Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Acts 7:60

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.

60. And he kneeled down ] in prayer, probably before the stoning had commenced.

Lord, lay not this sin to their charge ] i.e. Reckon it not against them. The original word is the same as in Rom 10:3, “going about to establish their own righteousness,” as it were to shew a reckoning in their favour. It is to be observed that both the prayers of Stephen are addressed to Jesus as God. The tone of both cannot but bring to the memory the words of Jesus addressed to the Father in His agony, “Into thy hands I commend my spirit” (Luk 23:46), and “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luk 23:34). As Christ had died, so did His servant learn to die.

And when he had said this, he fell asleep ] The last verb is the same which is used (Mat 27:52) of “the saints which slept” and arose at the crucifixion of Jesus.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

And he kneeled down – This seems to have been a voluntary kneeling; a placing himself in this position for the purpose of prayer, choosing to die in this attitude.

Lord – That is, Lord Jesus. See the notes on Act 1:24.

Lay not … – Forgive them. This passage strikingly resembles the dying prayer of the Lord Jesus, Luk 23:34. Nothing but the Christian religion will enable a man to utter such sentiments in his dying moments.

He fell asleep – This is the usual mode of describing the death of saints in the Bible. It is an expression indicating:

1. The peacefulness of their death, compared with the alarm of sinners;
2. The hope of a resurrection; as we retire to sleep with the hope of again awaking to the duties and enjoyments of life. See Joh 11:11-12; 1Co 11:30; 1Co 15:51; 1Th 4:14; 1Th 5:10; Mat 9:24.

In view of the death of this first Christian martyr, we may remark:

(1) That it is right to address to the Lord Jesus the language of prayer.

(2) It is especially proper to do it in afflictions, and in the prospect of death, Heb 4:15.

(3) Sustaining grace will be derived in trials chiefly from a view of the Lord Jesus. If we can look to him as our Saviour; see him to be exalted to deliver us; and truly commit our souls to him, we shall find the grace which we need in our afflictions.

(4) We should have such confidence in him as to enable us to commit ourselves to him at any time. To do this, we should live a life of faith. In health, and youth, and strength, we should seek him as our first and best friend.

(5) While we are in health we should prepare to die. What an unfit place for preparation for death would have been the situation of Stephen! How impossible then would it have been to have made preparation! Yet the dying bed is often a place as unfit to prepare as were the circumstances of Stephen. When racked with pain; when faint and feeble; when the mind is indisposed to thought, or when it raves in the wildness of delirium, what an unfit place is this to prepare to die! I have seen many dying beds; I have seen many persons in all stages of their last sickness; but never have I yet seen a dying bed which seemed to me to be a proper place to make preparation for eternity.

(6) How peaceful and calm is a death like that of Stephen, when compared with the alarms and anguish of a sinner! One moment of such peace in that trying time is better than all the pleasures and honors which the world can bestow; and to obtain such peace then, the dying sinner would be willing to give all the wealth of the Indies, and all the crowns of the earth. So may I die and so may all my readers – enabled, like this dying martyr, to commit my departing spirit to the sure keeping of the great Redeemer! When we take a parting view of the world; when our eyes shall be turned for the last time to take a look of friends and relatives; when the darkness of death shall begin to come around us, then may we be enabled to cast the eye of faith to the heavens, and say, Lord Jesus, receive our spirits. Thus, may we fall asleep, peaceful in death, in the hope of the resurrection of the just.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Act 7:60

And he kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice.

The best testament of a Christian

To commend–

1. His soul to heaven.

2. His body to the earth.

3. His friends to the Divine protection.

4. His enemies to the Divine compassion. (Starke.)

The power of Christ in believers

I. He strengthens them to boldness in confessing, the power of which their enemies cannot resist.

II. He adorns them with purity of conduct, which the tongues of blasphemers cannot stain.

III. He fills them with a tenderness of love, which prays for their bitterest enemies.

IV. He sweetens their dying with a blessed insight into His eternal glory. (Leonhard.)

Stephens three crowns

I. The fair crown of grace, with which the Lord adorned him in life and death.

II. The bloody crown of thorns, which he wore after his Saviour in suffering and death.

III. The heavenly crown of glory, which was reserved in eternity for the faithful martyr. (K. Gerok.)

The victory of dying Stephen

I. He triumphs over the murderous cry of a hostile world by a look of faith to heaven.

II. He overcomes the sharpness of death by a child-like surrender of his spirit into the arms of Jesus.

III. He triumphs over flesh and blood by a priestly petition for his murderers. (K. Gerok.)

The Cross of Christ reflected in Stephen, living and dying

I. The shame of the cross.

1. Before the same council.

2. The like false accusations.

3. A similar thrusting out of the city.

4. The like unrighteous doom.

II. The glory of the cross, displayed–

1. In courageous defence.

2. In patient meekness.

3. In love, blessing its enemies–Jesus first and Stephens last dying words.

4. In a blessed hope of heaven. (K. Gerok.)

Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.—

The request of Stephen

The request–

1. Of one dying.

2. Of a soul that entirely forgets itself.

3. Of a man who is striving after nothing but the kingdom of God. (Schleiermacher.)

The magnanimity of the Christian spirit

This is shown by–

1. The victories it achieves over the corrupt affections of the human heart.

2. Its superiority to the principles, spirit, and practices of the world.

3. Its fortitude under the infliction of unprovoked injuries.

4. The support and consolation which it gives in seasons of pain and sorrow, and the victory it achieves over the king of terrors.

5. The benevolence and grandeur of its purposes, and the labours and sufferings which it prompts in the execution of them. (G. N. Judd, D. D.)

Forgiveness: its nature

A forgiving spirit is a noble, generous Christian virtue. It takes its rise in that love of God and man which is the fruit of the Spirit and the fulfilling of the law; it is made up of love and forbearance, united with the tenderness of compassion towards those who have injured us, and fortified by some just sense of our own sinfulness and need of forgiveness from God. In the full sense of the thing itself, it consists of the inward spirit of forgiveness and the outward act of reconciliation. It belongs to the heart, just as every other grace has its seat in the inner man. In this view of it, it is the opposite of revenge, which angrily seeks redress for injuries by inflicting injuries in return. It is the inward exercise of kindness and good-will toward our enemies. (G. Thring, D. D.)

Forgiveness: its rarity in heathendom

Of forgiveness, we cannot certainly say that it was unknown to the ancients; under certain conditions, no doubt, it was very common among them. In family life, in which all the germs of Christian virtue are to be found, it was undoubtedly common. Undoubtedly friends fell out and were reconciled in antiquity, as amongst ourselves. But where the only relation between the two parties was that of injurer and injured, and the only claim of the offender to forgiveness was that he was a human being, then forgiveness seems not only not to have been practised, but not to have been approved. People not only did not forgive their enemies, but did not wish to do so, nor think better of themselves for having done so. That man considered himself fortunate who on his death-bed could say that no one had done more good to his friends or more mischief to his enemies. The Roman Triumph, with its naked ostentation of revenge, fairly represents the common feeling of the ancients. Nevertheless, forgiveness of enemies was not unknown. They could conceive it, and feel that there was a Divine beauty in it; but it seemed to them more than could be expected of human nature–almost superhuman. (Ecce. Homo.)

Forgiveness: its nobility

Generous and magnanimous minds are readiest to forgive; and it is a weakness and impotency of mind to be unable to forgive. (Lord Bacon.)

Forgiveness: a sign of a noble nature

The brave only know how to forgive; it is the most refined and generous pitch of virtue human nature can arrive at. Cowards have done good and kind actions; cowards have fought and even conquered; but a coward never forgave: it is not in his nature; the power of doing it flows only from a strength and greatness of soul, conscious of its own force and security, and above the little temptations of resenting every fruitless attempt to interrupt its happiness. (Laurence Sterne.)

Forgiveness: the mark of a Christian

As a seal leaves a mark of itself in the wax, whereby it is known; so it is with every one who has a readiness to forgive others: for by it the Christian may know that God hath sealed the forgiveness of his sins upon his heart. (Cawdray.)

Forgiveness: the power of Christ necessary to

What can Jesus Christ do for you now? said an inhuman slave-master, when in the act of applying the lacerating whip to an already half-murdered slave. Him teach, me to forgive you, massa, was his reply. (Phillips.)

And when he had said this, he fell asleep.—

Stephens sleep

I. Every man is bound to do something before he die.

1. Every man is bound to be something, to take some calling upon him. We begin with our beginning, our birth. Man is born to labour (Job 5:7; Hebrews). Howsoever honourable his station is, he is bound to do his days work in the day, the duties of the place in the place. How far is he from doing so who never so much as considers why he was sent into this world, and in spite of all that God has done for him, and taught him in creation and redemption! Such a man passes through life as an ignis fatuus, which gives no light, and signifies nothing. He passes out of the world as a body out of a bath, when the water may be the fouler, but otherwise retains no impression; so the world may be the worse for his having lived in it, or else retains no mark of his having been here. When God placed Adam in the world He enjoined him to fill, subdue, and rule it; when God placed His children in the land of promise He enjoined them to fight against idolatry–to everybody some task for His glory. God made every man something, but many make the best of things, man, nothing. He that qualifies himself for nothing does so; he whom we can call nothing is nothing. Gods own name is I am–Being, and nothing is so contrary to God as to be nothing. Be something or else thou canst do nothing, and till thou hast done something thou canst not sleep Stephans sleep.

2. Every man is bound to do seriously, sedulously, and sincerely the duties of his calling. He that stands in a place and does not the duties of that place is a statue, and a statue without an inscription. The duty in the text is speaking, When he had said, a duty devolving upon ministers and magistrates, and unless they speak, and speak to purpose, they cannot sleep Stephens sleep. But as in creation God does as well as says, so we must not only speak, but act. Therefore do not complain that God exacts the duties of thy place, and say not of it that it is good for nothing, for it is good for this that when thou hast discharged its duties thou mayest sleep Stephens sleep.

3. The better to perform those duties every one shall do well to propose to himself some example to imitate in that calling, It was the counsel of that great little philosopher, Epictetus, whensoever thou undertakest any action to consider what a Socrates or a Plato would do in that case, and to do conformably to that. Here is an example which suits everybody.

(1) Note this name, Stephen, a crown–the reward of faithfulness. Our names are debts; every man owes the world the signification of his name, and every additional name of honour or office lays a new obligation on him; and his first name, his Christian name above all. The duties of a Christianity must weigh down the duties of all other plans.

(2) He became a disciple early, and therefore takes rank even before Paul.

(3) He made his ambition only to serve Christ, and not in a high place, but as a deacon.

(4) But Stephens exemplariness consists not so much in what he did as in what he suffered. He cheerfully laid down his life for Christs sake. To suffer for God is the greatest thing in the world, except Gods sufferings for man. The latter was the nadir of Gods humiliation, the former is the zenith of mans exaltation. Nor is it needful to suffer death to imitate Stephen. Every man who suffers injuries without resentment, who resists temptations from power or pleasure, who cheerfully bears Gods crosses, is a true copy of Stephen.

(5) Christ was his and our supreme pattern, as we see conspicuously here.

II. To that man who hath done those things which the duties of his calling bind him to, death is but a sleep. There are two classes of men, those who die in the bath of a peaceable, and those who die upon the wreck of a distracted conscience–and the lives of each are correspondent to, and lead up to their death.

1. The death of the wicked is not a sleep.

(1) It is bloody conflict and no victory.

(2) It is a tempestuous sea and no harbour.

(3) A slippery height and no footing.

(4) a desperate fall and no bottom.

2. The death of the righteous is a sleep. They do not only go to heaven by death, but heaven comes to them in death; their very manner of dying is an inchoative act of their glorified state: therefore it is not called a dying, but a sleeping, which intimates two blessings–

(1) Present rest. Now men sleep not well fasting; nor does a fasting conscience, a conscience that is not nourished with a testimony of having done well, come to this sleep. The sleep of a labouring man is sweet, and to him that laboureth in his calling this sleep of death is welcome (Pro 3:24; Psa 4:8).

(2) Future waking is the resurrection (1Th 4:14). They shall awake as Jacob did, and say as he said, Surely the Lord is in this place, and this is none other than the house of God and the gate of heaven. (J. Donne, D. D.)

