beza and Bornemann in the Schs. Stud. 1842, p. 72).
The term , not occurring elsewhere in the N. T., is here chosen as a strong designation. Comp. Polyb. iii. 19. 5 : . Num 27:14 ; Herodian. 6:3. 13. Bengel well puts it: “in adversum ruitis.”
[211] Comp. Baur, I. p. 58, Exo 2 ; Ewald, p. 213.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye. (52) Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which showed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers: (53) Who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it. (54) When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their teeth. (55) But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, (56) And said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God. (57) Then they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and ran upon him with one accord, (58) And cast him out of the city, and stoned him: and the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man’s feet, whose name was Saul. (59) And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. (60) And he kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when he had said this, he fell asleep.
I beg the Reader to be very particular, in observing the charge which Stephen brings, of his opponents’ resisting the Person, and offices of the Holy Ghost. And I no less beg of him to observe, that he brings the same charge against their fathers. Hence, it will undeniably follow, that it was God the Holy Ghost, who presided over the Church, as well under the Old Testament, as the New. The Reader should carefully cherish those sweet testimonies, to the Almighty agency of the Holy Ghost; (and especially in an age like the present,) as peculiarly blessed. And I pray the Reader to observe, how blessedly and decidedly Stephen speaks, to the character of the Lord Jesus, when calling him the Just One; a well known name among the Israelites, of the Messiah, Zep 3:5 ; Zec 9:9 ; Act 22:14Act 22:14 .
Let the Reader remark, for it is well worthy to be remarked, how very differently this sermon of Stephen’s wrought, from that of Peter’s, on the day of Pentecost, Act 2:37 . Here, the bitterness of their hearts was so great, that it could not be concealed, for they gnashed upon him with their teeth. There, the blessed contrition which followed shewed itself, in an earnest cry of the soul; Men and brethren what shall we do? And doth not the Reader immediately discover the cause? Stephen’s sermon was not a Jot more pointed than Peter’s; for in both, they were charged with murdering Christ, Act 2:23 , But the mighty difference, in the effect of the preaching, arose from the work of God the Holy Ghost, in the one instance; and the want of that Almighty work, in the other. Here lay all the difference. And, as Stephen told his auditory, this was the cause all along, with their fathers, as with them, resisting the Holy Ghost. I very earnestly beg the Reader to consider well the subject. If men, and especially ministers, were but truly sensible of those things, with what earnestness would they seek the influences of the Holy Spirit, from whose grace alone it is, that the word preached, can become profitable in them that hear it. Oh! thou Almighty Lord of thy Church! do thou direct my heart into the love of God, and into the patient waiting for Christ, 2Th 3:5 .
There are many very blessed and precious things, in this closing scene of the death of Stephen, highly meriting our closest attention; but I can only detain the Reader to mention them. His being full of the Holy Ghost means, fresh manifestations and renewings of the Holy Ghost, shed upon him more abundantly, to prepare him for the cruel and painful death, which he was called to. It is not without a well-founded hope, (and this example serves in proof,) that special and peculiar exercises of the Lord’s people are supported, with more than ordinary grace. A dying hour, is sometimes eminently sanctified with living enjoyments in the Lord, Deu 33:25 ; Zec 14:6-7 . What a gracious act of the Lord Jesus, was this manifestation of himself to Stephen, in such a moment? I pray the Reader both to mark the grace of the Lord to his servant; and no less to consider the revelation thereby made to the Church, as it really is, the fullest confirmation of his eternal power and Godhead, Let the Reader notice, how Stephen speaks of him, in his Mediator-character and office, while describing him as the Shechinah, in proof of his divine nature. And I beg him not to overlook the Lord’s posture of standing; as if in readiness, both to receive Stephen to his arms, and to execute judgment upon his enemies. And I request the Reader the rather to notice this posture of the Lord Jesus, because, as far as I recollect, after the ascension of Jesus he is always spoken of as sitting, to receive his people, and to behold the destruction of his foes, Mar 16:19 ; Psa 110:1 . For the right hand of God. See Eph 1:20 .