The death of Stephen

I. In Stephen we have a pattern of faith. He knew and was persuaded that his gracious Redeemer reigned on high, that He was not unmindful of His followers on earth, and would keep that which was committed to Him till the day of His appearance. Depending on this hope, he died with a composure and magnanimity which religion alone can produce.

II. In Stephen we have an example of unshaken constancy in obedience to God. When he was chosen a deacon to assist the apostles in managing the concerns of the Church, he had a high character for piety, integrity, and wisdom. Nor did he ever afterwards do anything to forfeit that character. On the contrary, the more he was tried, the more his virtues shone forth. Let his unshaken constancy be a pattern to us. Religion does not consist of fits and starts of devotion, of resolutions that are quickly made and as quickly abandoned, of that wavering and inconsistent conduct which always indicates unsoundness in the faith. It is a steady principle abiding in the heart and influencing the conduct.

III. In Stephen we have a pattern of pious resignation. No complaining words proceeded from his lips. He discovered no distrust of the power, or the love of his Saviour. We may not have trials to endure, like Stephen, but we are placed in a situation which will afford ample scope for the exercise of resignation. We are subject to sickness, losses, and disappointments, together with innumerable vexatious circumstances, which we cannot prevent. We should ever remember that God is the sovereign disposer of all events; that He has a right to place us in what station, and expose us to what sufferings He pleases. But though the sovereignity of God over His creatures be absolute, yet we know that He doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men. These very sufferings may be the means of our salvation. Such considerations will prevent murmuring, and dispose us to a calm acquiescence in the appointments of Providence. This pious principle will diffuse its benign influence over the whole soul. It will soothe our sorrows, overcome our angry passions, and sweeten the bitter cup of life. The God whom we serve will grant us support and consolation here, and bestow upon us unspeakable happiness hereafter.

V. In Stephen we have a pattern of forgiveness. If we examine the history of the world, we shall find that many of the evils which from age to age have afflicted mankind, have arisen from a revengeful and unforgiving spirit. In ancient times this spirit, exerting itself without control, diffused over every land its baneful influence, producing contention and strife and every evil work. This spirit, so adverse to human improvement, our Saviour set Himself upon all occasions to correct and to subdue. He inculcated brotherly love to an extent till then altogether unknown. Love your enemies, etc., If we forgive not our brethren their offences, neither will God forgive us our offences. This consideration should lead us earnestly to cultivate a meek and forgiving spirit. In this spirit there is a dignity, a magnanimity, an excellence, which the sons of dissipation and the votaries of pleasure may envy and ridicule, but which the Christian, who aspires to the inheritance of the blessed, will cherish as one of the highest attainments that can adorn his character. And while he does so, every revengeful principle will die in his breast. He will be at peace with all mankind, and the peace of God which passeth all understanding will keep his heart and mind through Christ Jesus. (John Ramsay, M. A.)

Death to the believer: what

I. What death is to the believer.

1. A sleep. The expression conveys a sweet idea of placidity and calmness. The day of life declines; the shadows of its evening fall around; wearied and exhausted nature needs repose; its strength is weakness, yea, it may be labour and sorrow, and in the appointed moment the believer falls asleep.

2. Nor is it a troublous rest: it is a peaceful sleep. Mark the perfect man for the end of that man is peace. The stroke of death–the pain of dissolution, is, as it were, but the kind alarm which leads a child of God to shelter himself more closely in the bosom of Gods paternal love. Since the Redeemer died, death has been abolished in its penal terror. By descending, too, into the grave, He has dispelled the graves dark horrors, and sanctified the resting-place of His dear and believing people. The grave, therefore, is now no more than the bed where the mortal remains of the believer rest in peaceful hope.

3. A sleep from which he shall awake. Them that sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him to reward them. The night of the grave will pass away; the morning of the resurrection-day will dawn, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Nothing shall resist the voice which will say, Come forth.

4. A sleep into which, when once awakened, he will fall again no more. Death hath no more dominion over Christ: death shall have no more dominion over one that believes and loves and serves Him, and is risen together with Him. As surely as He that was dead, is alive again and liveth for evermore, so surely shall the believer rise to live for ever. In the new heavens and the new earth there shall be no more death. The purified and ennobled powers of a glorified saint, will be too vigorous ever to need repose again. No second death awaits the believer. The gift of God is eternal life; whoso liveth and believeth in Him shall never die. Thus the righteous hath hope in his death.

II. Whence it is he dies so calmly. Simply because he is a believer. By faith he becomes interested in all the benefits which result from the meritorious cross and passion of Jesus Christ. Like the martyr Stephen, the believer–

1. Partakes of the Holy Ghost.

2. Sees Jesus standing on Gods right hand–not indeed as Stephen visibly, but by faith. And where He is those who believe on Him may be also. In a persuasion of this sweet truth, the believer may smile in death.

3. Has a Friend, to whose care he may commit his departing spirit. Unspeakably precious is this privilege. Our earthly friends may go with us, in their kind solicitude, to the verge of death; but there the dearest ties must be severed, and a last adieu be bidden. One there is, however, that can be with us in the shadowy vale, support and cheer us through it, and while our mortal eyes are closing on all terrestrial objects, He can give to our faith such brightening views of celestial glory as will enrapture our departing spirits, and fill them with desire to wing their upward flight. As amidst the oceans billows the shipwrecked mariner will cling with increasing tenacity to the floating plank, so amidst the agonies of death the believer lays a firmer and still stronger hold upon the hope of life in Christ. He sees his Lord above him: and whilst he hears the gracious words, Fear not, for I am with thee, Receive my spirit, may he cry; and very gracious will the Lord be to him at the voice of his prayer. So the Lord giveth His beloved sleep; and hence it is the believer dies so calmly.

In conclusion let me exhort you–

1. To awake from the slumbers of sin. How many, alas! are there dead in trespasses and sins! While they continue so, they cannot possibly sleep in Jesus or die in the Lord. Do not be saying in your heart, A little more sleep, a little more slumber, a little more folding of the hands to sleep. Take care lest your sleep in the death of sin be perpetuated till you sleep in the death of nature. Take care lest when many of them who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, you rise–not to shine as the firmament and as the stars for ever and ever, but to shame and everlasting contempt.

2. To believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Without Him, to die peacefully, in the Scripture sense of the word, would be impossible.

3. To do immediately what you purpose doing. Now is the day of salvation. (W. Mudge, B. A.)

Death a sleep

Sleep is not unfrequently used by ancient heathen writers for the same general purpose of denoting the termination of human life. The still, quiescent state into which man passes when he sinks into repose is no unapt image of what takes place in appearance when man expires, more especially if under circumstances of gentle dissolution. It was only in such circumstances that the metaphor would have been deemed appropriate by a heathen, and would not probably have been used in a case like the present. To one, however, who, like the author of this history, regarded the present life as introductory to a better world, and who held the doctrine of the resurrection, death under whatever circumstances was regarded as being merely a sleep. This language suggests two ideas.

I. The state of the grave is not permanent: it is a sleep.

1. Sleep is not the extinction, but a suspension, of the faculties, and extends only to the body. The mind continues its activity, and when we awake the two continue as before to act together. Death is not the final end of man. The stroke which consigns the body to the grave does not destroy the active, functions of the soul. It still subsists in a state of consciousness, and at the resurrection it will be again united to its corporeal companion. He whom Stephen saw standing on Gods right hand had formerly suffered the pangs of dissolution.

2. On the subject of the resurrection many difficulties have been proposed and questions started, and some have taxed ingenuity in framing answers. But, perhaps the best answer is a short and simple one–the resurrection is an act of Omnipotence. If this is admitted, to speculate on the supposed obstacles to its accomplishment is useless. Is anything impossible with God? But independently of Divine revelation, there are many presumptions of the resurrection. Inanimate nature undergoes an annual death and resurrection. But however striking vegetable analogies are, they afford a far less satisfactory presumption of immortality than that which is derived from contemplating the sufferings of good men, and to which even their virtues in some cases contribute. Can it be that the man, like Stephen, shall have no other recompense for his virtues but pain and torture; while ease, affluence, and secular honours shall be the lot of those who have been his tormentors?

II. The state of the grave will, to the Christian, be in its consequences improving. It is a sleep.

1. All have experienced the feeling induced after a day of severe exertion. Both body and mind are jaded. You know likewise what in health are the feelings after a night of sound repose; you rise invigorated, and are in some respects new men. In this the resemblance holds between sleep and death. In advanced age the mind and the body equally exhibit symptoms of decay; and disease, at any period of life, will soon produce in both mind and body the effects which are produced by age. When they are reunited, after the body has been raised from the grave, we shall be free from former imperfections, and those numerous sufferings which are connected with the body will he no more known. It must be obvious, however, from this statement, that the analogy in this case is in some respects far less perfect than in the former. In awaking after the slumbers of the night, though invigorated in comparison of what we were at the time when, through the exhaustion of nature, sleep became necessary, there is no alteration in our general condition. It is otherwise after the repose of the grave. On the morning of the resurrection we will not only be different from what we were at the time when natural decay or disease brought on dissolution, but different from what we ever have been.

2. To render a future life an object of desire, it is necessary that it should be an improvement on the present. Take away from the enjoyments of this life the pleasure connected with the hopes of another, and a good man would have little inducement to resume it. If the feelings of the worldly man were analysed, it would perhaps be found that even in his case, at every period of life, it is the hope of something better that is his chief support. Much more is hope the principle of a Christian–a hope which is not restricted to the expectation merely of another life, but includes in that other the expectation of a better. In the Christian this hope will not be disappointed. Of this highly consolatory doctrine Stephen had an ocular demonstration. In what Jesus now is, Stephen saw what His followers shall be. (R. Brodie, A. M.)

Death a sleep

When a person is asleep what is it that rests? It is simply the muscles and the nerves and the weary limbs. The heart goes on beating, the lungs respiring and expiring; and what is remarkable in sleep, the soul never sleeps at all It seems that when one is asleep the soul often travels to far distant lands, or sails upon the bosom of the deep, amid the blue hills and green glens of other parts of the land; exploring, thinking, searching, studying. The soul is never literally dead (though it may forget) to every thought and object, to all that enters by the avenues of the senses. If sleep be the metaphor of death, it does not prove that the soul is insensible, but only that the body, the outward garment only, having been worn and wasted in the wear and toil of this present life, is folded up and laid aside in that wardrobe–the grave–a grave as truly in the keeping of the Son of God as are the angels in glory. (J. Cumming, D. D.)

Death a sleep

You cannot find in the New Testament any of those hateful representations of dying which men have invented, by which death is portrayed as a ghastly skeleton with a scythe, or something equally revolting. The figures by which death is represented in the New Testament are very different. One is that of falling asleep in Jesus. When a little child has played all day long, and become tired out, and the twilight has sent it in weariness to its mothers knee, where it thinks it has come for more excitement, then, almost in the midst of its frolicking, and not knowing what influence is creeping over it, it falls back in the mothers arms, and nestles close to the sweetest and softest couch that ever cheek:pressed, and, with lengthening breath, sleeps; and she smiles and is glad, and sits humming unheard joy over its head. So we fall asleep in Jesus. We have played long enough at the games of life, and at last we feel the approach of death. We are tired out, and we lay our head back on the bosom of Christ and quietly fall asleep. (H. W. Beecher.)

The sleep of death

Asleep amid a storm! He felt asleep–not, he died, or he breathed his last, but he fell asleep. Death is but a sleep; we need no more shrink from dying than from our nightly beds; we may lie down to die with just as sure a hope of rising; we may look forward to it as the release from all the cares, all the work of life. Moses of old had been warned of the time when he should sleep with his fathers (Deu 31:16). The wise man talks of Samuels long sleep (Ecc 5:12). David, we read, fell on sleep (Act 13:36). Monarch after monarch is laid in his tomb, by the sacred writer, with the short epitaph, that he slept with his fathers. Daniel prophesies of the time, when those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake (Dan 12:2). Amid the convulsions by which Nature testified her horror at the dread hour of the Passion, the graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints which slept arose (Mat 27:52). So St. Paul (1Co 15:18; 1Co 15:20; 1Th 4:13-14). Such a faith speaks still upon the walls of the ancient cemeteries in the catacombs of Rome, where to this day the simple inscriptions are preserved, by which faith and affection marked the remains of their lost, in the first and second centuries after Christ. On one we read two words, Victoria sleeps–or, Saturninus sleeps in peace.–Zoticus is laid here to sleep.–Domitian, artless soul, sleeps in peace.–Antonia, sweet soul, in peace. May God refresh her.–Arethusa sleeps in God.–He sleeps, but lives.–Laurinia, sweeter than honey, rests in peace.–On the 5th of November was placed here to sleep, Gregory, friend of all, the enemy of none.–Or, with a studied conciseness, Clementia, tortured, dead, sleeps; will rise again. Faith loved to dwell upon an image which represented so sweetly her hope in dying. But reason here comes in aid of Faith; and the more closely we look into the nature of sleep and of death, the more exact is the resemblance we shall discern.