I have already (Chapter 6) stated the circumstances relating to the stoning of Stephen, as a full, and decided testimony, in proof that he died a martyr, for his asserting the Godhead of Christ. Hence I add nothing further on that subject in this place. But I must detain the Reader, to call his attention for a moment, to what is said of Saul, who afterwards became the great Apostle Paul. This is the first account we have of him in Scripture. And here we find him, noted by the Holy Ghost, as receiving the clothes of the witnesses, which stoned Stephen. Paul himself, when afterwards speaking of this awful transaction, saith, that he was standing by, and consenting unto his death and kept the raiment of them that slew him, Act 22:19-20 . Reader! what did the grace of God accomplish in this man ? And what cannot the same grace accomplish in every heart of his people? How sweetly the Chapter closeth, in the relation of the death of Stephen? A loud voice like his Lord! And the humble imitation of the Lord’s example, praying for his murderers! And was not Christ’s prayer heard, and answered on the day of Pentecost! Act 2:36-37 . And in the conversion of Paul, was Stephen’s prayer forgotten Reader! Mr 1-16. And mark Stephen’s last words. Calling upon God and saying Lord Jesus. So then, Jesus is God.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
51 Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did , so do ye.
Ver. 51. Ye stiffnecked, &c. ] Henry Lawrence, martyr, being required to put his hand in subscribing to his answers, he wrote these words under the bill of their examination, Ye are all Antichrist, and him ye follow, and here his hand was staid, and sentence read against him.
And uncircumcised in heart ] Ye that to your sinews of iron have added brows of brass; to your natural hardness, that which is habitual: being more tough than timber that hath long lain soaking in the water, having brawny breasts and horny heartstrings.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
51 .] I do not think there is any occasion to suppose an interruption from the audience to have occasioned this outbreak of holy indignation. At each separate recital (Act 7:9 ; Act 7:25 ; Act 7:35 ; Act 7:39 ff.) he has dwelt, with continually increasing fervour, on the rebellions against and rejections of God by His people . He has now brought down the history to the establishment of the temple worship. From Solomon’s time to his own, he saw but a succession of apostasies, idolatries, rejection of God’s prophets: a dark and loathsome catalogue, terminated by the betrayal and murder of the Just One Himself. It is not at all beyond probability, to believe that the zeal of his fervent spirit was by the view of this, the filling up of the measure of their iniquities, kindled into a flame of inspired invective. I find that this is also Neander’s view, in opposition to the generality of Commentators (P. u. L., p.92), as also that of Prof. Hackett, in his commentary on the Acts: and I cannot but think it far the most probable. . , Chrysost.
. . .] Words and figures familiar to the prophets in speaking of the rebellious Israel: see, besides reff., Deu 9:6 ; Deu 9:13 ; Neh 9:16 : Deu 10:16 ; Deu 30:6 Heb. See also Rom 2:29 .
] I should hardly think of any allusion to Psa 40 (39) 6, because the LXX have rendered ‘mine ears hast thou opened’ by .
. . . .] Apparently a reference to Isa 63:10 . The instances as yet had been confined to . .: now he has arrived at their own times. The two are taken up again in the next verse.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Act 7:51 . , cf. Exo 33:3 ; Exo 33:5 ; Exo 34:9 , Deu 9:6 , Bar 2:30 , etc., Sir 16:11 ( cf. Cicero, Verr. , iii., 95, “tantis cervicibus est”). Both adjectives had been used to describe the sins of Israel in former days. On this reading see above and Wendt, critical note, p. 190, cf. Kennedy, Sources of N. T. Greek , p. 116. For the expression ., cf. Deu 10:16 , Jer 4:4 , and . , Jer 6:10 . In the N.T. cf. Rom 2:25 ; Rom 2:29 (which sounds like another echo of St. Stephen’s teaching), cf. also Epist. Baru. , ix. (Jer 4:4 ). Similar expressions occur in Philo and the Rabbis, and also 1Ma 1:48 ; 1Ma 2:46 , and see further Deissmann, Bibelstudien , pp. 150, 151. Many writers have maintained that St. Stephen’s sharp and abrupt declaration marks the increasing impatience of his hearers at this point, as if the speaker felt that the murmurs of his audience would not allow him much more speech. But on the other hand St. Stephen’s whole speech led up to this point, and his words were not so much an interruption, but a continuance and a summary of what had gone before. No doubt the speech was left unfinished: “cujus cursus ad Iesum tendebat” (Blass); since in His rejection the obstinacy of the people which had marked and marred their history had reached its climax; and the indignant words of St. Stephen bring to mind the indignation of a greater than he against the hyprocrisy and wilfulness of the nation “the wrath of the Lamb” against the Pharisees and the oppressors (Briggs, Messiah of the Apostles , p. 68). : “summa tractationis semper quotiescumque vocamini” Bengel. , cf. Num 27:14 , of Israel striving against God, and also in Polyb. and Plut.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Act 7:51-53
51″You men who are stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears are always resisting the Holy Spirit; you are doing just as your fathers did. 52Which one of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? They killed those who had previously announced the coming of the Righteous One, whose betrayers and murderers you have now become; 53you who received the law as ordained by angels, and yet did not keep it.”
Act 7:51 “You men” Stephen turns from the rebellion of Jewish leaders and people in the past to the current leaders and people in the temple hearing his message. They were and they are rebels against YHWH!
“a stiff-necked” Stephens alludes to Moses’ characterization of the children of Jacob/Israel (cf. Exo 32:9; Exo 33:3; Exo 33:5; Exo 34:9; Deu 9:6).
“uncircumcised in heart” This Hebrew idiom means unfaithful, disloyal, and untrustworthy (cf. Lev 26:41; Jer 9:25-26; Eze 44:7). This is the opposite of Deu 10:16; Jer 4:4!
“and ears” This idiom refers to their unwillingness to hear and respond to God’s messengers (cf. Jer 6:10).
“are always resisting the Holy Spirit” This is very similar to Isa 63:10. God’s love and faithfulness were extolled in Isa 63:9; Isa 63:11-14, but the people’s reaction was faithlessness!
Act 7:51-52 This is the strong condemnation of the current Jewish leadership, just like the ancient Israelite leadership! The ancient people of God had killed God’s messengers and now they have killed the Messiah (cf. Act 3:14; Act 5:28).
Act 7:52 “Righteous One” This is used as a title for Jesus in Act 3:14; Act 22:14. See fuller note at Act 3:14 and Special Topic: Righteousness at Act 3:14.
Act 7:53 “as ordained by angels” This refers to the rabbinical interpretation of Deu 33:2 from the Septuagint in which God gave the law to Moses through angelic mediation which seems to be confirmed by Gal 3:19 and Heb 2:2.
“yet did not keep it” Stephen opened his defense with “hear” (BDB 1033) which may reflect the Hebrew Shema, “hear so as to heed” (cf. Deu 6:4). Stephen and later James (Jesus’ half brother ) both assert “be doers of the word not merely hearers” (cf. Jas 1:22-23 following Jesus, Mat 7:24-27; Luk 11:48; Joh 13:17; as did Paul, Rom 2:13).
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
stiffrieoked. Greek. sklerotrachelos. Only here in NT., but in Sept, in Exo 33:3, Exo 33:5; Exo 33:34, Exo 33:9. Deu 9:6, Deu 9:13. Compare Deu 31:27. 2Ch 30:8. Pro 29:1. This is an instance of Figure of speech Ecphonesis. App-6.
uncircumcised. Greek. aperitmetos. Only here.
resist = fall against. Greek. antipipto. Only here.
the Holy Ghost. App-101. This verse is quoted in support of the idea that men can successfully withstand the Spirit, instead of stumbling at His words. Compare Mat 21:44.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
51.] I do not think there is any occasion to suppose an interruption from the audience to have occasioned this outbreak of holy indignation. At each separate recital (Act 7:9; Act 7:25; Act 7:35; Act 7:39 ff.) he has dwelt, with continually increasing fervour, on the rebellions against and rejections of God by His people. He has now brought down the history to the establishment of the temple worship. From Solomons time to his own, he saw but a succession of apostasies, idolatries, rejection of Gods prophets:-a dark and loathsome catalogue, terminated by the betrayal and murder of the Just One Himself. It is not at all beyond probability, to believe that the zeal of his fervent spirit was by the view of this, the filling up of the measure of their iniquities, kindled into a flame of inspired invective. I find that this is also Neanders view, in opposition to the generality of Commentators (P. u. L., p.92), as also that of Prof. Hackett, in his commentary on the Acts: and I cannot but think it far the most probable. . , Chrysost.