1. Sleep, first of all, is a mystery to us. What wonder death should be? Sleep is one of the greatest mysteries of our existence here, so mysterious that were it not so familiar to us, we should every day be wondering about it, that out of the short life God has given us for our probation, full one-third should be spent in a state of inaction, when we can do neither good nor bad. Even so shall we lie inactive in our graves. Is it a mystery, again, how we die? And who can understand how we fall asleep? It comes upon us, we know not how. We cannot recollect it afterwards. Our consciousness dissolves, and we are asleep. And so it may be at death. We lie uneasily on our bed; we try to die: on a moment the last tie is loosed; and, we know not how, we are away. Sleep soothes every pain, forgets every care; angry tempers, disappointments, want, unkindness, all the miseries of life are left behind in a moment. And so it will be at death. A parting struggle or two, one last breath, and there is neither sorrow nor sighing, neither any more pain, for the former things are passed away.

2. The hours of sleep level all the inequalities of life, and make the poor man as happy as the king (Job 3:17-19).

3. Sleep unlooses all the ties of life, and death breaks them. In sleep the soul is disengaged from the trammels of the body; and thus we may form a conjecture how it will exist separately from it hereafter. We lie asleep, the eyes are closed, the ears are deaf, the hands lie uselessly by our side; but the mind is busily at work, and revolves within itself all those images which have been conveyed into it in our waking hours. We can so, I say, guess how, amid the darkness and silence of the grave, the soul will be able to rehearse to itself all the experience of life; and with the avenue of the senses then cut off, will have material enough within itself for incessant activity and thought.

4. Sleep, instead of contracting the powers of the mind, gives keenness to the memory, and wings to the imagination. And will not this again help us to understand how, when we have left this material world behind us, and the sheath of the body no longer encases the soul and dulls her edge, that the emancipated spirit then will be able at a glance to recall with the exactest truth the entire history of life? And when we read of the books being opened, and the judgment set, and the dead, both small and great, being judged out of the things that were written in the books; what else may be intended here, than this book of memory and conscience, with every old impression revived afresh, so that the sinner sees all his sins before his face, and goes away to his own place, speechless and without appeal, self-condemned? In sleep the mind is emancipated from the restrictions of bodily life, and the limitation of time and space. A succession of images crowd into the minds and we live a life long in a night. This is a sort of foretaste of the freedom from material ties, which the disembodied spirit shall enjoy.

5. It is in the time of sleep, again, that the soul, half-loosened from the body, is most open to communications from the unseen world (Job 33:15-16). It was in the hour of sleep, in a vision by night, that the angel appeared to Mary, and to Joseph and to Daniel. The spirits of another world may have peculiar access to our souls when we are disengaged from this; and those that sleep in Jesus may so enjoy unrestrained communion with the innumerable company of angels. And the Father of the spirits of all flesh may thus be instructing and preparing them for His glorious kingdom. This long sleep of peace may thus be as needful for the expansion and perfection of our nature, as our nightly slumber is for the growth of our present frame, and for the refreshment of soul and body. Morning after morning now we each may thank our Maker, I beheld and awaked, my sleep was sweet; unto me; and every such arising we may hail as an omen of the day, when our eyes shall be opened to behold Gods presence in righteousness, when we shall wake up after Christs likeness, and be satisfied with it. Such a waking, who will not look up and hope after? Such a sleep, who need mistrust or fear? And would we know how we may so sleep with God? A quiet conscience gives the sweetest sleep. Night after night, let us take a closer and closer view of death, and then we shall not start from it when it comes. We shall lie down at last and be glad of it, just as we are glad to fall asleep. (C. F. Secretan, M. A.)

The blood of the martyrs the seed of the Church

Stephen was dead, and it might well have seemed that all the truth which was to be the glory and the thought of Christianity had died with him. But the deliverance of the Gentiles, and their free redemption by the blood of Christ, were truths too glorious to be quenched. The truth may be suppressed for a time, but it always starts up from its apparent grave. Fra Dolcino was torn to pieces, and Savonarola and Huss were burnt, but the Reformation was not prevented. Stephen sank in blood, but his place was taken by the young man who stood by to incite the murderers. Four years after Jesus had died on the Cross Stephen was stoned for being His disciple; thirty years after the death of Stephen his deadliest opponent died also for the same holy faith. (Archdeacon Farrar.)

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Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 60. He kneeled down] That he might die as the subject of his heavenly MASTER-acting and suffering in the deepest submission to his Divine will and permissive providence; and, at the same time, showing the genuine nature of the religion of his Lord, in pouring out his prayers with his blood in behalf of his murderers!

Lay not this sin to their charge.] That is, do not impute it to them so as to exact punishment. How much did the servant resemble his Lord, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do! This was the cry of our Lord in behalf of his murderers; and the disciple, closely copying his Master, in the same spirit, and with the same meaning, varies the expression, crying with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge! What an extent of benevolence! And in what a beautiful light does this place the spirit of the Christian religion! Christ had given what some have supposed to be an impossible command; Love your enemies; pray for them that despitefully use and persecute you. And Stephen shows here, in his own person, how practicable the grace of his Master had made this sublime precept.

He fell asleep.] This was a common expression among the Jews to signify death, and especially the death of good men. But this sleep is, properly speaking, not attributable to the soul, but to the body; for he had commended his spirit to the Lord Jesus, while his body was overwhelmed with the shower of stones cast on him by the mob.

After the word , fell asleep, one MS. adds, , in peace; and the Vulgate has, in Domino, in the Lord. Both these readings are true, as to the state of St. Stephen; but I believe neither of them was written by St. Luke.

The first clause of the next chapter should come in here, And Saul was consenting unto his death: never was there a worse division than that which separated it from the end of this chapter: this should be immediately altered, and the amputated member restored to the body to which it belongs.

1. THOUGH I have spoken pretty much at large on the punishment of stoning among the Jews, in Clarke’s note on “Le 24:23“, yet, as the following extracts will serve to bring the subject more fully into view, in reference to the case of St. Stephen, the reader will not be displeased to find them here.

Dr. Lightfoot sums up the evidence he has collected on this subject, in the following particulars:-

“I. The place of stoning was without the sanhedrin, according as it is said, bring forth him that hath cursed without the camp, Le 24:14. It is a tradition, the place of stoning was without three camps. The gloss tells us that the court was the camp of the Divine Presence; the mountain of the temple, the camp of the Levites; and Jerusalem, the camp of Israel. Now, in every sanhedrin, in whatever city, the place of stoning was without the city, as it was at Jerusalem.

We are told the reason by the Gemarists, why the place of stoning was without the sanhedrin, and again without three camps: viz. If the Sanhedrin go forth and sit without the three camps, they make the place for stoning also distant from the sanhedrin, partly lest the sanhedrin should seem to kill the man; partly, that by the distance of the place there may be a little stop and space of time before the criminal come to the place of execution, if peradventure any one might offer some testimony that might make for him; for in the expectation of some such thing:-

“II. There stood one at the door of the sanhedrin having a handkerchief in his hand, and a horse at such a distance as it was only within sight. If any one therefore say, I have something to offer in behalf of the condemned person, he waves the handkerchief, and the horseman rides and calls back the people. Nay, if the man himself say, I have something to offer in my own defence, they bring him back four or five times one after another, if it be any thing of moment that he hath to say.” I doubt they hardly dealt so gently with the innocent Stephen.

“III. If no testimony arise that makes any thing for him, then they go on to stoning him: the crier proclaiming before him, ‘N. the son of N. comes forth to be stoned for such or such a crime. N. and N. are the witnesses against him; if any one have any thing to testify in his behalf, let him come forth and give his evidence.’

“IV. When they come within ten cubits of the place where he must be stoned, they exhort him to confess, for so it is the custom for the malefactor to confess, because every one that confesseth hath his part in the world to come, as we find in the instance of Achan, c.

“V. When they come within four cubits of the place, they strip off his clothes, and make him naked.

“VI. The place of execution was twice a man’s height. One of the witnesses throws him down upon his loins if he roll on his breast, they turn him on his loins again. If he die so, well. If not, then the other witness takes up a stone, and lays it upon his heart. If he die so, well. If not, he is stoned by all Israel.

“VII. All that are stoned, are handed also, c.” These things I thought fit to transcribe the more largely, that the reader may compare this present action with this rule and common usage of doing it.

“1. It may be questioned for what crime this person was condemned to die? You will say for blasphemy for the have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and against God. But no one is condemned as a blasphemer, unless for abusing the sacred name with four letters, viz. YeHoVaH. Hence it is that although they oftentimes accused our Saviour as a blasphemer, yet he was not condemned for this, but because he used witchcraft and deceived Israel, and seduced them into apostasy. And those are reckoned among persons that are to be stoned: He that evilly persuades and he that draws into apostasy; and he that is a conjuror.

“2. It may farther be questioned whether our blessed martyr was condemned by any formal sentence of the sanhedrin, or hurried in a tumultuary manner by the people; and so murdered: it seems to be the latter.”

2. The defense of Stephen against the charges produced by his accusers must be considered as being indirect; as they had a show of truth for the ground of their accusations, it would have been improper at once to have roundly denied the charge. There is no doubt that Stephen had asserted and proved JESUS to be the Christ or MESSIAH; and that the whole nation should consider him as such, receive his doctrine, obey him, or expose themselves to the terrible sentence denounced in the prophecy of Moses: Whosoever will not hearken unto my words, which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him, De 18:19; for they well knew that this word implied that Divine judgments should inevitably fall upon them. To make proper way for this conclusion, Stephen enters into a detail of their history, showing that, from the beginning, God had in view the dispensation which was now opening, and that his designs were uniformly opposed by their impious forefathers. That, notwithstanding all this, God carried on his work:

First, by revealing his will to ABRAHAM, and giving him the rite of circumcision, which was to be preserved among his descendants.

Secondly, to MOSES and AARON in Egypt.

Thirdly, to the whole congregation of Israel at Mount Sinai, and variously in the wilderness.

Fourthly, by instituting the tabernacle worship, which was completed in the promised land, and continued till the days of Solomon, when the temple was builded, and the worship of God became fixed.

Fifthly, by the long race of prophets raised up under that temple, who had been all variously persecuted by their forefathers, who departed from the true worship, and frequently became idolatrous; in consequence of which God gave them up into the hands of their enemies, and they were carried into captivity.

How far St. Stephen would have proceeded, or to what issue he would have brought his discourse, we can only conjecture, as the fury of his persecutors did not permit him to come to a conclusion. But this they saw most clearly, that, from his statement, they could expect no mercy at the hand of God, if they persisted in their opposition to Jesus of Nazareth, and that their temple and political existence must fall a sacrifice to their persevering obstinacy. Their guilt stung them to the heart, and they were determined rather to vent their insupportable feelings by hostile and murderous acts, than in penitential sorrow and supplication for mercy. The issue was the martyrdom of Stephen; a man of whom the sacred writings give the highest character, and a man who illustrated that character in every part of his conduct. Stephen is generally called the proto-martyr, i.e. the FIRST martyr or witness, as the word implies; the person who, at the evident risk and ultimate loss of his life, bears testimony to TRUTH. This honour, however, may be fairly contested, and the palm at least divided between him and John the Baptist. The martyrdom of Stephen, and the spirit in which he suffered, have been an honour to the cause for which he cheerfully gave up his life, for eighteen hundred years. While Christianity endures, (and it will endure till time is swallowed up in eternity,) the martyrdom of Stephen will be the model, as it has been, for all martyrs, and a cause of triumph to the Church of God.