. . .] Words and figures familiar to the prophets in speaking of the rebellious Israel: see, besides reff., Deu 9:6; Deu 9:13; Neh 9:16 :-Deu 10:16; Deu 30:6 Heb. See also Rom 2:29.
] I should hardly think of any allusion to Psalms 40 (39) 6,-because the LXX have rendered mine ears hast thou opened by .
. . . .] Apparently a reference to Isa 63:10. The instances as yet had been confined to . .: now he has arrived at their own times. The two are taken up again in the next verse.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Act 7:51. , stiff-necked) The heart and tongue are required in confession: the heart, ears, and neck,[55] are required in receiving the truth. Stephen weightily censures the Jews: and yet not too soon; for they had been before affectionately (courteously) invited by the apostles.-, uncircumcised) A just reproof: comp. Act 7:8.- , in heart) Such they show themselves in Act 7:54.- , the ears) Such they show themselves in Act 7:57, They stopped their ears.-, ye) not we, the witnesses of Jesus. He includes the ancient Jews; comp. the end of the ver.-, always) The sum of his discussion: always, as often soever as ye are called.- , the Holy Spirit) who testifies concerning Jesus, and concerning the whole truth, by the prophets.-, set yourselves against) They were altogether differently minded from what is demanded in the second ver. of the same chapter of Isa. (66)- , , as your fathers, so ye) Both are explained (illustrated) in Act 7:52.
[55] Eagerly stretched out to hear: comp. .-E. and T.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
stiffnecked: Exo 32:9, Exo 33:3, Exo 33:5, Exo 34:9, Deu 9:6, Deu 9:13, Deu 31:27, 2Ch 30:8, Neh 9:16, Psa 75:5, Psa 78:8, Isa 48:4, Jer 17:23, Eze 2:4, Zec 7:11, Zec 7:12
uncircumcised: Lev 26:41, Deu 10:16, Deu 30:6, Jer 4:4, Jer 6:10, Jer 9:25, Jer 9:26, Eze 44:7, Eze 44:9, Rom 2:25, Rom 2:28, Rom 2:29, Phi 3:3, Col 2:11
resist: Act 6:10, Neh 9:30, Isa 63:10, Eph 4:30
as: Act 7:9, Act 7:27, Act 7:35, Act 7:39, Mat 23:31-33
Reciprocal: Gen 6:3 – My Exo 6:12 – am Lev 19:23 – uncircumcised Num 16:3 – gathered Num 32:14 – an increase Deu 1:26 – General Deu 1:43 – but rebelled Deu 9:14 – Let me Deu 9:24 – General Deu 32:5 – a perverse 1Sa 8:8 – General 1Sa 10:27 – children 2Ki 19:28 – thy rage 2Ki 21:20 – as his father 2Ch 33:10 – General Ezr 9:7 – Since the days Psa 55:11 – Wickedness Psa 106:6 – General Pro 1:29 – that Ecc 1:10 – it hath Isa 1:4 – Ah sinful Isa 5:4 – General Isa 7:13 – will ye Isa 30:1 – the rebellious Isa 30:9 – this is Isa 43:27 – first father Isa 46:12 – ye stouthearted Isa 58:1 – spare Isa 65:2 – a rebellious Jer 7:26 – but Jer 11:10 – iniquities Jer 11:21 – thou Jer 13:10 – imagination Jer 19:15 – because Jer 22:22 – thy pastors Jer 25:4 – ye Jer 32:30 – children Eze 2:3 – rebelled Eze 3:8 – General Eze 12:2 – thou Eze 16:43 – but hast Eze 20:4 – cause Eze 20:18 – the statutes Eze 20:30 – Are ye Eze 23:36 – declare Eze 24:3 – the rebellious Eze 28:10 – the deaths Eze 32:25 – all of them Dan 9:6 – have we Hos 2:2 – Plead with Hos 11:2 – they called Amo 2:11 – and Amo 6:12 – for Mic 2:6 – Prophesy ye Mic 3:2 – hate Mic 3:8 – to declare Zec 1:4 – unto Mal 3:7 – from the Mat 5:12 – for so Mat 12:31 – but Mat 13:57 – A prophet Mat 22:6 – the remnant Mat 23:34 – ye Mat 23:37 – thou Mar 8:31 – rejected Mar 10:5 – For Mar 11:28 – General Luk 6:23 – for in Luk 11:29 – This is Luk 11:47 – for Luk 19:14 – General Luk 20:2 – who Joh 1:11 – and Joh 7:7 – because Joh 8:43 – ye cannot Joh 14:26 – Holy Ghost Joh 16:9 – General Act 5:39 – to fight Act 13:46 – seeing Act 19:9 – divers Rom 10:21 – a disobedient 1Th 5:19 – the Spirit Heb 9:8 – Holy Ghost Heb 10:29 – and hath 1Pe 1:18 – received
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
1
Act 7:51. Stephen made his long speech to portray the history of the Jews, showing a record of continual rebellion against the law of God and persecution of His true servants. His application was by showing these Jews before him that their conduct was running “true to form.” Stiffnecked means stubborn, and uncircumcised in heart and ears denotes their unconsecrated minds as manifested by resistance against the Holy Ghost.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Act 7:51. Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears. Thus far had Stephen pursued his great argument calmly and without passion, though, as one great division of the history after the other passed before him in review, his style became more fervid, and the reproachful allusions less and less veiled. He had brought down the story of the people to the period of the establishment of the Temple worship and the reign of Solomon, and his view now ranged over a long and gloomy time, when new idolatry, ever more and more repulsive, was constantly being introduced among the people; when the prophets of the Lord were rejected, hunted down, and often murdered; when all spiritual life seemed gradually to have withered away, and to have been replaced, even after the bitter punishment of captivity and exile, only by a barren and selfish formalism; and this long dark avenue of sin and ingratitude was closed by the cross on Mount Calvary, with the figure of the Just One nailed upon it. It was this terrible memory of the last long chapters of the story he was telling, it was the thought above all of the crucifixion of the Just, which filled the soul of Stephen with holy indignation, which found vent in this torrent of rebuke and anger against his guilty judges: the bitter words of reproach which he used were well-known ones, and the imagery was familiar to every Jew.
Compare among many passages Deu 9:6; Deu 9:13; Deu 10:16; Exo 33:3-5; Neh 9:16. We gather from the traditional history of the nation, that the wickedness of the children of Israel during the period, the contemplation of which roused so fierce a storm of righteous anger in Stephens heart, was of a darker hue even than that described in the kings and prophecies. Both the Bible history and the traditions were well known to Stephen. Some of these latter were embodied in the Talmud, where, for instance, we read a saying of one of the last monarchs of Israel, Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, in whose time Jeremiah lived. My predecessors, scornfully boasted the impious king, did not know how to provoke God (from the Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrim, sec. II, quoted in the Yad of Maimonides).
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Observe here, 1. How St. Stephen, having finished his general discourse in the foregoing verses to the Jews, comes now to a particular and close application of it to them. All the while he was generally discoursing, they were quiet and still, and made no noise at all; for generals do not affect: but when he came to apply it particularly, and say, “You are the men, ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart, this enrages them, and drives them into the worst kind of madness.
Learn hence, 1. That the efficacy of the word preached lies in a particular and close application of it to every every man’s conscience.
2. That it is ministers great duty not to satisfy themselves with delivering general truths to their people, but they must point at their particular sins (though not at their particular persons) and reprove them for the same, what hazards soever they run, and whatever the event may be. St. Stephen’s close preaching here, and impartial reproving of sin, he saw would cost him his life; but, nothing terrified by his adversaries, he spares not to tell them, the greatest of them, of their faults.
Accordingly, observe, 2. The particular sins which St. Stephen here convict them of and reproves them for:
1. The stoutness, and stubbornness, and stiff-neckedness of their hearts; Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart: A metaphor taken from a bullock not used to the yoke, who therefore will not submit his neck to bear it. Wicked men are often called children of Belial, because they will not endure the yolk of obedience; but when God comes to put it upon their necks, they lift up their heel against him.
2. He charges them with rebelling against, and resisting the Holy Spirit of God: Ye do always resist the Holy Ghost; That is, both the outward testimony of the Holy Ghost, speaking to them in the ministry of the prophets and apostles, and also the inward operations of the Holy Spirit, in that work of illumination and conviction which they had been under.