3. I cannot close these observations without making one remark on his prayer for his murderers. Though this shows most forcibly the amiable, forgiving spirit of the martyr, yet we must not forget that this, and all the excellent qualities with which the mind of this blessed man was endued, proceeded from that HOLY GHOST of whose influences his mind was full. The prayer therefore shows most powerfully the matchless benevolence of GOD. Even these most unprincipled, most impious, and most brutal of all murderers, were not out of the reach of HIS mercy! His Spirit influenced the heart of this martyr to pray for his destroyers; and could such prayers fail? No: Saul of Tarsus, in all probability was the first fruits of them. St. Augustine has properly remarked, Si Stephanus non orasset, ecclesia Paulum non haberet. If Stephen had not prayed, the Church of Christ could not have numbered among her saints the apostle of the Gentiles. Let this example teach us at once the spirit that becomes a disciple of Christ, the efficacy of prayer, and the unbounded philanthropy of God.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

He kneeled down; a posture used in most earnest prayers; and if so, he prayed at least as earnestly for his enemies as for himself, he praying for them kneeling, and for himself standing.

Lay not this sin to their charge; do not weigh it, reckon or impute it, that it may not remain against them, to hinder their conversion. This our Saviour commanded, Mat 5:44, this he practised, Luk 23:34 and whosoever can thus pray for his enemies, and do good for evil, hath a great evidence that the Spirit of Christ is in him.

He fell asleep; he died; his death being thus expressed, in that,

1. He died quietly, as one fallen into a sleep.

2. Because of his certain hope of the resurrection.

3. As easily to be raised again by Christ, as one that sleeps is to be awaked by us.

4. It is an ordinary Hebraism to express death by sleep; which made St. Luke use it amongst them, with whom it was frequently thus expressed.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

60. cried with a loud voicewithsomething of the gathered energy of his dying Lord (see on Joh19:16-30).

Lordthat is, JESUS,beyond doubt, whom he had just before addressed as Lord.

lay not this sin to theirchargeComparing this with nearly the same prayer of his dyingLord, it will be seen how very richly this martyr of Jesus had drunkinto his Master’s spirit, in its divinest form.

he fell asleepneversaid of the death of Christ. (See on 1Th4:14). How bright the record of this first martyrdom for Christ,amidst all the darkness of its perpetrators; and how many have beencheered by it to like faithfulness even unto death!

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

And he kneeled down,…. It seems as if he stood before while they were stoning him, and while he was commending his soul to Christ, but now he kneeled down; prayer may be performed either kneeling or standing:

and cried with a loud voice; not only to show that he was in good spirits, and not afraid to die, but chiefly to express his vehement and affectionate desire to have the following petition granted:

Lord, lay not this sin to their charge: do not impute it to them, or place it to their account; let it not rise and stand in judgment against them, or they be condemned for it; grant them forgiveness for it, and for every other sin: there is a great deal of likeness between Christ and this first martyr of his at their deaths; Christ committed his Spirit into the hands of his Father, and Stephen commits his into the hands of Christ; both prayed for forgiveness for their enemies; and both cried with a loud voice before they expired; for so it follows here,

and when he had said this, he fell asleep; or died; for death, especially the death of the saints, or dying in Jesus, is expressed by sleep. This way of speaking is common with the Jews, who say t, that Rabbi such an one , “slept”; i.e. “died”; and this they say is a pure and honourable way of speaking with respect to an holy body, whose death is no other than as it were a sleep: and elsewhere u it is said, that one saw such an one , “sleeping”; the gloss upon it is, , “expiring”: [See comments on Joh 11:11],

[See comments on 1Th 4:13]. The Vulgate Latin version adds, “in the Lord.”

t T. Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 11. 1. T. Hieros. Sota, fol. 23. 2. Avoda Zara, fol. 42. 3. & Horayot, fol. 483. u Bereshit Rabba. sect. 91. fol. 79. 3. & Mattanot Cehuna in ib. T. Bab. Moed. Katon, fol. 28. 1.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

Kneeled down ( ). Second aorist active participle of , placing the knees (on the ground). This idiom is not in the old Greek for kneeling, but Luke has it five times (Luke 22:41; Acts 7:60; Acts 9:40; Acts 22:36; Acts 21:5) and Mark once (15:19). Jesus was standing at the right hand of God and Stephen knelt before him in worship and called on him in prayer.

Lay not this sin to their charge ( ). First aorist (ingressive) active subjunctive with , regular Greek idiom, Place not to them or against them (dative ) this sin. The very spirit of Jesus towards his enemies as he died upon the Cross (Lu 23:34).

He fell asleep (). First aorist passive indicative of , to put to sleep. Old verb and the metaphor of sleep for death is common in all languages, but it is peculiarly appropriate here as Jesus used it of Lazarus. See also Acts 13:36; 1Cor 15:18, etc. Our word cemetery () is the sleeping place of the dead. Knowling calls here “a picture word of rest and calmness which stands in dramatic contrast to the rage and violence of the scene.”

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

Lay not this sin to their charge [ ] . Lit., fix not this sin upon them.

He fell asleep [] . Marking his calm and peaceful death. Though the pagan authors sometimes used sleep to signify death, it was only as a poetic figure. When Christ, on the other hand, said, “Our friend Lazarus sleepeth [] ,” he used the word, not as a figure, but as the expression of a fact. In that mystery of death, in which the pagan saw only nothingness, Jesus saw continued life, rest, waking – the elements which enter into sleep. And thus, in Christian speech and thought, as the doctrine of the resurrection struck its roots deeper, the word dead, with its hopeless finality, gave place to the more gracious and hopeful word sleep. The pagan burying place carried in its name no suggestion of hope or comfort. It was a burying – place, a hiding – place, a monumentum, a mere memorial of something gone; a columbarium, or dove – cot, with its little pigeon – holes for cinerary urns; but the Christian thought of death as sleep, brought with it into Christian speech the kindred thought of a chamber of rest, and embodied it in the word cemetery [] – the place to lie down to sleep.

Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament

1) “And he kneeled down,” (theis de ta gonta) “Then kneeling down,” as Paul would later do, Act 20:36; Act 21:5, in humble submission to the will of the Father.

2) “And cried with a loud voice,” (ekraksen phone megale) “He cried aloud with a great, megaphone-like voice,” with an impassioned desire, strong love for his enemies, even in death, obedient to his Lord, Mat 5:44.

3) “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge,” (kurie me steses autois tauten ten hamartian) “Lord, put or place not this sin (lawless deed) to them.” It is as if Stephen knew they already had all the sin against them that God could bear; He prayed as Jesus had done, Luk 23:34.

4) “And when he had said this, he fell asleep,” (kai touto eipon ekoimenthe) “And repeatedly saying this he fell asleep,” in death; or while saying this repeatedly, praying for his enemies, even as Lord had taught and done, he died, expired, faithful unto death, Mat 5:11-12; 2Ti 4:7-8; Rev 2:10; 1Co 15:58.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

60. Kneeling down, he cried. This is the other part of his prayer, wherein he joineth the love of men with faith in Christ; and surely if we desire to be gathered to Christ for our salvation, we must put on this affection. Whereas Stephen prayeth for his enemies, and those most deadly, and even in the very instant when their cruelty might provoke him unto desire of revenge, he declareth sufficiently what affection he beareth toward all other men.

And we know that we are all commanded (491) to do the same which Stephen did; (492) but because there is nothing more hard than so to forgive injuries, that we will wish well to those who would have us undone, (Mat 5:43😉 therefore we must always set Stephen before our eyes for an example. He crieth indeed with a loud voice, but he maketh show of nothing before men which was not spoken sincerely and from the heart, as God himself doth witness. Yet he crieth aloud, that he may omit nothing which might serve to assuage the cruelty of the enemies. The fruit appeared not forthwith, yet undoubtedly he prayed not in vain; and Paul is unto us a sufficient testimony (493) that this sin was not laid to all their charges. I will not say as Augustine, that unless Stephen had prayed the Church should not have had Paul; for this is somewhat hard; only I say this, that whereas God pardoned Paul, it appeareth thereby that Stephen’s prayer was not in vain. Here ariseth a question, how Stephen prayeth for those which he said of late did resist the Holy Ghost; but this seemeth to be the sin against the Spirit which shall never be forgiven? We may easily answer, that that is pronounced generally of all which belongeth to many everywhere; therefore, he called not the body of the people rebellious in such sort that he exempted none. Again, I have declared before what manner of resisting he condemned in that place; for it followeth not by and by, that they sin against the Holy Ghost who resist him for a time. When he prayeth that God will not lay the sin to their charge, his meaning is, that the guiltiness may not remain in them.

And when he had said thus, he fell on sleep. This was added, that we may know that these words were uttered even when he was ready to yield up the ghost, which is a token of wonderful constancy; also this word sleep noteth a meek kind of death. Now, because he made this prayer when he was at the point of death, he was not moved with any hope of obtaining pardon, to be so careful to appease his enemies, but only that they might repent. When this word sleep is taken in the Scripture for to die, it must be referred unto the body, lest any man imagine foolishly with unlearned men, that the souls do also sleep.

(491) “ A Christo,” by Christ, omitted.

(492) “ Quod autem Stephanum fecisse narrat Lucas,” which Luke relates that Stephen did.

(493) “ Illustre documentum,” an illustrious proof.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

(60) Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.Here again we cannot help finding proof, not only that the mind of Stephen was after the mind of Christ, but that the narrative of the Crucifixion, as recorded by St. Luke, was, in some measure, known to him. The resemblance to the prayer of Christ, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do (Luk. 23:34), could hardly have been accidental. We may well think of the prayer as having for its chief object him who was the foremost of the accusers. The old words of Augustine (Serm. 314-318), that we owe the conversion of Saul to the prayers of Stephen, may be accepted as the expression of a great spiritual fact. This prayer, like that which preceded it, was addressed, it will be noted, to the Lord Jesus.

He fell asleep.The thought and the phrase were not altogether new. (Comp. Joh. 11:11, and Note.) Even a heathen poet had said of one who died the death of the righteous

When good men die, it is not death, but sleep.

Callimachus, Epig. 10.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

60. With a loud voice Literally, with a great voice; just as (Act 7:57) they had shouted with a great voice. The clear prayer of the martyr now outrings the loud curse of his murderers.

Lay not their charge Beneath the gazing eye of his Lord and Master the confessor utters the same prayer as was uttered from the cross, for mercy, upon his destroyers. This was a new spirit and a new prayer in this dark world. Well did he show that his words of rebuke were not words of hate, but uttered by loving lips.

Fell asleep Tranquil as a pure calm in the midst of a great storm.

Thus triumphantly fell the first of “the glorious army of martyrs,” presenting a model example for the whole illustrious line. It is one of the most beautiful, if not most truthful, of legends, that the blessed mother of Jesus, standing upon a rock on the other side of the valley, watched with solemn interest the issues of the bloody scene.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

‘And he knelt down, and cried with a loud voice, “Lord, do not lay this sin to their charge.” And when he had said this, he fell asleep.’

And then as the stones rained down on him he knelt, and crying with a loud voice, pleaded, “Lord, do not lay this sin to their charge.” And with that he ‘fell asleep’. His body ceased to have life but the Lord had received his spirit and he slept with Jesus. He was at peace.

We can again hardly doubt that he had in mind again the words of Jesus on the cross. But this time, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do” (Luk 23:34). In Stephen’s case they did know what they were doing. His forgiveness was because he knew that they were spiritually blind.

‘He fell asleep.’ Death was described as a sleep because a dead man looked as though he slept. It was a euphemism because men feared to think of death in all its nakedness. But in Christian belief, and in accordance with the example and teaching of Christ (Joh 11:11), it came to signify that Christians did not finally die, because they would live on and would one day rise again. The thought of sleep was not of unconsciousness, but of bliss. Paul looked forward to being ‘with the Lord’. It was a picture of repose, of joy and peace.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Act 7:60. Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. The original is emphatical; literally, Weigh not out to them this sin, that is, “The punishment due to it;” alluding to passages of Scripture where God is represented as weighing men’s characters and actions in the dispensations of his justice and providence. Compare 1Sa 2:3. Job 31:6. Pro 16:2. Isa 26:7. Dan 5:27. This prayer of St. Stephen was heard and remarkably answered in theconversion of Saul, of whose history we shall shortly hear more.

Inferences.Do any call us to account concerning our faith and hope in Christ? Let the law and the testimony be our defence; they all along spake of him, and by them we are assured that he is in himself the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who appeared to Moses in the flaming bush without consuming it, was with him in all his dangers, and wrought all the wonders of Israel’s deliverances by his hands; and who was typified by that celebrated prophet, and by Joshua their leader into the land of Canaan, and by the tabernacle and temple, and is now exalted, in our nature, to the highest dignity of his office in heaven, and is worthy of all faith, religious worship and adoration.How true and faithful is God to his promises; though we, alas! are dull of understanding, and do not observe his way and time for fulfilling them! But how sure are his performances of all his promises, in due season, to them that trust in him; and how graciously does he accept them and their services, according to his own institution, of what nation, or in what place soever they are! And, O how much better is it to have God dwelling in our hearts by faith, and in our religious assemblies by his Spirit, as his temple upon earth, till we get to the throne of his glory in heaven, than to imagine that his special presence is confined to any material temple! But, ah! how prone are hypocritical professors to be more fond of rites and ceremonies, than of his law and gospel! How sadly have many revolted from him, resisted his Spirit, persecuted his servants, and rejected him and his salvation, to their own dreadful perdition! But the Lord Jesus will stand by the true confessors of his name at the worst of times, will fill them with the Holy Ghost, and give them seasonable manifestations of his glory; and when his enemies cast them out, and cruelly put them to death, he stands ready to support and comfort them, to take them into the arms of his love, and to receive them into heaven, that they may live with him for ever. And O! with what holy liberty, zeal, and courage, will they speak for him, and in his strength suffer even to the worst of martyrdoms for his sake, when he calls them to it! With what humble confidence and assuring satisfaction may they invoke his name, and commit their departing souls to him; and with what peace and pleasure may they die, with a forgiving spirit towards their enemies, and with a joyful assurance of their own souls’ going immediately to Jesus, and of their bodies sleeping in him, till they shall awake to everlasting life, and appear with him in glory!

But, O Saul! couldst thou have believed, if one had told thee, while thou was urging on the cruel multitude, while thou wast glorying over the venerable corpse of pious Stephen,couldst thou have believed that the time would come, when thou thyself shouldst be twice stoned in the same cause for which he died?That thou shouldst triumph in having committed thy soul likewise to that Jesus, whom thou wast now blaspheming! In this instance his dying prayer was illustriously answered for thee! In this instance, the wolf lies down with the lamb, and the leopard with the kid, as Isaiah has foretold. And it is most delightful to think that the martyr Stephen, and Saul the barbarous persecutor, (afterwards his brotherboth in faith and in martyrdom,) are now joined in bonds of everlasting friendship, and dwell together in the happy company of those who have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the lamb, Rev 7:14. May we at length be joined with them, and, in the mean time, let us glorify God in both!

REFLECTIONS.1st, Stephen, that noble confessor, is before his judges assembled in full council, with the high-priest at their head, all his known, avowed, and inveterate enemies: yet, in answer to the high priest’s demand, Are these things so? he boldly undertakes his defence. The scriptures are the armoury whence he draws the weapons of his warfare, and we find him a complete master of his subject. Being a Hellenist Jew, he quotes the septuagint, as the version commonly in use in their synagogues, though containing some variations from the original Hebrew. He begins,

1. With a respectful and affectionate address, entreating their unprejudiced attention; Men, brethren, and fathers hearken.

2. He lays before them a concise view of the patriarchal history, in order that they might remember, that God had a visible church and people in the world before the law was given, and still would have one when all the ceremonial institutions were abolished.
[1.] He opens with the call of Abraham, to whom the God of glory appeared, in some visible display of his presence, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Char-ran, in an idolatrous land, and said unto him, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and come into the land which I shall shew thee: accordingly he immediately left his country, and removed to Charran, and after his father’s death receiving a second call, he came into the land of Canaan, and abode there where they now dwelt.

Hence it appeared, that Abraham was in God’s favour before he was circumcised, and that God’s Shechinah had visited Ur of the Chaldees, before it appeared in Canaan; and therefore they might see, that neither the dispensation of the law, nor the land of Israel, were needful for the acceptable worship of God. Note; (1.) Though we may not see clearly whither God is leading us, yet, when we have his call, we may confidently go forward. (2.) They who are travelling to the heavenly Canaan, cheerfully turn their backs on earth with all its allurements.

[2.] Though God had promised Abraham the land of Canaan for a possession, and to his seed after him, when as yet he had no child, yet he gave him not a foot of land for a present inheritance: nor for four hundred years afterwards, reckoning from the birth of Isaac, did any of his posterity enjoy the promised inheritance, but lived unsettled, and afflicted, under the tyranny of strangers, till, at the expiration of the time appointed, God judged their Egyptian oppressors, and brought them at last to serve him in this place. And this Stephen suggests, in order to lower their pride on their original; and, from the length of time which elapsed between the promise and the fulfilment of it, as well as from the hardships which their fathers endured in the intermediate space, to shew them that the principal object to which the Lord intended to lead them, was the heavenly Canaan, of which this was but the figure; and therefore it could be no blasphemy to say, that Jesus could destroy this country, when he promised to bring his faithful servants to the heavenly Canaan, and the Jerusalem which is above. Note; (1.) Though God’s promises may be long in their fulfilment, they are sure to the faithful. (2.) The children of God may be, and very frequently are, called to endure the severest afflictions here. (3.) He will finally avenge them on their oppressors.

[3.] Having called Abraham to be his servant, God gave him the covenant of circumcision, as a seal of the righteousness of that faith which he had, being yet uncircumcised; and this rite he transmitted to his posterity, circumcising his son Isaac on the eighth day, according to the divine command. And Isaac begat Jacob and the twelve patriarchs, in whom the family of Abraham began to enlarge; yet even then did the same spirit of envy break forth against Joseph, as they who boasted themselves descendants from these patriarchs afterwards shewed to Jesus, of whom Joseph was an eminent type, both in his sufferings and exaltation. The patriarchs, moved with envy, sold him into Egypt: but God was with him, and delivered him out of all his afflictions; and endued him with such wisdom as recommended him to Pharaoh’s favour, who constituted him governor over Egypt and all his house. And thus had God exalted his Son Jesus, whom they had brought to the lowest state of ignominy and abasement, to a throne of glory. A dearth, which Joseph had foretold, drove the brethren of Joseph shortly after from Canaan to Egypt, where, through his care, provision had been laid up against the years of famine. There at the second interview, to the astonishment of his brethren, Joseph made himself known to them; and Pharaoh being acquainted with his kindred, Joseph, at his desire, invites his father and all his family into Egypt, consisting of seventy-five persons. There Jacob, with the patriarchs, died, and, in the faith of the fulfilment of God’s promise to Abraham, the bones of the patriarchs were carried out of Egypt, and laid in the sepulchre that Jacob the grandson of Abraham bought for a sum of money of the sons of Emmor the father of Sychem. (See the Annotations.) Thus they might observe, that the land on which they set so high a value, was afflicted with famine; that the patriarchs, of whom they boasted, all died in a strange country, and never got possession of Palestine; and yet the faithful among them were nevertheless accepted of God, and their faith was carried out to the heavenly inheritance, which Jesus has brought to light, and has obtained for all that perseveringly believe in him.

2nd, Stephen proceeds with the history of the Jewish people.
1. When the time of the promise drew nigh, they multiplied exceedingly. Then a new king arose, which knew not Joseph, nor remembered what a Saviour he had been to the land; but, jealous of the increase of the Israelites, with hellish craft he sought to extirpate them by a bloody edict to kill all the male children which should be born; while by the most servile and incessant toils and labour he sought to harass to death their fathers. And thus were they acting against the disciples of Jesus and his infant church; but their subtilty and malice would be equally abortive; the followers of Jesus but increased and multiplied the more.

2. In this state of distress Moses was born, designed of God for their great deliverer; for when God’s people are at the last extremity, he is ready gloriously to appear on their behalf. The child was exceedingly fair; something peculiarly beautiful appeared in his infant countenance. After being concealed three months, he was at last exposed; and so Providence ordered it, that Pharaoh’s daughter, coming down to the spot to bathe, found the babe, and was so struck with his beauty and tears, that she took and brought him up as her own son, giving him the most accomplished education; so that he was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds; remarkably judicious in his counsels, and eminent for his courage.

Stephen shewed hereby, that, far from dishonouring Moses, he regarded him with the greatest admiration, and spoke of him with the highest encomiums. He was also an eminent figure of Christ, exposed to like danger in his infancy, and raised up of God to be an infinitely greater Saviour to his faithful people.
3. And when he was full forty years old, being arrived at the prime of life, and almost at the height of grandeur and affluence, moved by a divine impulse, he resolved to leave the court of Pharaoh, and visit his afflicted brethren. And seeing one of them most unjustly abused and beaten, he interposed in his behalf, and slew the Egyptian, as a specimen of that authority with which he was invested, as their appointed deliverer; supposing by this action they would understand what God intended to do for them by his means; but they understood not. The next day he shewed himself again unto them as they strove, and, as a peace-maker, would fain have reconciled the two Hebrews who quarrelled with each other, suggesting their near relation, and how unbecoming it was in them to abuse and fight with one another. But he who was the aggressor, impatient of the rebuke (as those usually are, who are in the wrong), insultingly rejects his interposition, saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge over us? as if he assumed an authority to which he had no title; and upbraids him with what he had done the day before; Wilt thou kill me as thou killedst the Egyptian yesterday? Perceiving hereby the danger in which he was, and the ingratitude and baseness of his brethren, Moses fled, lest, the fact being published, he should be arrested as a murderer; and taking up his abode in the land of Midian, he spent another forty years there, where he begat two sons.

Now Stephen insinuates that it was no new thing with them to reject and ill use their divinely-appointed deliverers. As their fathers perversely shut their eyes against the pretensions of Moses, so had they refused Jesus the Prince of glory, who came to deliver them from a worse than Egyptian bondage, even from the tyranny of sin and Satan, and from the power of death and hell.
3rdly, Stephen proceeds in his account of Moses, and, far from speaking ought that could be construed into blasphemy against him, none could ever make more honourable mention of this great lawgiver.
1. At the expiration of forty years, the great Angel of the covenant, who in the fulness of time was to come into the world as God incarnate, in the person of the man Christ Jesus, appeared to him in a bush, which seemed all on fire, yet remained unconsumed. Struck with astonishment at this strange sight, when Moses approached to take a nearer view, the voice of God was heard from the midst of the bush, saying, I am the God of thy fathers, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, remembering his covenant, and now about to fulfil his promises to their seed, after so long a time. The doctrine then of a resurrection, at which the Sadducees were so offended, has Moses for its voucher: and God had not limited his presence to the temple, but had here displayed his glory in a wilderness; and that very covenant of promise made unto the fathers, which God spake of to Moses, Stephen preached, shewing its most evident and glorious accomplishment in the spiritual salvation of Jesus; so far was he from contradicting, and much more from blaspheming Moses, as they alleged.

2. Struck with sacred reverence, his eyes fixed on the earth, Moses durst not behold the glory. Then God bids him put off his shoes from his feet, as standing now on holy ground; and gives him his commission: I have seen, I have seen the affliction of my people which is in Egypt, and I have heard their groaning, and am come down to deliver them. Though God suffer his believing people to be in distress, he hears their cry, and in his good time will help them. This Moses whom they refused, saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge? the same did God send to be a ruler and a deliverer, by the hand of the Angel which appeared to him in the bush; and thus had God the Father exalted his Son Jesus, whom they had in like manner rejected, to be a Prince and Saviour.

3. Moses faithfully executed his commission, and brought them out from the house of bondage, after that he had shewed wonders and signs in the land of Egypt and in the Red-Sea, and in the wilderness forty years. So highly does he speak of Israel’s deliverer; nor was it any derogation from him, that a greater than he should arise, accomplishing a more glorious redemption for them, since of such a one does Moses himself prophesy.