3. For their imitating their cruel ancestors, who killed the old prophets and crucified the Lord of life and glory; As your fathers did, so do ye.
4. For their wicked violatoin of the holy law of God, which was given them by the glorious ministry and proclamation of angels: Ye received the law by the disposition of angels: that is, the angels were testes and internuncii, witnesses and messengers betwixt God and Moses, in giving of the law, or Jesus Christ the angel of the covenant, who is God’s messenger, and the angel that appeared to Moses in the bush: He gave the law to Moses, and by Moses to you, which law ye have notwithstanding violated and never kept.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
Stephen Slain For Preaching the Truth
Like their fathers before them, Stephen accused the members of the council of having necks so rock hard that they could not bow before God. Though they had been circumcised in the flesh, their hearts were still encased in sinful flesh. Just like their fathers before them had persecuted and killed those prophets who foretold the coming of God’s Just One, Stephen said they had betrayed and murdered the Just One! He accused them of receiving God’s will by the service of angels yet refused to keep it!
The truth cut into their hearts and they ground their teeth in rage at his words. The Lord’s Spirit had inspired him to speak and now caused him to look intently into heaven. There he saw God’s glory and Jesus standing at the Father’s right hand. When he told the council what he saw, they cried out, stopped their ears, rushed to him, threw him outside of the city and stoned him. Luke notes those who stoned Stephen laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul ( Act 7:51-60 ).
Fuente: Gary Hampton Commentary on Selected Books
Act 7:51-53. Ye stiff-necked, &c. Stephen, finding by a confused murmur in the place that they understood whither his discourse tended, and perceiving by the eagerness of their countenances that they would soon interrupt him, applied himself more closely to his persecutors in these remarkable words, which he boldly addressed to them under the influence of the Holy Spirit, by whose direction he spoke; Ye stiff-necked Inflexible and obstinate sinners, not bowing your necks to Gods yoke; and uncircumcised in heart and ears So that you will not hearken to instruction, or be seriously affected with it. This they immediately showed. See Act 7:54; Act 7:57. So far were they from receiving the word of God with their hearts, that they would not hear it even with their ears. Ye And your fathers; ye, as a people, in all ages; resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did In former ages; so do ye now. This is the sum of what he had shown at large. Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? Some have inferred from this, that many writings, containing the history of these persecutions, have been destroyed by the Jews; but it seems more natural to understand the words in a limited sense, as only intimating that most of the prophets had suffered such unworthy usage. Attempts, however, were sometimes made to cut off all the prophets of the Lord at once. See 1Ki 19:10; 1Ki 19:14; 2Ch 36:16. They have slain them which showed before of the coming of the Just or righteous One That is, Christ; so called by way of eminence, as being alone perfectly righteous: of whom When you ought to have heard of him with delight, and to have received him with the most humble reverence and joyful gratitude; you have been now the perfidious betrayers, and cruel murderers. Who have received the law Delivered from Sinai with astonishing circumstances of solemnity, majesty, and terror, by the disposition, or administration of angels, and have not kept, but continually violated it When the Son of God gave the law on mount Sinai, he was attended with thousands of angels, Gal 3:19; Psa 68:17. Dr. Doddridge renders the original expression, , through ranks of angels, marshalled in solemn array upon that grand occasion: and he thinks it is evident, from Heb 2:2, that God made use of the instrumentality of angels to form the voice heard at that awful time.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
51-53. As Joseph, the divinely-selected savior of his brethren, had been sold by those brethren into slavery; and as Moses, divinely selected to deliver Israel from bondage, was at first rejected by them to become a sojourner in Midian, and was then sent back by the God of their fathers to be rejected by them again and again, notwithstanding the most indisputable manifestations of God’s presence with him; and as all the prophets had met with a similar fortune, so, now, the final prophet, of whom Moses and all the prophets had spoken, had been rejected and slain by the sons of these persecuting fathers. The combined power of all these facts and analogies is now concentrated in the closing paragraph of the speech, and expressed in these terrific words: (51) “Stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you are always resisting the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. (52) Which of the prophets did not your fathers persecute? They murdered those who announced before concerning the coming of the Just One, of whom now you have been the betrayers and murderers; (53) who received the law through the ranks of angels, and have not kept it.”
The pent-up fires which had burned within the breast of Stephen from the beginning of these unjust proceedings, and had given an angelic glow to his features at the beginning of his speech, had been carefully smothered and controlled during the progress of his argument; but now that the restraints of the argument were withdrawn, they had burst forth in these scorching and blazing words.
Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)
STEPHENS CULMINATION
51. Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in hearts and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost; as your fathers did, so do ye.
52. Which one of the prophets did not your fathers persecute? And they slew those proclaiming concerning the coming of the Righteous One, whose betrayers and murderers ye became,
53. Who received the law in the administrations of angels and kept it not. If Stephen had been a modest, prudent, courteous preacher, he might have saved his life. On the contrary, he looked the leading preachers of his own fallen church squarely in the face and told them of their pride, carnality and rebellion against the Holy Ghost. A modern wiseacre would say Stephen made a mistake and lost his life. Stephen was guided by the Infallible One. He made no mistake. But those seventy big preachers and church officers to whom he did this straight preaching made the mistake. It was really the opportunity of their lives to hear, receive and obey the truth straight from God. Saul of Tarsus, their heroic leader, was subsequently rescued by a miracle of grace. His comrades were only hardened, so that when he went back, five years subsequently, in the fullness of the Holy Ghost and faithfully preached to them the truth which Stephen had preached and sealed with his blood, he found them so hard and blinded by the devil that they not only rejected him, like Stephen, but determined to kill him, the brethren slipping him away, leading him to Caesarea and sending him off to Tarsus, his native city, and thus saving his life. The argument favors the conclusion that those strong – headed preachers and church officers to whom Stephen did this awful straight and plain preaching, for which they stoned him to death, never did receive the light, but doubtless died in their delusion, believing that they were the true preachers of the gospel, and making their bed in hell. Then was Stephens ministry in vain? Would he have better been prudent and saved his life? The truth is never told in vain, since God is preparing to judge the world. When the members of that fallen Sanhedrin, i. e., the preachers and elders, stand before the judgment-bar, God will put Stephen on the witness-block to testify against them. They will go down and he will go up. Behold Stephen standing here, friendless and alone, prosecuted by the preachers and officers of his own church for heresy and disloyalty! He is as bold as Napoleon on the battlefield. Looking them in the face, he tells them the awful truth of their apostasy, carnality, and disharmony with the Holy Ghost, though it costs him his life.
Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament
7:51 {7} Ye stiffnecked and {x} uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers [did], so [do] ye.
(7) Steven, moved with the zeal of God, at length judges his own judges.
(x) They are of uncircumcised hearts who still lie drowned in the sins of nature, and are stuck fast in them: for otherwise all the Jews were circumcised with regard to the flesh, and therefore there are two kinds of circumcision; Rom 2:28-29 .
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Stephen’s accusation 7:51-53
Stephen concluded his defense by indicting his accusers. They had brought charges against him, but now he brought more serious charges against them.
In his first speech to the Sanhedrin, Peter had been quite brief and forthright (Act 4:8-12). He had presented Jesus as the only name by which people must be saved (Act 4:12). In his second speech to that body, Peter had again spoken briefly but more directly (Act 5:29-32). He had charged the Sanhedrin with crucifying the Prince and Savior whom God had provided for His people (Act 5:30-31). In this third speech before the Sanhedrin, Stephen spoke extensively giving even more condemning evidence. The Sanhedrin was guilty of unresponsiveness to God’s word and of betraying and murdering the Righteous One (Act 7:52).
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
By rejecting Jesus the Sanhedrin was doing just what their forefathers had done in rejecting God’s other anointed servants, such as Joseph and Moses. They were "stiff-necked," a figure of speech for self-willed. Moses used this expression to describe the Israelites when they rebelled against God and worshipped the golden calf (cf. Exo 33:5; Deu 9:13). While Stephen’s hearers had undergone physical circumcision, and were proud of it, they were uncircumcised in their affections and responsiveness to God’s Word. They were resisting the Holy Spirit rather than allowing Him to control (fill) them. They were similar to the apostates in Israel’s past (cf. Lev 26:41; Deu 10:16) whom former prophets had rebuked (cf. Jer 4:4; Jer 9:26). By resisting Stephen, who was full of the Holy Spirit (Act 6:3; Act 6:5), they were resisting the Holy Spirit.