4. This is that Moses, the very person for whose honour they were so jealous, which said unto the children of Israel, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; a new lawgiver, who should introduce another dispensation; or as me, as he hath raised up me, so shall there arise another, invested with divine authority and power: him shall ye hear, submitting to his word, and obedient to his voice in all things. Far therefore from dishonouring Moses, Stephen shews the accomplishment of his prophesy, and that they ought to testify their real veneration for his memory, by obeying his injunctions, and submitting to that new and spiritual dispensation which Jesus the great Prophet came to introduce.

5. Notwithstanding all the services which Moses did them, and all the honour that God had conferred upon him, their fathers had treated him with the highest contempt and ingratitude. This is he that was in the church in the wilderness, as their captain and leader, with the angel, that uncreated Angel of the covenant, the great Jehovah Jesus, which spake to him in the mount Sinai, and with our fathers, face to face, as a man talketh to his friend; who received the lively oracles to give unto us; oracles, as being of infallible certainty; and lively, sharp, and piercing the conscience, or leading those who truly understood them, and perseveringly obeyed them, to eternal life. Yet greatly as Moses was honoured of God herein, our fathers would not obey him, but thrust him from them, and in their hearts turned back again into Egypt; murmuring and mutinying against him, and sinking into the grossest idolatry, at the very time when, as their mediator, he was in the mount with God,saying unto Aaron, Make us gods to go before us: for as for this Moses, which brought us out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him. So disrespectfully did they speak of their great deliverer. And accordingly, they made a calf in those days in imitation of the Egyptian god Apis, and offered sacrifice unto the idol, and rejoiced in the works of their own hands. Instead therefore of charging Stephen with blasphemy, they would do well to remember what their own ancestors had done.

6. For these abominations God was justly provoked. Then he turned, withdrew from them his grace and favour, and gave them up to worship the host of heaven, leaving them in righteous judgment to their own inventions. In consequence of which they neglected God, and all the newly-instituted ordinances, and relapsed, after they came into Canaan, into the grossest idolatry; for which he quotes a prophet’s words, whose authority they would not dispute, (Amo 5:25-27.) Have ye offered to me slain beasts, and sacrifices, by the space of forty years in the wilderness? No: they neglected his worship, and what they offered was to devils, and not to God, (Deu 32:17.) so that they themselves disused for forty years those very customs which Moses had delivered to them. And, worse still, ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch, the image of this idol inclosed in a shrine; and the star of your god Remphan, figures which ye made, to worship them, in express contradiction to the commands of God: and for this he threatens them with condign punishment; I will carry you away beyond Babylon, (see 2Ki 17:5-8.)

Now if God dealt thus severely with them for despising Moses’ law, of how much sorer punishment, than even their ancestors received, would they be counted worthy, for rejecting the dispensation of grace which Jesus, so far greater than Moses, came from God to reveal to them!
4thly, The accusation lodged against Stephen was for speaking against the temple, as if he was guilty of blasphemy thereby; whereas he shews, that their fathers worshipped God acceptably for ages before any temple was built.
1. It was not till they came into the wilderness, that the tabernacle of witness was reared, according to the model which God shewed to Moses in the mount. God accepted his faithful worshippers before there was any tabernacle; and they might again serve him as acceptably, if the holy place, the temple, was destroyed: and the very care shewn in the making of this tent according to the divine model, intimated, that it was a shadow of good things to come, being typical of the incarnation of the Son of God, and of his spiritual and gracious presence in his church.

2. This tabernacle Joshua brought into the possession of the Gentiles, whom God drave out before him; and if it was set up in that polluted land of Canaan, why might not God now erect his spiritual tabernacle among the nations of the heathen?

3. Till David’s time, God was pleased to dwell in this mean and moveable tent, above four hundred years; and when David was desirous to build a temple for the Lord, he forbade him, reserving that honor for Solomon, who built him an house. It therefore appeared evident, that God was not solicitous to have a temple for his abode, as if that was necessary for their acceptable worship; and also, that if Solomon might change the tabernacle for a temple, God might no doubt, if he pleased, destroy that, and make his abode in the spiritual temple, the church of the faithful.

4. Though God ordered the erection of the tabernacle, and the building of the temple, it could not be conceived that his immensity could be circumscribed by these narrow bounds, when as the prophet (Isa 66:1-2.) had observed, Heaven is his throne, and earth his footstool. No house made with hands can then be comparable to that glorious temple the universe, which himself hath reared: nor can he need a place to repose himself, when all things and creatures whatever are the work of his hands. Therefore it was no disparagement to the temple, to affirm, that Jesus should destroy this temple, and set up another, into which all nations should flow together, and their worship be acceptable to him.

5thly, Perhaps Stephen was proceeding to shew that the temple and its service must come to an end; but perceiving the rage that fired the bosoms of his enemies sparkling in their eyes, and expecting soon to be interrupted, he closes with a word of piercing application.
1. He charges them with their obstinacy and stubbornness like unto their fathers. Ye stiff-necked, and uncircumcised in heart and ears; in profession God’s servants, but hardened in pride and prejudice against the clearest intimations of his will; ye do always resist the Holy Ghost; rejecting the evidence of his miracles, wilfully blind to the clearest prophesies, and fighting against the convictions of your own consciences. As your fathers did, so do ye; refusing to hearken unto us the inspired servants of Jesus, as they turned a deaf ear to the warnings of the prophets: and just is it in God to devote those to ruin, who will not hearken to his admonitions, but obstinately harden their hearts.

2. They were persecutors and murderers, like their fathers. Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? more or less reviling or opposing them? and they have slain them which shewed before of the coming of the Just One, the divine Messiah, Jesus, the holy one of God, sent to bring in an everlasting righteousness, through his infinite merit and intercession; of whom ye, treading closely in your ancestors’ steps, and exceeding them in wickedness, have been now the betrayers and murderers.

3. They had rejected God’s word, as their fathers before them, who have received the law, delivered in the most august manner, by the disposition of angels, whose ministry God employed on mount Sinai, when in shining ranks they graced that solemnity, as attendants on the king of glory; and have not kept it; have, like them, broken its most essential precepts, and added to all their guilt the rejection of the gospel also, notwithstanding all the glorious evidences wherewith it has been attended; and how then can you hope to escape the vengeance of an offended God?

6thly, We have the glorious and triumphant death of the first Christian martyr.
1. When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, so filled were they with envy, indignation, and malice, as if sawn asunder; and they gnashed on him with their teeth, as if they would have devoured him alive. Note; Wicked men carry their hell about with them, in those diabolical tempers and raging passions, which make them their own tormentors.

2. Stephen, unterrified with their malice, and being full of the Holy Ghost, receiving an abundant increase of grace and consolation suited to his present condition, looked up steadfastly into heaven; appealing to God, confidently expecting divine support, and eagerly longing after that crown of glory which now shone bright in his view, and enabled him to look down with contempt upon the malice of his enemies; and, by a miraculous manifestation, saw the glory of God, some visible emblem of the eternal majesty, such as the Shechinah, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, in his human nature as Mediator, exalted to the highest honour and dignity, appearing as the advocate of his suffering saint, to strengthen him boldly to resist unto blood, to crown him with martyrdom, and shortly to avenge him of his bloody persecutors. Transported with this beatific vision, he said, with wonder and delight, Behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God. Note; (1.) In times of suffering, our eyes should be lifted up to heaven, for thence cometh our help. (2.) As our tribulations for Christ abound, he is pleased, by the most gracious manifestations of himself, to cause our consolations to abound also. (3.) A sight of Jesus, at the right-hand of God, will carry us triumphantly through death armed with all its terrors, and enable us to defy the stroke.

3. Concluding now that they had full cause for his condemnation, They cried out with a loud voice, to drown his speech, to express their detestation of what they heard, and to sharpen each other’s fury; and stopped their ears, as if shocked at his blasphemy; and ran upon him with one accord; the whole multitude of the people rising in tumultuous rage; and cast him out of the city, as a wretch not fit to live, and who defiled that holy place where he stood, and stoned him, as a blasphemer (Lev 24:16.) and the witnesses, whose hands were first upon him (Deu 17:6-7.) laid down their clothes at a young man’s feet, whose name was Saul, a fiery zealot, who with pleasure saw the bloody execution of this holy martyr. Note; (1.) The cause of Christ is often run down with clamour, and rage supplies the place of reason. (2.) Many of the dearest saints upon earth have been counted as the off-scouring of all things, and thought unworthy of the air they breathed.

4. They stoned Stephen, calling upon God; though cast out from earth, as unworthy to live, he had a sure interest in heaven, saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit; and, now ready to expire, he kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, expressive of the vehemence of his desire, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge, copying closely his divine Master’s example; and when he had said this, he fell asleep; as these words dropped from his lips, the mortal blow reached him, and in the arms of everlasting love he sweetly rested from suffering and sorrow for ever. Note; (1.) In a dying hour, we cannot be better employed than in commending our souls into the arms of Jesus. (2.) If our immortal part be safe, it little matters what becomes of the fleshly tabernacle. (3.) Jesus is very God, the object of his people’s adoration; and as it is only by faith in him that we can live comfortably, so only by an eye to him, as the resurrection and the life, can we die happily. (4.) Our bitterest persecutors must share our prayers; and the more wicked they are, the more they need them. (5.) When we come to die, it will be essential to our salvation, that we are truly in charity with all men. (6.) Death to the faithful is but a sleep: their bodies reposing awhile in that bed of dust where our Lord has lain, HIS voice shall waken them up in the resurrection morn, and they shall arise to share with him the triumphs of that eternal day, when their sun shall no more go down, nor their moon withdraw itself, but the Lord shall be their everlasting light, and their God their glory.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

REFLECTIONS

Reader! let you and I bless God the Spirit, for this most precious sermon of his servant Stephen. Surely God the Holy Ghost would not have caused it to have been so fully recorded, (since we have already the whole subject contained in it, at large in the scriptures before written,) had not this Almighty Teacher in the Church intended from it some sweet instructions, and which are here very particularly set forth. It is our mercy therefore to attend to them, and bless the Lord for his grace in giving them. And what a light is thrown upon the history of Moses, by Stephen’s sermon, in that part of it (which without this information we should not have known,) of his early apprehension, that the Lord would use him, as an instrument, for the delivery of his brethren? And what a blessed proof we draw from Stephen’s sermon, in addition to the other relations we have in Scripture, that it was the Lord Jesus, which spake to Moses from the bush. Reader! these are sweet things. May you and I learn to prize them very highly; and bless God the Holy Ghost, in having given them to us, by his servant Stephen.

Precious Lord Jesus! be thou eternally loved, and praised, for the grace manifested to thy dying martyr, in such a season of peculiar trial. Oh! let thine whole Church, from age to age, be refreshed in the sweet assurance, such a memorable instance affords, of thy continual presence with thy people. May my soul, and the souls of all thy redeemed, learn from it, how we are to commit our departing spirits into thine Almighty hand, in the hour of death, as unto a faithful Creator!

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

60. ] The more accurate philological Commentators, De Wette and Meyer, deny that here can, as ordinarily explained, refer to weighing (reff. Matt.; Jer 39 (32) 10), since not the sin , but the punishment , would be the thing weighed out, and it would be harsh to take the one for the other, in a sentence of this kind. Meyer would understand as opposed to , , ‘ Fix not this sin upon them :’ but De Wette, as seems to me more probably, renders it Reckon not this sin to them (‘lay not this sin to their charge,’ E. V.), supporting this by Rom 10:3 .

This again was somewhat similar (though not exactly, see note there) to our Lord’s prayer, Luk 23:34 .

] Not a Christian expression only: Wetstein, on Mat 27:52 , cites Jewish examples: and we have in the Anthology, iii. 1. 10, | . But it became the usual Christian term for death. Its use here, when the circumstances, and the actors in them, are remembered, is singularly touching, from the contrast.

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Act 7:60 . : a phrase not used in classical writers, but Blass compares Ovid, Fasti , ii., 438; five times in St. Luke’s writings, Luk 22:41 , Act 9:40 ; Act 20:36 ; Act 21:5 ; only once elsewhere in N.T., Mar 15:19 . The attitude of kneeling in prayer would no doubt commend itself to the early believers from the example of their Lord. Standing would seem to have been the more common attitude among the Jews, but cf . instances in the O.T. of kneeling in prayer, LXX, 1Ki 8:54 , Ezr 9:5 , Dan 6:10 , and also the expression used twice by St. Paul, , 1Ch 29:20 , 1Es 8:73 , Isa 45:23 , etc., Eph 3:14 , and Phi 2:10 (Rom 11:4 ; Rom 14:11 ). See Friedrich, Das Lucasevangelium , p. 42. , cf. Luk 23:46 . The last final effort of the strong love which showed itself also in the martyr’s bended knees (see Wendt, in loco ), Eusebius, H. E ., v., 2, tells us how the martyrs of Vienne and Lyons took up St. Stephen’s words in their own prayer for their persecutors ( cf. the famous instance of the last words of Sir Thomas More before his judges, and Dante, Purgatorio , xv., 106 ff., on the dying Stephen): : the negative expression best corresponds to the positive (Wendt), cf. 1Ma 13:38-39 ; 1Ma 15:5 ; 1Ma 15:8 , where the contrast marked between and seems to favour this explanation. Blass takes it as marking a contrast like that between and , cf. Heb 10:9 . Weiss lays stress upon , and regards the prayer as asking that their present sin might not be weighed out to them in an equivalent punishment, cf. Grotius on the Hebrew , 1Ki 20:39 , whilst De Wette (so Felten) takes it as simply “reckon it not,” i.e. , “weigh it not,” cf. Zec 11:12 . Schttgen sees a reference to the Rabbinical notion “si quis bonum aut malum opus facit, hoc sequitur eum, et stat juxta eum in mundo futuro,” Rev 14:13 , and cf. a similar view quoted by Farrar, St. Paul , i., 167. Rendall regards it as a judicial term, as if Stephen appealed to Christ as Judge not to impute their sin to the murderers in condemnation (Rom 10:3 ). The words of St. Stephen again recall the words of his Master, Luk 23:34 , words which (Eusebius, H. E., cf. ii., 20) also formed the dying prayer of James, “the Lord’s brother”. In James as in Stephen we may see how the true Christian character, whilst expressing itself in righteous indignation against hypocrisy and wrong, never failed to exhibit as its counterpart the meekness and gentleness of Christ. ( cf. 1Co 15:18 ), a picture-word of rest and calmness which stands in dramatic contrast to the rage and violence of the scene. The word is used of death both in LXX and in classical Greek, cf., e.g. , Isa 14:8 ; Isa 14:18 ; Isa 43:17 , 1Ki 11:43 , 2Ma 12:45 , etc.; Homer, Il. , xi., 241; Soph., Elect. , 509. Blass well says of this word, “sed nullo loco que mirandum,” and describes the reference in Homer, , as “et simile et dissimile”: Christians sleep in death, but no “brazen sleep”; they sleep ; simple words which formed the epitaph on many a Christian grave in Him, Who is Himself “the Resurrection and the Life”. Page notes the cadence of the word expressing rest and repose, cf. Farrar, St. Paul , i., 167, note, and , Act 28:31 .

St. Stephen’s Speech . Many and varied explanations have been given of the drift and purpose of St. Stephen’s address. But the various explanations need not be mutually exclusive, and St. Stephen, like a wise scribe instructed unto the kingdom, might well bring out of his treasury things new and old. It is often said, e.g. , that the address is no reply to the charges alleged, that it would be more intelligible how the charges were framed from a perversion of the speech, than how the speech could be framed out of the charges; whilst, on the other hand, it is possible to see from the opening to the closing words an implicit repudiation of the charges of blasphemy against God and contempt of the law. The speech opens with a declaration of the divine majesty of Jehovah; it closes with a reference to the divine sanction of the law, and with the condemnation of those who had not kept it. This implicit repudiation by Stephen of the charges brought against him is also contained in St. Chrysostom’s view of the purpose of the martyr, viz. , that he designed to show that the covenant and promises were before the law, and sacrifice and the law before the temple. This view, which was adopted by Grotius and Calvin, is in some degree retained by Wendt (so also Felten), who sums up the chief aim of the speech as a demonstration that the presence of God is not confined to the holy place, the temple, but that long before the temple was built, and before the people had settled in the promised land, God had given to the fathers a share in the proofs of this revelation, and that too in strange countries (although there is no reason to suppose that Stephen went so far as to contend that Jew and Gentile were on a precisely equal footing). But Wendt is conscious that this view does not account for the whole of the speech, and that it does not explain the prominence given in it to the obstinacy of Israel against the revelation of God vouchsafed to Moses, with which the counter accusation against Stephen is so closely connected (see Spitta’s severe criticism, Apostelgeschichte , pp. 111, 112, and Weizscker’s evident failure to maintain the position that the climax of the whole address is to be found in the declaration about Solomon’s temple, which he is obliged to explain as a later thought belonging to a later time, Apostolic Age , i., pp. 68 71, E.T.). Thus in his last edition, p. 151 (1899), he points out that in section Act 7:35-43 , as also in Act 7:25 ; Act 7:27 , the obstinacy of the people against Moses, sent to be their deliverer, is evidently compared with their obstinacy in rejecting Jesus as the Messiah, and in Act 7:51-53 the murder of Jesus is condemned as a fresh proof of the opposition of the people to God’s revelation to them: here is a point of view which in Wendt’s judgment evidently had a share in the composition of the address. Wendt urges his view against the older one of Meyer and to some extent at all events that of Baur, Zeller and Overbeck, that the central point of the speech is to be found in Act 7:51 , to which the whole preceding sketch of the history of the people led up: however great had been the benefits bestowed by God upon His people, on their part there had been from the beginning nothing in return but a corresponding thanklessness and resistance to this purpose. McGiffert, Apostolic Age , pp. 87, 88, also recognises that the theme of the address is to be found in Act 7:51-53 , but he also admits the double purpose of St. Stephen, viz. , not only to show (as Meyer and others) that at all stages of their history Israel had been stiffnecked and disobedient, but also (as Wendt) to draw a parallel between their conduct and the treatment of Jesus by those whom he is addressing.

This leads us to a consideration of the view of Spitta as to the main purpose of St. Stephen’s speech. Whatever may be thought of its merits, it gives a unity to the speech which is wanting in many earlier and more recent expositions of it, as Hilgenfeld recognises, although he himself holds a different view, and one essentially similar to that of Baur. According to Spitta, in Act 7:2-16 we have an introduction to the chief section of the address which begins with Act 7:17 , . Moses, Act 7:20 , was the person through whom God would save His people, and lead them to His true service in the promised land, Act 7:7 ; Act 7:35 ; Act 7:38 ; Act 7:44 . If we ask why Moses occupies this important place in the speech, the answer is found in Act 7:37 , which forms the central point of the description of Moses, and divides it into two parts (a verse in which Clemen and Hilgenfeld can only see an interpolation of a redactor, and in which Weiss finds something suspicious, see Zckler’s note, in loco ). In the first part, 17 36, we are told how Moses by divine and miraculous guidance grows up to be the deliverer of Israel. But when he would commence his work of deliverance his brethren will not understand his aim and reject him, 23 28. In the wilderness he receives a fresh commission from God to undertake the delivery of the people, 29 34. But this Moses ( ) who was thus repulsed God had sent to be a ruler and deliverer this man was he who led these people forth and it was this Moses who said to the children: “A prophet” etc., Act 7:37 . Why is this prophecy introduced except to support the inference that as Moses, a type of the Messiah, was thus repulsed, and afterwards raised to be a ruler and deliverer, so must, according to Moses’ own words, the Messiah of Israel be first rejected by His people? In the next division, Act 7:38-50 , the same parallel is again instituted between Moses and the Messiah. The former had delivered a law which consisted of “living oracles,” but instead of receiving it, Israel had given themselves up to the worship of idols, 35 43; instead of establishing a worship well-pleasing to God, those who came after Moses, not content with the tabernacle, which was not confined to one place, and which represented the heavenly archetype, had built a temple which called forth the cutting words of the prophet, 47 50. In his explanation of these last verses there lies at least one weakness of Spitta’s explanation, for he does not seem in his disapproval of the temple to allow that it had even a relative value, and that Solomon was well aware that God did not dwell only in temples made with hands. But Spitta’s main point is to trace again a connection with the verse which forms his centre, Act 7:37 (Deu 18:15 ). As Moses in vain communicated a spiritual law and a corresponding worship to a people whose heart turned after idols and the service of a temple, so the Messiah must also experience that the carnal mind of the people would oppose His revelation of the divine will in relation to a rightful service. Thus the whole speech becomes a proof of the Messiahship of Jesus as against those who appealed to the authority of Moses, and saw in Jesus a twofold cause of offence: (1) that He was rejected by His people and crucified; (2) that He had treated with impiety that which they held most sacred the law and the temple.

In all this Spitta sees no direct answer to the false witnesses; but the speech, he maintains, is much rather an answer to the two causes of offence which must have been discussed in every synagogue, and which the infant Church must have been obliged to face from the first, especially as it took its stand upon the proof that Jesus was the Christ. Stephen in his disputations, Act 6:9 , must have often faced opponents who thus sought to invalidate the Messianic claims of Jesus; what more natural than that he should now repeat before the whole assembly the proofs which he had before given in the synagogue, where no one could resist the spirit and the wisdom with which he spake? In this way Spitta maintains that the charges in Act 7:52-53 occupy their proper place; the Jews had rejected the prophets Moses and his successors finally they rejected the Messiah, whom the prophets had foretold ( Apostelgeschichte , p. 105 ff.). Whatever strictures we may be inclined to pass upon Spitta (see, e.g. , Wendt in new edition, 1899, pp. 150, 151), it is not unlikely that he has at all events grasped what others have failed to see, viz. , that in the nature of the case, Stephen in his , or counter-accusation whichever it was could not have been unmindful of the Prophet like unto Moses, whom Moses had foretold: his dying prayer revealed the Name, not uttered in the speech, which was enshrined in his inmost heart; Jesus was the Christ He came , whether that fulfilment was made by a spiritual temple or a spiritual law. In thus keeping the thought of Jesus of Nazareth prominent throughout the speech, whilst not actually uttering His Name, in thus comparing Moses and Christ, Stephen was answering the charges made against him. “This Nazarene” (so it was said in the charge made against Stephen) “would destroy this place and change the customs,” etc. the prophet Moses had given the people living oracles, not a law which should stifle the spirit in the letter; the prophet Isaiah had spoken of a presence of God far transcending that which filled any earthly temple; and if these prophets had pointed on to the Messiah, and if the Nazarene were indeed the Christ thus foretold, what wonder that He should reveal a commandment unto life, and a worship of the Father in spirit and in truth? Nor must it be forgotten that if Stephen was interrupted before his speech was concluded, he may well have intended to drive home more closely the manifest fulfilment in Christ of the deliverance dimly foreshadowed in the work of Moses and in the freedom from Egyptian bondage. This was the true parallel between Moses and the Messiah on which the Rabbis were wont to dwell. Thus the Messiah, in comparison with Moses, was the second, but in comparison with all others the great, deliverer; as Moses led Israel out of Egypt, so would the Messiah accomplish the final deliverance, and restore Israel to their own land (Weber, Jdische Theologie , pp. 359, 364 (1897)). It is to be observed that Spitta warmly supports the historical character of the speech, which he ascribes without interpolations to his source A, although in Act 7:55-60 he refers some “insertions” to B. His criticism as against the tendency critics, especially Overbeck, is well worth consulting (pp. 110 123), and he quotes with approval the judgment of Gfrrer “I consider this speech unreservedly as the oldest monument of Gospel history”. So too Clemen, pp. 97, 288, allows that the speech is essentially derived, with the exception of Act 7:37 , as also the whole chapter with the exception of Act 7:60 , from an old written source, H.H., Historia Hellenistarum; and amongst more recent writers, McGiffert holds that whilst many maintain that the author of the Acts composed the speech and put it into the mouth of Stephen, its contents are against such a supposition, and that Luke undoubtedly got the substance of the discourse from an early source, and reproduced it with approximate accuracy (p. 89 and note). So Weiss refers the speech to his Jewish-Christian source, and refuses to admit that with its profound knowledge of the O.T. it could have been composed by the author of the book. The attempt of Feine (so also Holtzmann and Jngst) to split up the speech into two distinct parts is based upon the idea that in one part an answer is made to the charge that Stephen had spoken against God, and that the other part contains an answer to the charge that he had spoken against the temple. The first part is contained in Act 7:2-21 ; Act 7:29-34 ; Act 7:44-50 , and the second part in Act 7:22-28 ; Act 7:35-43 ; Act 7:51-53 . The latter sections are taken from Feine’s Jerusalem source; they are then added to those which belong to a new source, and finally combined by the canonical Luke. Hilgenfeld may well ask how it is possible to break up in this manner the narrative part of the speech relating to Moses, so as to regard Act 7:22-28 as a section atien from what precedes and what follows! (see especially Hilgenfeld’s criticism on Feine, Zeitschrift fr wissenschaft. Theol. , p. 396 (1895) and Knabenbauer, p. 120); on the truthful record of the speech see Lightfoot’s striking remarks “Acts,” B.D. 2 , i., p. 33. Whatever may be said as to the various difficulties which the speech contains, two things are apparent: (1) that these difficulties do not touch the main drift of the argument; (2) that the fact of their presence, where their removal was easy, bears witness to the accuracy of the report.

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

kneeled down. Literally “placed the knees”, an expression used in Luke (Act 22:41) and Acts (here, Act 9:40; Act 20:36; Act 21:5), and once in Mark (Act 15:19). In the Epistles we read “bow the knee”. Eph 3:14.

sin. Greek. hamartia. App-128

to their charge = to them

fell asleep. Greek. koimaomai. App-171.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

60.] The more accurate philological Commentators, De Wette and Meyer, deny that here can, as ordinarily explained, refer to weighing (reff. Matt.; Jeremiah 39 (32) 10), since not the sin, but the punishment, would be the thing weighed out,-and it would be harsh to take the one for the other, in a sentence of this kind. Meyer would understand as opposed to , , Fix not this sin upon them: but De Wette, as seems to me more probably, renders it Reckon not this sin to them (lay not this sin to their charge, E. V.), supporting this by Rom 10:3.

This again was somewhat similar (though not exactly, see note there) to our Lords prayer, Luk 23:34.

] Not a Christian expression only: Wetstein, on Mat 27:52, cites Jewish examples: and we have in the Anthology, iii. 1. 10, | . But it became the usual Christian term for death. Its use here, when the circumstances, and the actors in them, are remembered, is singularly touching, from the contrast.

Fuente: The Greek Testament

sin

Sin. (See Scofield “Rom 3:23”).

Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes

he kneeled: Act 9:40, Act 20:36, Act 21:5, Ezr 9:5, Dan 6:10, Luk 22:41

Lord: Mat 5:44, Luk 6:28, Luk 23:34, Rom 12:14-21

he fell: Act 13:36, 1Co 11:30, 1Co 15:6, 1Co 15:18, 1Co 15:20, 1Co 15:51, 1Th 4:13, 1Th 4:14, 1Th 5:10

Reciprocal: Num 12:13 – General 1Ki 13:6 – besought Neh 9:4 – cried Job 42:10 – when Psa 37:37 – General Psa 95:6 – kneel Pro 29:10 – but Jer 6:10 – their ear Jer 26:15 – ye shall Mat 9:6 – that the Mar 1:40 – kneeling Luk 6:27 – Love Joh 11:11 – sleepeth Joh 14:3 – I will Joh 20:28 – My Lord Rom 1:7 – and the Lord 1Co 1:2 – with 1Co 4:12 – being reviled Eph 3:14 – I 1Ti 2:8 – without 2Ti 4:16 – I pray Jam 2:26 – as

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

0

Act 7:60. Before his body collapsed, Stephen kneeled in prayer to God. Cried with a loud voice. The first word is from KRAZO which Thayer defines at this place, “to call out aloud, speak with a loud voice.” It was not the involuntary outburst of a body because of pain, but an intelligent utterance so expressed that all in the crowd could hear. Charge is from HISTEMI and Thayer defines it, “to cause to stand.” It does not mean that these men were to be declared innocent, for that would be endorsing sin. The prayer meant for God not to hold it against them. Jesus prayed for his Father to forgive his murderers, but that did not mean it should be done before they repented, which they did on Pentecost. Likewise, the prayer of Stephen means for God to forgive these murderers whenever they repented. Fell asleep is a figurative way of saying that Stephen died. (See notes on literal and figurative language at Mat 9:24.) Stephen’s death is the first one on record that was imposed in persecution for faith in Jesus. There will be others committed to which reference will be made later.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

Act 7:60. And he kneeled down. Some would explain these words as though this kneeling posture was caused by the stones falling thickly around and upon him; so the writer in the well-known Diet, of the Bible (Dr. Smiths): As the first volley of stones burst upon him, he called upon the Master. . . . Another crash of stones brought him upon his knees. But it is more natural to assume that, after Stephen was thrown down from the scaffold (as described above), still living and conscious, he raised himself to his knees, that his last act might be a protest alike for his adoration of his Master and his forgiveness of his enemies; and so kneeling, he breathed out his beautiful prayer.

And … he fell asleep. Heathen writers have used this word sometimes in this sense (as, for instance, Callimachus, Epigram 10), but the derivative, , cemetery, that is, a sleeping-place where the bodies were laid only to sleep till the resurrection should awaken them, is peculiarly a Christian term, and its introduction and general use is owing to the new ideas which the teaching of Jesus has persuaded men to associate with the grave (comp. 1Th 4:13).

Wordsworth has a singular but beautiful note on the word , he fell asleep, with which the narrative, of which Stephen is the hero, is brought to a close: There is something musical in the cadence of this word, and also of the word which closes the Acts, , unhindered, rendered in the English, no man forbidding him. The word commences with a short syllable followed by three long ones, happily adapted to express rest after labour, as may be seen in the lines of Catullus describing his return home:

Cum mens onus reponit, ac peregrino

Lahore fessi venimus larem ad nostrun

Desideratoque acquiescimus lecto.

This cadence is expressive … of motion succeeded by rest, of action consummated and settled in repose … an emblem of the Church of Christ, and of the life of every true believer in Him.

The question has often been raised, How came it that the Roman permission for this execution was not sought and obtained before the deed was done? The stoning of Stephen was hastily carried out, but it does not seem to have been by any means a mere tumultuary proceeding. The Nazarene heretic had been formally tried by the great council of the Sanhedrim, condemned, and then put to death, strictly in accordance with the principles of the Jewish law. On the other hand, it would appear from St. Joh 18:31, when the Redeemer was being tried, that the Jews had no power legally to put any man to death. The answer to this is supplied by the history of this particular period. The Procurator Pontius Pilate had just been or was on the point of being relieved of his office; his official superior, Lucius Vitellius, the governor (Legatus) of Syria, had resolved upon adopting a more conciliatory policy towards the Jewish nation. Pilate, whose stem rule in Judea had procured him many bitter enemies, was sacrificed to the new policy. The execution of Stephen and the bloody persecution of the followers of Jesus, which immediately followed it, seem to have taken place just when the Roman rule was relaxed in Jerusalem; and such high-handed proceedings on the part of the Jews as are related in this and the early part of the next chapterthe death of Stephen and the general persecution which followedwere connived at by the legate of Syria and his subordinate officers in Judea (see Renan, Les Apotres, chap. viii.).

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

We had St. Stephen’s prayer in the foregoing verse for himself: here in this verse he prays for his murderers.

Here note, 1. His pious charity in forgiving his enemies, and praying for them, that God would forgive them also; Lord, lay not this sin to their charge; How doth this holy martyr imitate his dying Saviour? Father, forgive them Luk 23:34.

Note, 2. His regular charity: his charity began at home; he prays first for himself, then for his murderers; first, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit; next, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.

Where remark, That Christ prayed first for his enemies, then for himself, Father forgive them: Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit Luk 23:35-36; but St. Stephen intercedes first for himself. The reason of the difference is this, Christ needed no prayer for himself, but Stephen did: We are to love our enemies as ourselves; but Christ loved his enemies above himself, and better than himself. Christ’s love to his enemies was the copy and pattern, St. Stephen’s but the transcript.

Note, 3. His holy fervency in prayer: he cried out with a loud voice, endeavouring by the cry of his prayers to drown the noise of the stones which rattled about his ears, and to divert that shower of vengeance form them, which their shower of stones upon him deservedly called for from heaven.

Note, 4. The holy martyr prayed for himself standing, but for his enemies kneeling. Act 7:59. He stood when he said, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit; but Act 7:60 when he said, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge, he kneeled down and cried. He was more importunate for his enemies, than he was for himself. How near did St. Stephen, the first martyr, come to his blessed Master Jesus Christ, in praying for his enemies?

Note, 5. The success and benefit of his prayer: God heard and answered Stephen’s prayer in Paul’s conversion, recorded in the ninth chapter. Si Stephanus no orasset, Ecclesia Paulum non habuisset, saith one of the ancients; “Saul’s conversion was owing to St. Stephen’s intercession.”

Note, 6. The holy man’s exit and happy conclusion. He fell asleep.

Where note, 1. The thing recorded of him is his death.

2. The metaphor which his death is set out by, and clothed with, and that is sleep.

3. The circumstance of time when he fell asleep, namely, after he had served Christ, and suffered for him.

Learn thence, That is is a blessed thing when death calls us off the stage of this world, after a life of service and suffering: When he had so said, he fell asleep.

Happy is that Christian who falls asleep with his Lord’s work in his hand.

Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament

See notes on verse 54

Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)

60. And putting down his knees he cried with a great voice, O Lord, charge not this sin to them. Here we see that Stephen knelt among the stony shower and prayed for the preachers and church officers who killed him, thus illustrating the normal posture of prayer, i. e., on the knees. Heathens, Mohammedans and Roman Catholics all kneel It is awfully chilling and discouraging to see great Protestant congregations sitting up during prayers. I know nothing about such religion; the first touch of conviction I received from God brought me to my knees, and I have stayed there. They are the hardest part of my body. I realize no inconvenience in remaining on my knees while the hours glide away. The proud Protestant congregations should be rebuked by the poor Pagans, Moslems, and Romanists, all kneeling [though I fear in most cases actually worshipping devils], while they sit up during prayers. If the crowd is too dense to kneel, you certainly can get down some way and join in the prayer to God. Standing is a much more adoratory posture than sitting, and should be adopted when kneeling is impracticable. No wonder the Holy Ghost has forsaken the churches, when they throw into His face the wholesale insult of keeping their seats, gazing about and looking up like ducks at the rain during prayer. Kneeling or prostration is the Bible posture of worship. Here we see the spirit of true saintship manifested by Stephen, not only in forgiving, but praying for them with his dying breath. And saying this, he fell asleep. Our Savior said of Lazarus: He is not dead, but sleepeth, and I go to awaken him. From these Scriptures we find that the inspired phraseology as applied to Gods saints is not death, but sleep, clearly and conclusively revelatory of the fact that even the bodies of Gods children shall never die. Hence we should not talk about dying, but going to sleep in Jesus in case that He tarrieth. The Bible clearly reveals the significant fact that the body is as immortal as the soul, and will never die. If He tarrieth, my body, which, even now at the age of sixty-five, needs nearly twice the sleep requisite for nervous vigor twenty years ago [this the normal effect of mental and spiritual labor], will ere long become so sleepy that it will lie down in the grave and sleep so soundly that nothing but the archangels trumpet and the resurrection earthquakes can awaken it. Even bears, reptiles and many other animals go to sleep when winter comes on, and wake no more till spring, thus symbolizing the sleep of the body throughout the winter of death and the glorious waking on the resurrection morn. Hence it is impertinent to record the death of Gods saints. Under the glorious light of the gospel dispensation it is proper to say, as in case of Stephen, they fell asleep. If He tarrieth, soon the holiness papers will report that the author of these pages is dead. Reader, please correct the mistake. Even now I have in my soul the resurrection power, destined to reach this frail body, investing it with immortality. Hence if He tarrieth, I will soon like Stephen fall asleep in Jesus, enjoying a short though delectable nap on the bosom of Mother Earth, awaiting the resurrection trump which will awaken me from my slumber.

Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament

7:60 {11} And he kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, Lord, {c} lay not this sin to their charge. And when he had said this, he {d} fell asleep.

(11) Faith and charity never forsake the true servants of God, even to the last breath.

(c) The word which he uses here refers to a type of imputing or laying to one’s charge that remains firm and steady forever, never to be remitted.

(d) See 1Th 4:13 .

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes