7So the word of God spread. The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly, and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith.
7 Luke concludes his first panel of material on the earliest days of the church in Jerusalem with this summary statement, which is very much in line with his thesis paragraph of 2:42–47 and his summary paragraphs of 4:32–35 and 5:12–16 that head their respective units of material. His focus in this first panel has been on the advances of the gospel and the responses of the people. Therefore he concludes by saying that “the word of God spread” and “the number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly.”
Before he leaves this first panel, however, Luke inserts the comment—almost as something of an afterthought—that “a large number of priests became obedient to the faith.” At first glance this statement is perplexing, to say the least, particularly in view of how Luke has depicted the Jewish priests in 4:1–22 and 5:17–40. It seems extremely difficult to believe that many Jewish priests of the various high priestly families would have become Christians. Nevertheless, as J. Jeremias, 198–213, pointed out in great detail, there were perhaps as many as eight thousand “ordinary” priests and ten thousand Levites, who were divided into twenty-four weekly courses and who served at the Jerusalem temple during the span of a year—whose social position was distinctly inferior to that of the high priestly families and whose piety could well have inclined them to an acceptance of the Christian message. In addition, the Qumran covenanters thought of themselves as the true sons of Zadok, as the Zadokite Fragments (Damascus Covenant) from Caves 4 and 6 testify. And many of the common people in Israel undoubtedly respected, even if they could not support, the claim of these Essene covenanters to the priesthood.
Perhaps Luke himself was not aware of the distinctions in Palestine between high priestly families, ordinary priests, and Essene-type priests. What he evidently learned from his sources was that a great number of persons calling themselves priests became believers in Jesus and were numbered with the Christians in the Jerusalem church. He seems to have included that bit of information as something of an appendix to his portrayal of the church’s earliest days in the city. He might also have found it a matter either difficult to believe or difficult to elaborate in view of what he had said earlier about the priests of Jerusalem. If he had known about the ordinary priests of the temple and the Essene-type priests at Qumran, however, the response of the priests that he reports in the final words of this panel might not have seemed so amazing and he might have said more.
NOTES
7 Many witnesses, evidently based on Codex Sinaiticus (א), read τῶν ᾿Ιουδαίων (tōn Ioudaiōn, “of the Jews”) for τῶν ἱερέων (tōn hiereōn, “of the priests”), thereby alleviating the problem. But “of the priests” (τῶν ἱερέων, tōn hiereōn) is better supported by P74 A B C D et al.
PANEL 2—CRITICAL EVENTS IN THE LIVES OF THREE PIVOTAL FIGURES (6:8–9:31)
In Acts 6:8–9:31, Luke narrates three key events in the advance of the gospel beyond its strictly Jewish confines: (1) the martyrdom of Stephen, (2) the early ministries of Philip, and (3) the conversion of Saul of Tarsus. Luke’s presentation is largely biographical, with the first word of each of the three accounts being the name of its central figure: Stephanos in 6:8; Philippos in 8:5 (after an editorial introduction at 8:4, which contains Luke’s favorite connective men oun, “so” or “then”); and Saulos in 9:1. This is the type of material that would undoubtedly have circulated among the dispossessed Hellenistic Jewish Christians, what with its heavy emphasis on “who said what to whom” and its detailed account of Stephen’s argument before the Sanhedrin. It is also the kind of material that one picks up by talking with one or more of the participants. It is not difficult to imagine that, in addition to source materials that may have circulated widely among Hellenistic Jewish believers regarding Stephen’s martyrdom, Philip’s ministries, and Saul’s conversion, Luke may also have heard Philip and Paul talk about these matters, either during Paul’s stay for “a number of days” at Philip’s home in Caesarea (cf. 21:8–10a) or during Paul’s imprisonment at Caesarea (cf. 25:27).
No doubt Stephen’s martyrdom was indelibly imprinted on the memories of both Philip and Saul of Tarsus, and accounts of his defense and martyrdom, whether written or oral, had probably become the raison d’être for the Hellenists’ continued ministry. Likewise, Philip must have made a lasting impression on Luke as an important figure in the advance of the Christian mission, just as he was an important person in the Christian community at Caesarea (cf. 8:40; 21:8–9). And certainly the apostle Paul was of such immense significance for Luke’s narrative that an account of his conversion would have been inevitable, particularly because of its miraculous circumstances.
When the events of Luke’s second panel took place depends largely on the dates for Paul’s conversion and ministry. Since Stephen’s death occurred before the conversion of Saul of Tarsus (cf. 7:58–8:1), and since Luke presents Philip’s ministries in Samaria and to the Ethiopian eunuch as following on the heels of the persecution that arose with Stephen’s martyrdom, the accounts of these two Hellenistic Jewish Christian spokesmen are historically tied to the conversion of Saul. For the chronological issues associated with Paul, see comments at Acts 9:1–30. As for the events portrayed in the second panel, suffice it to say that Luke presents them as having taken place sometime in the mid-30s, possibly as early as AD 33 and as late as AD 37.
OVERVIEW
Interpreters have varied considerably regarding the significance of Stephen in the history of early Christianity. Most have attempted to understand him as in some manner the forerunner to Paul, proclaiming an elemental form of a law-free and universal gospel. Some, however, have taken him to be a proto-Marcionite (so F. C. Baur), others an early Ebionite (so Hans J. Schoeps), others a nationalistic Zealot (so S. G. F. Brandon), and a few as a thoroughly Jewish member of the Jerusalem church who represented the entire church’s stance in opposition to Judaism (so J. Munck). Between these divergent positions there is no lack of varying opinion.
Marcion of Sinope, a village in the region of Pontus in northeastern Asia Minor, published sometime about AD 140 a truncated canon of the NT (his Apostolicon or “Apostolic Writings”) that contained only ten letters of Paul (minus the Pastorals) and the gospel according to Luke, though with deletions and alterations to suit his own understanding of Christianity. He rejected everything Jewish and Jewish Christian as being opposed to the Christian gospel. “Ebionites” refers to Jewish Christians who thought of Jesus as the Messiah but not as divine. It literally means “the poor” and connotes piety and humility before God. “Zealots” in a Jewish context signifies those committed to an intense nationalism, which was often militant.
8Now Stephen, a man full of God’s grace and power, did great wonders and miraculous signs among the people. 9Opposition arose, however, from members of the Synagogue of the Freedmen (as it was called)—Jews of Cyrene and Alexandria as well as the provinces of Cilicia and Asia. These men began to argue with Stephen, 10but they could not stand up against his wisdom or the Spirit by whom he spoke.
11Then they secretly persuaded some men to say, “We have heard Stephen speak words of blasphemy against Moses and against God.”
12So they stirred up the people and the elders and the teachers of the law. They seized Stephen and brought him before the Sanhedrin. 13They produced false witnesses, who testified, “This fellow never stops speaking against this holy place and against the law. 14For we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs Moses handed down to us.”
15All who were sitting in the Sanhedrin looked intently at Stephen, and they saw that his face was like the face of an angel.
7:1Then the high priest asked him, “Are these charges true?”
COMMENTARY
8 Stephen has earlier been described as “full of the Spirit and wisdom” (6:3) and “full of faith and of the Holy Spirit” (6:5). Now Luke says he was “full of God’s grace and power.” The three descriptions are complementary, though Luke may have drawn the precise wording from different sources. The word “grace” (charis, GK 5921) was previously used by Luke to characterize both Jesus (Lk 4:22) and the early church (Ac 4:33). It connotes “spiritual charm” or “winsomeness.” “Power” (dynamis, GK 1539) has already appeared in Acts in conjunction with “wonders and signs” (2:22) and “grace” (4:33), and so should be understood to connote divine power expressed in mighty works.
Like Jesus and the apostles (cf. 2:22, 43; 5:12), Stephen is portrayed as having done “great wonders and miraculous signs among the people.” Just what these were, Luke does not say, though undoubtedly we are to think of them as being of the same nature as those done by Jesus and the apostles. Nor does Luke tell us when these manifestations of divine power began in Stephen’s ministry. Many have insisted that they were a direct result of the laying on of the apostles’ hands (cf. 6:6), though it is possible that such acts characterized Stephen’s ministry even before that.
9–10 Stephen soon began preaching among his Hellenistic Jewish compatriots. Many commentators have seen this as a major problem in the narrative, for Stephen was appointed to supervise relief for the poor, not to perform the apostolic function of preaching. Some, therefore, have viewed this as a Lukan discrepancy (so S. G. F. Brandon), whereas others have claimed that Stephen was not really preaching but only uttering the name of Jesus and providing a Christian rationale for his divinely empowered acts (so T. Zahn). Most commentators, however, are prepared to accept the fact of Stephen’s preaching (just as Philip, another of the Seven, also preached later on), yet they remain uneasy with Luke’s portrayal because of its conflict with the division of labor that is spelled out in 6:3–4 (so E. Haenchen).
But if we posit (1) the continuation to some extent of old tensions between Hebraic Jewish believers and Hellenistic Jewish believers in the Jerusalem church, and (2) separate meetings, at least occasionally, for Aramaic-speaking and Greek-speaking believers (see comments at 6:1), several difficulties in the historical reconstruction of this period are partially explained. While not minimizing the importance of the apostles to the whole church, in some way Stephen, Philip, and perhaps others of the appointed Seven may well have been to the Hellenistic Jewish believers what the apostles were to the native-born Hebraic believers in Jesus. Philip seems to have performed such a function later on at Caesarea. And in the early church, where “ministry was a function long before it became an office,” such preaching was evidently looked on with approval.
Opposition to Stephen arose from certain members within the Hellenistic Jewish community. Opinion differs widely as to just how many Hellenistic synagogues are in view in v.9. Many have insisted that there are five: those of the (1) Libertinoi or Freedmen, (2) Cyreneans, (3) Alexandrians, (4) Cilicians, and (5) Asians (so Bernhard Weiss, Emil Schürer). Others have argued that the twofold use of the article tōn (“the”) groups these five into two: (1) the synagogue of the Freedmen, which was made up of Jews from Cyrene and Alexandria; and (2) another synagogue composed of Jews from Cilicia and Asia (so H. H. Wendt, T. Zahn). Still others, emphasizing the singular form of “synagogue” (synagōgēs, GK 5252) in the passage and the epexegetical nature of the last four designations, posit only one synagogue as being in mind: a synagogue of the Freedmen, which was composed of Jews from Cyrene, Alexandria, Cilicia, and Asia (so K. Lake, H. Cadbury, J. Jeremias, F. F. Bruce, E. Haenchen). The NIV and NASB read the passage in this latter way, and this is probably how it ought to be understood. The name Libertinoi (“Freedmen”) is a Latin loanword that refers to Jewish freedmen (i.e., former slaves who had been set free) and their families; the adjective legomenēs (“so-called”; NIV, “as it was called”) probably was included as an apology to Greek sensibilities for the inclusion of a foreign word.
We have no account of the content of Stephen’s preaching that so antagonized his Hellenistic Jewish compatriots. Luke labels the accusations against him (vv.11–14) as false—though to judge by Stephen’s response in ch. 7, they seem to have been false more in nuance and degree than in kind. From both the accusations and his defense, it is clear that Stephen had begun to apply his Christian convictions regarding the centrality of Jesus of Nazareth in God’s redemptive program to such issues as the significance of the land, the law, and the temple for Jewish Christians in view of the advent of the Messiah. This, however, was a dangerous path to tread, particularly for Hellenistic Jewish Christians! It was one that the apostles themselves seem to have been unwilling to explore. And it was a path that those who had lately returned to Jerusalem from various regions of the Jewish Diaspora would undoubtedly have viewed not only with reticence but also with disgust.
Having originally immigrated to the homeland out of a desire to be more faithful Jews, and having come under suspicion of an inbred liberalism by the native-born populace, the Hellenistic Jewish community in Jerusalem had a vested interest in keeping deviations among its members to a minimum—or to expose them as being outside its own commitments, lest its synagogues fall under further suspicion. The Hellenistic members of the Synagogue of the Freedmen, therefore, were probably quite eager to bait Stephen in order to root out such a threat from their midst. And Stephen, it seems, welcomed the challenge. But as Luke tells us, “they could not stand up against his wisdom or the Spirit by whom he spoke” (v.10). This fulfills Jesus’ promise of the gift of “words and wisdom” in the time of persecution (cf. Lk 21:15).
11–14 The subject “they” of the verbs of these sentences refers to those members of the Synagogue of the Freedman represented in v.9 by the masculine plural indefinite pronoun tines (“some”; NIV, “members”; NASB, “some men”). Four things are said about them: (1) “they secretly persuaded some men to say” that Stephen had spoken blasphemy; (2) “they stirred up the people and the elders and the teachers of the law” on their trumped-up charge against Stephen; (3) “they seized Stephen and brought him before the Sanhedrin”; and (4) “they produced false witnesses” at his trial. Their charge against Stephen was that he had blasphemed “against Moses and against God,” i.e., (1) “against Moses” because his arguments seemed to challenge the eternal validity of the Mosaic law, and (2) “against God” because he appeared to be setting aside what was taken to be the foundation and focus of the nation’s worship, the Jerusalem temple.
These accusations of blasphemy against the Mosaic law and the Jerusalem temple struck at the heart of both Pharisaic and Sadducean interests. Later rabbinic law held that “the blasphemer is not culpable [and thus not subject to the penalty of death] unless he pronounces the Name itself” (m. Sanh. 7:5, based on Lev 24:10–23). But in the first century AD, the definition of blasphemy was more broadly interpreted along the lines of Numbers 15:30: “Anyone who sins defiantly, whether native-born or alien, blasphemes the Lord, and that person must be cut off from his people” (cf. Gustaf H. Dalman, The Words of Jesus [Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1909], 314).
The testimony of witnesses who repeated what they had heard a defendant say was part of Jewish court procedure in a trial for blasphemy (cf. m. Sanh. 7:59). But this testimony against Stephen, Luke tells us, was false. “We have heard him say,” they claimed, “that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs Moses handed down to us” (v.14). Like the similar charge against Jesus (Mt 26:61; Mk 14:58; cf. Jn 2:19–22), its falseness lay not so much in its wholesale fabrication but in its subtle and deadly misrepresentation of what was intended. Undoubtedly Stephen spoke about a recasting of Jewish life in terms of the supremacy of Jesus the Messiah. And it cannot be doubted that Stephen expressed in his manner and message something of the subsidiary significance of the Jerusalem temple and the Mosaic law, as did Jesus before him (cf., e.g., Mk 2:23–28; 3:1–6; 7:14–15; 10:5–9). But this is not the same as advocating the destruction of the temple or the changing of the law (though on these matters we must allow Stephen to speak for himself in Ac 7).
6:15–7:1 The members of the council “looked intently” at Stephen as he was brought before them and saw one whose appearance was “like the face of an angel.” In Judaism very devout men were often spoken of as resembling angels. Here, however, Luke probably only wants his readers to understand that Stephen, being filled with the Holy Spirit (cf. 6:3, 5) and possessing a genuine spiritual winsomeness (cf. 6:8), radiated a presence marked by confidence, serenity, and courage. And with the question of the high priest, “Are these charges true?” the stage is set for Stephen’s defense.
NOTES
8 On the compound τέρατα καὶ σημεῖα (terata kai sēmeia, “wonders and signs”), see comments at 2:22; note at 5:12. On Luke’s use of ὁ λαός (ho laos, “the people”), see comments at 2:47a.
The Western text (D, and as reflected in the Coptic Sahidic version and Augustine) adds at the end of the verse διὰ τοῦ ὀνόματος τοῦ κυρίου ᾿Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ (dia tou onomatos tou kyriou Iēsou Christou, “through the name of the Lord Jesus Christ”), which is probably an interpolation carried over from 4:30.
9 Codices Alexandrinus (A) and Bezae (D) omit καὶ ᾿Ασίας (kai Asias, “and Asia”). This is probably a case of homoioteleuton (i.e., when the eye of a copyist passes from one word to another with the same ending), here accidentally skipping from the immediately preceding similar ending of Κιλικίας (Kilikias, “Cilicia”).
10 The Western text (D, E, Vulgate, and various Syriac and Coptic recensions) expands this verse, in slightly different forms, to read, “But they could not stand up against the wisdom that was in him and the Holy Spirit by whom he spoke, for they were confuted before him with all boldness of speech. Being unable, therefore, to face up to the truth …”
13 The TR reads ῥήματα βλάσφημα λαλῶν (rhēmata blasphēma lalōn, “speaking blasphemous words”) for the better-supported λαλῶν ῥήματα (lalōn rhēmata, “speaking words”; NIV, “speaking”; NASB, “speaks”), which wording, though expressing the sense of the sentence, is probably carried over from 6:11.
14 The demonstrative pronoun οὗτος (houtos, “this”) in “this Jesus of Nazareth” likely carries a note of contempt.
15 Luke often uses the verb ἀτενίζω (atenizō, “look intently,” GK 867) to heighten the dramatic effect of the narrative (cf. also Lk 4:20; 22:56; Ac 1:10; 3:4, 12; 7:55; 10:4; 11:6; 13:9; 14:9; 23:1). See comments at 1:10.
7:1 The Western text (D, E, as reflected in various Latin and Coptic recensions) adds τῶ Στεφάνῳ (tō Stephanō, “to Stephen”) after εἶπεν ὁ ἀρχιερεύς (eipen ho archiereus, “the high priest said”), which is comparable to the quite natural addition of “him” in the NIV, “the high priest asked him.”
OVERVIEW
Stephen’s defense before the Sanhedrin is hardly a defense in the sense of an explanation or apology calculated to win an acquittal. Rather, it is a proclamation of the Christian message in terms of the popular Judaism of the day and an indictment of the Jewish leaders for their failure to recognize Jesus of Nazareth as their Messiah or to appreciate the salvation God has provided in him. Before the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, the three great pillars of popular Jewish piety were (1) the land, (2) the law, and (3) the temple—or, to put it more alliteratively, territory, Torah, and temple. The Talmud shows that rabbinic Judaism was later able to exist apart from the Jerusalem temple and without any overriding stress on the land. And undoubtedly there were individual teachers even before the nation’s calamities of AD 66–70 and 132–35 who thought in somewhat similar fashion. But before such a time, the land, the law, and the temple were the cardinal postulates in the religious faith of the vast majority of Jews. It is this type of thought that Stephen confronts here, as did the writer of Hebrews. Dibelius, 167, has argued:
The irrelevance of most of [Stephen’s] speech has for long been the real problem of exegesis. It is, indeed, impossible to find a connection between the account of the history of Israel to the time of Moses (7:2–19) and the accusation against Stephen; nor is any accusation against the Jews, which would furnish the historical foundation for the attack at the end of the speech, found at all in this section. Even in that section of the speech which deals with Moses, the speaker does not defend himself; nor does he make any positive countercharge against his enemies, for the words hoi de ou synēkan in 7:25 do not constitute such an attack any more than does the report of the gainsaying of Moses by a Jew in 7:27. It is not until 7:35 that we sense any polemic interest. From 7:2–34 the point of the speech is not obvious at all; we are simply given an account of the history of Israel.
Dibelius adds such statements as the following: “The major part of the speech (7:2–34) shows no purpose whatever, but contains a unique, compressed reproduction of the story of the patriarchs and Moses” (p. 168); “The most striking feature of this speech is the irrelevance of its main section” (p. 169). Just how wrong Dibelius was, however, will become evident as we proceed.
OVERVIEW
Declarations of faith within a Jewish milieu were often based on a recital of God’s intervention in the life of Israel, for God is the God who is known by his redemptive activity on behalf of his people in history. So by beginning his defense with a résumé of Israel’s history, Stephen is speaking in accord with Jewish form. But while Jewish in form, the content of his address runs counter to much of the popular piety of the day. For Stephen argues that (1) God’s significant activity has usually taken place outside the confines of Palestine; (2) wherever God meets his people can be called “holy ground”; (3) God is the God who calls his own to move forward in their religious experience; and therefore (4) dwelling in the land of promise requires a pilgrim lifestyle in which the land may be appreciated but never venerated.
The important concepts of “rest” and “remnant” in the OT are often associated closely with the land. Deuteronomy 12:9–10, for example, reads: “You have not yet reached the resting place and the inheritance the Lord your God is giving you. But you will cross the Jordan and settle in the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, and he will give you rest from all your enemies around you so that you will live in safety” (see also Dt 3:20; Jos 1:13; Joel 2:32b; Mic 4:6–7). And the linking of God’s righteous remnant with the Holy Land is common in the literature of Second Temple Judaism (cf. 2 Esd 9:7–8; 12:31–34; 13:48; 2 Bar. 40:2). Facing much the same problem—and with much the same purpose as the writer of Hebrews (cf. Heb 4:1–13; 11:8–16), though with a difference of method and structure in his argument—Stephen argues against a veneration of the Holy Land that would leave no room for God’s further saving activity in Jesus of Nazareth, Israel’s Messiah. Stephen does not renounce Israel’s possession of the land; nor does he set aside or deny God’s promise that Abraham’s descendants would inherit Palestine. Rather, he is delivering a polemic against such a veneration of the land as would miss God’s further redemptive work.
2To this he replied: “Brothers and fathers, listen to me! The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham while he was still in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran. 3‘Leave your country and your people,’ God said, ‘and go to the land I will show you.’
4“So he left the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran. After the death of his father, God sent him to this land where you are now living. 5He gave him no inheritance here, not even a foot of ground. But God promised him that he and his descendants after him would possess the land, even though at that time Abraham had no child. 6God spoke to him in this way: ‘Your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years. 7But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves,’ God said, ‘and afterward they will come out of that country and worship me in this place.’ 8Then he gave Abraham the covenant of circumcision. And Abraham became the father of Isaac and circumcised him eight days after his birth. Later Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob became the father of the twelve patriarchs.
9“Because the patriarchs were jealous of Joseph, they sold him as a slave into Egypt. But God was with him 10and rescued him from all his troubles. He gave Joseph wisdom and enabled him to gain the goodwill of Pharaoh king of Egypt; so he made him ruler over Egypt and all his palace.
11“Then a famine struck all Egypt and Canaan, bringing great suffering, and our fathers could not find food. 12When Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent our fathers on their first visit. 13On their second visit, Joseph told his brothers who he was, and Pharaoh learned about Joseph’s family. 14After this, Joseph sent for his father Jacob and his whole family, seventy-five in all. 15Then Jacob went down to Egypt, where he and our fathers died. 16Their bodies were brought back to Shechem and placed in the tomb that Abraham had bought from the sons of Hamor at Shechem for a certain sum of money.
17“As the time drew near for God to fulfill his promise to Abraham, the number of our people in Egypt greatly increased. 18Then another king, who knew nothing about Joseph, became ruler of Egypt. 19He dealt treacherously with our people and oppressed our forefathers by forcing them to throw out their newborn babies so that they would die.
20“At that time Moses was born, and he was no ordinary child. For three months he was cared for in his father’s house. 21When he was placed outside, Pharaoh’s daughter took him and brought him up as her own son. 22Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in speech and action.
23“When Moses was forty years old, he decided to visit his fellow Israelites. 24He saw one of them being mistreated by an Egyptian, so he went to his defense and avenged him by killing the Egyptian. 25Moses thought that his own people would realize that God was using him to rescue them, but they did not. 26The next day Moses came upon two Israelites who were fighting. He tried to reconcile them by saying, ‘Men, you are brothers; why do you want to hurt each other?’
27“But the man who was mistreating the other pushed Moses aside and said, ‘Who made you ruler and judge over us? 28Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?’ 29When Moses heard this, he fled to Midian, where he settled as a foreigner and had two sons.
30“After forty years had passed, an angel appeared to Moses in the flames of a burning bush in the desert near Mount Sinai. 31When he saw this, he was amazed at the sight. As he went over to look more closely, he heard the Lord’s voice: 32‘I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.’ Moses trembled with fear and did not dare to look.
33“Then the Lord said to him, ‘Take off your sandals; the place where you are standing is holy ground. 34I have indeed seen the oppression of my people in Egypt. I have heard their groaning and have come down to set them free. Now come, I will send you back to Egypt.’
35“This is the same Moses whom they had rejected with the words, ‘Who made you ruler and judge?’ He was sent to be their ruler and deliverer by God himself, through the angel who appeared to him in the bush. 36He led them out of Egypt and did wonders and miraculous signs in Egypt, at the Red Sea and for forty years in the desert.”
COMMENTARY
2–8 Stephen begins by addressing the council in a somewhat formal yet fraternal manner: “men, brothers and fathers” (andres adelphoi kai pateres; NIV, “brothers and fathers”; NASB, “brethren and fathers”; cf. 22:1). Then he launches into his message, taking up first the story of Abraham. “The God of glory,” Stephen says, “appeared to our father Abraham while he was still in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran” (italics mine, so attempting to highlight Stephen’s emphasis). God’s word to Abraham was to move forward into the possession of a land that was promised to him and his descendants. But though he entered into his promised inheritance, he did not live in it as though living in it was the consummation of God’s purposes for him. Rather, he cherished as most important the covenantal and personal relationship that God had established with him, whatever his place of residence—a relationship of which circumcision was the God-given sign.
There are a number of difficulties as to chronological sequence, historical numbers, and the use of biblical quotations in Stephen’s address, which difficulties have led to the most strenuous exercise of ingenuity on the part of commentators in their attempts to reconcile them. Four of these difficulties appear in vv.2–6. The first is in v.3, which quotes the words of God to Abraham given in Genesis 12:1 and implies by its juxtaposition with v.2 that this message came to Abraham “while he was still in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran,” whereas the context of Genesis 12:1 suggests that it came to him in Haran. The second is to be found in v.4, where it is said that Abraham left Haran after the death of his father, whereas the chronological data of Genesis 11:26–12:4 suggests that Terah’s death took place after Abraham’s departure from Haran. The third is in v.5, which uses the words of Deuteronomy 2:5 as a suitable description of Abraham’s situation in Palestine, whereas their OT context relates to God’s prohibition to Israel not to dwell in Mount Seir because it had been given to Esau. And the fourth is in v.6, which speaks of four hundred years of slavery in Egypt, whereas Exodus 12:40 reads “430 years.”
We need not get overly disturbed about such difficulties. Some pounce on them to disprove a “high view” of biblical inspiration, while others attempt to harmonize them. But these matters relate to the conflations and inexactitude of popular religious piety, not necessarily to any then-extant scholastic tradition or variant texts. In large measure they can be paralleled in other popular writings of the day, whether overtly Hellenistic Jewish or simply more nonconformist in the broadest sense of that term. Philo, for example, also explained Abraham’s departure from Ur of the Chaldees by reference to Genesis 12:1 (cf. Abraham 62–67), even though he knew that Genesis 12:1–5 was set in the context of Abraham’s leaving Haran (cf. Migr. 176). Josephus (Ant. 1.154) spoke of Abraham’s being seventy-five years old when he left Chaldea (contra Ge 12:4, which says he was seventy-five when he left Haran) and of leaving Chaldea because God told him go to Canaan, with evident allusion to Genesis 12:1. Likewise, Philo (Migr. 177) placed the departure of Abraham from Haran after his father’s death. And undoubtedly the number “four hundred” for the years of Israel’s slavery in Egypt, which was a rounded figure that stemmed from the statement credited to God in Genesis 15:13, was often used in popular expressions of religious piety in the period of Second Temple Judaism—as were also the transpositions of meaningful and usable phrases from one context to another.
There is, in fact, a remarkable degree of reality in Luke’s portrayal of Stephen’s address. With his life at stake, Stephen was speaking under intense emotion—and Luke vividly presents him as both eloquently and with commonly understood language speaking about Israel’s history. Stephen’s speech was not a scholarly exposition but a powerful portrayal of God’s dealing with his own people Israel, which mounted inexorably to a climax in unmasking the obstinacy and disobedience of the nation and its leaders in Stephen’s time. History knows few greater displays of moral courage than Stephen showed in this speech. And to dissect it on precisionist grounds evidences a lack of appreciation for its circumstances or an understanding of its basic truth.
9–16 Stephen’s address next turns to the sons of Jacob, or the “twelve patriarchs” as they were popularly known (cf. 4 Macc 16:25; see also 4 Macc 7:19 and Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs). Stephen’s point here is that God was with Joseph and his brothers in Egypt (the name “Egypt” is repeated six times in vv.9–16). The only portion of the Holy Land they then possessed was the family tomb in Palestine, to which their bones were later brought for final burial.
Two further difficulties of the type noted in vv.2–6 that seem to appear somewhat regularly in Stephen’s speech are (1) the number “seventy-five” in v.14 for the total number who originally went down to Egypt, whereas Genesis 46:27 (MT) sets the figure at “seventy” (i.e., sixty-six plus Jacob, Joseph, and Joseph’s two sons); and (2) the confusion in v.16 between Abraham’s tomb at Hebron in the cave of Machpelah, which Abraham bought from Ephron the Hittite (cf. Ge 23:3–20) and wherein Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were buried (cf. Ge 49:29–33; 50:13), and the burial plot purchased by Jacob at Shechem from the sons of Hamor, wherein Joseph and his descendants were buried (cf. Jos 24:32). These are, however, just further examples of the conflations and inexactitudes of Jewish popular religion, which, it seems, Luke simply recorded from his sources in his attempt to be faithful to what Stephen actually said.
Such inexactitudes of popular expression can in large measure be paralleled elsewhere in Jewish writings. Genesis 46:27 in the Septuagint (LXX), for example, does not include Jacob and Joseph but does include nine sons of Joseph in the reckoning (“the sons of Joseph, who were born to him in the land of Egypt, were nine souls”), thereby arriving at a total of “seventy-five souls” who went down to Egypt. And this number “seventy-five” is found in both Exodus 1:5 (LXX) and 4QExoda 1:5, whereas Exodus 1:5 in the Hebrew text (MT) reads “seventy.” Likewise, the telescoping of the two burial grounds in v.16 of Stephen’s address can be compared to the similar phenomenon with regard to his speaking about Abraham’s two calls in vv.2–3. Interestingly, while the tradition in popular circles of Second Temple Judaism was rather strong that the other eleven sons of Jacob were buried at Hebron (cf. Jub. 46:8; Josephus, Ant. 2.199; Str-B, 2.672–78), Josephus seems somewhat vague as to just where Joseph’s bones were finally laid to rest—apart, of course, from his rather general statement that “they conveyed them to Canaan” (Ant. 2.200).
17–36 Still on the subject of “the land,” Stephen recounts the life of Moses. Incorporated into this section, largely by way of anticipation, is a “rejection of Moses” theme in vv.23–29 and 35—a theme that will later be highlighted in vv.39–43 and then driven home in the scathing indictment of vv.51–53. But here Stephen’s primary emphasis is on God’s providential and redemptive action for his people that occurred apart from and outside the land of Palestine, of which Stephen’s hearers made so much: (1) God’s raising up of the deliverer Moses in Egypt (vv.17–22); (2) his provision for the rejected Moses in Midian (v.29); (3) his commissioning of Moses in the desert near Mount Sinai—which was the place that God himself identified as being “holy ground,” for wherever God meets with his people is holy ground, even though it may possess no sanctity of its own (vv.30–34); and (4) Moses’ resultant action in delivering God’s people and doing “wonders and miraculous signs” (v.36) for forty years in Egypt, at the Red Sea, and in the desert.
This narration of events in Moses’ life is not given just to introduce the Second Moses theme that follows in vv.37–43, though it certainly does that. Rather, its primary purpose seems to be that of making the vital point, contrary to the popular piety of the day in its veneration of “the Holy Land,” that no place on earth—even though given as an inheritance by God himself—can be claimed to possess such sanctity or be esteemed in such a way as to preempt God’s further working on behalf of his people. By this method Stephen was attempting to clear the way, apart from the dominance of any territorial claims, for the proclamation of the centrality of Jesus in the nation’s worship, life, and thought.
NOTES
2 On the address ἄνδρες ἀδελφοί (andres adelphoi, “men, brothers”), see comments at 1:16.
4 The Western text includes several minor expansions, including (1) the addition of ᾿Αβραάμ (Abraam, “Abraam”) after τότε (tote, “then”), (2) the insertion of κἀκεῖ ἦν (kakei ēn, “and there it was”) instead of κἀκεῖθεν (kakeithen, “and from there”), (3) the addition of καί (kai, “and”) before μετῴκισεν (metōkisen, “removed/sent”), and (4) the addition at the end of the verse of καὶ οἱ πατέρες ὑμῶν (kai hoi pateres hymōn, “and your fathers”). All of these expansions, as Metzger, 300, notes, represent “the kind of superfluity that is characteristic of the Western text.”
12 Two peculiarities of Koine Greek usage may be noted here, which also appear elsewhere in Acts: (1) the use of πρῶτος (prōtos, “first”) for πρότερος (proteros, “former”; cf. 1:1), and (2) the use of εἰς (eis, “into”) for ἐν (en, “in”; cf. 8:16; 19:5). Codex Bezae (D), following the LXX, reads ἐν rather than εἰς.
21 The Western text (D, E, and as reflected in certain Syriac and Coptic recensions) adds the detail that Pharaoh’s daughter found the infant Moses “after he had been cast out into the river.”
26 Codex Bezae (D) reads ἄνδρες ἀδελφοί (andres adelphoi, “men, brothers”), rather than ἄνδρες ἀδελφοί ἐστε (andres adelphoi este, “men, you are brothers”), evidently attempting to be in harmony with the form of address at 1:16; 2:29, 37; 7:2; 13:15, 26, 38; 15:7, 13; 22:1; 23:1, 6; 28:17.
33 Codex Bezae (D) reads καὶ ἐγένετο φωνὴ πρὸς αὐτόν (kai egeneto phōnē pros auton, “and there came a voice to him”) for the better-attested and more common introductory clause εἶπεν δὲ αὐτῷ ὁ κύριος (eipen de autō ho kyrios, “then the Lord said to him”).
36 On the compound τέρατα καὶ σημεῖα (terata kai sēmeia, “wonders and signs”), see comments at 2:22; see also Notes, 5:12.
REFLECTIONS
Stephen’s message, of course, relates specifically to his particular time and situation. But it also has great relevance for us today. For we as Christians are constantly tempted to assert that our nation and our possessions are God-given rather than to confess our dependence on God, who is not limited by anything he has bestowed, and to affirm our readiness to move forward with him at all cost.
OVERVIEW
Inevitably, the Jewish exaltation of the law also involved (1) the veneration of Moses the lawgiver and (2) the idealization of Israel’s wilderness days. All the parties within Second Temple Judaism—whether Sadducees, Pharisees, Essenes, Zealots, apocalyptic speculators, Hellenists, Samaritans, or the so-called “people of the land”—were united in this veneration and idealization. So in meeting the accusation that he was speaking blasphemous words “against Moses” (6:11) and “against the law” (6:13), Stephen argues two points explicitly and a third point more inferentially: (1) that Moses himself spoke of God’s later raising up “a prophet like me” from among his people and for his people, which means that Israel cannot limit the revelation and redemption of God to Moses’ precepts (vv.37–38); (2) that Moses had been rejected by his own people, even though he was God’s appointed redeemer, which rejection parallels the way Jesus of Nazareth was treated and explains why the majority within the nation refused him, even though he was God’s promised Messiah (vv.39–40); and (3) that even though Moses was with them and they had the living words of the law and the sacrificial system, the people fell into gross idolatry and actually opposed God (vv.41–43).
37“This is that Moses who told the Israelites, ‘God will send you a prophet like me from your own people.’ 38He was in the assembly in the desert, with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our fathers; and he received living words to pass on to us.
39“But our fathers refused to obey him. Instead, they rejected him and in their hearts turned back to Egypt. 40They told Aaron, ‘Make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who led us out of Egypt—we don’t know what has happened to him!’ 41That was the time they made an idol in the form of a calf. They brought sacrifices to it and held a celebration in honor of what their hands had made. 42But God turned away and gave them over to the worship of the heavenly bodies. This agrees with what is written in the book of the prophets:
“‘Did you bring me sacrifices and offerings
forty years in the desert, O house of Israel?
43You have lifted up the shrine of Molech
and the star of your god Rephan,
the idols you made to worship.
Therefore I will send you into exile beyond Babylon.”
37–38 The twofold use of houtos estin (“this is that”), together with the articular adjectival participle ho eipas (“the one who said”), represents an intensification of the demonstrative pronouns touton (“that”) and houtos (“this”) with reference to Moses in vv.35–36. This suggests a buildup of tension in Stephen’s speech—a tension that starts from a rather placid historical narrative (vv.2–34), moves on to a strident conclusion (vv.35–36), and peaks with passion about the Moses testimonium in Deuteronomy 18:15 and the significance of Moses in that passage (vv.37–38). All of this probably reflects a pesher exegesis of Scripture that was common among nonconformist Jews during the period of Second Temple Judaism (see comments at 2:16). More important, it likely points to the crux of Stephen’s argument.
Stephen in no way disparages Moses. Indeed, when he refers to Moses as being “in the assembly in the desert, with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our fathers,” he is speaking in a complimentary way. Likewise, in Stephen’s statement that “[Moses] received living words to pass on to us,” the expression “living words” (logia zōnta, GK 3359, 2409) suggests exactly the opposite of any disparagement of the Mosaic law. Rather, Stephen’s point is that in Deuteronomy 18:15 Moses pointed beyond himself and beyond the instruction that came through him to another whom God would raise up in the future and to whom Israel must give heed, and that therefore Israel cannot limit divine revelation and redemption to the confines of the Mosaic law.
Jews in the first century AD generally looked for a Messiah who would in some way be “like Moses.” The inclusion of Deuteronomy 18:18–19 as the second testimonium passage in the five Qumran texts of 4QTestimonia (4Q175) highlights this for us. The degree to which a Mosaic understanding of messiahship was embedded in Jewish expectations is further illustrated by the many claimants to messiahship who attempted to validate their claims by reenacting the experiences of Moses (cf. TDNT 4:862). The Samaritans talked about a Moses redivivus (“restored,” “reborn”) and (as did the Dead Sea sectarians) used Deuteronomy 18:15–18 to support this notion. And though later rabbis, in what may have been a conscious reaction to Christian usage, used Deuteronomy 18:15–18 in a decidedly noneschatological and nonmessianic fashion by applying the passage to Samuel (cf. Midr. Ps. 1.3), to Jeremiah (cf. Pesiq. Rab Kah. 13.6), and to the whole line of prophets (cf. Sifre Deuteronomy [175–76]), a number of talmudic passages explicitly parallel Israel’s first redeemer Moses with Israel’s expected Messiah-Redeemer, who will be like Moses (cf. the “like the first redeemer, so the last Redeemer” theme of the Jerusalem Targum on Ex 12:42; Deut. Rab. 2.9; Ruth Rab. 5.6; Pesiq. Rab. 15.10; Pesiq. Rab Kah. 5.8). Stephen’s argument, therefore, as based on Moses’ prophecy in Deuteronomy 18:15–18, was generally in accord with Jewish eschatological expectations. Expecting it to be convincing, he evidently used it as Peter did before him (cf. 3:22–23).
39–40 While Peter and Stephen agree in seeing christological significance in Deuteronomy 18:15–18, with both considering it an important testimonium passage for a Jewish audience, their respective attitudes toward Israel are portrayed by Luke as being very different. For Peter, his hearers are the legitimate children of the prophets who should hear the new Moses (cf. 3:22–26); for Stephen, his hearers are simply those who rejected Moses and killed the prophets (cf. 7:35–40, 51–53). Stephen specifically applies this “rejection of Moses” theme to his hearers by picking up the awful words of Numbers 14:3 and applying those words to them: “their hearts turned back to Egypt” (v.39). Furthermore, he cites almost verbatim, and with evident reference to his tormentors, Israel’s ancient defiance as given in Exodus 32:1: “Make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who led us out of Egypt—we don’t know what has happened to him!” (v.40).
The Talmud also speaks of the people’s rebellion in making the golden calf and generally views it as Israel’s ultimate and most heinous sin (e.g., b. Šabb. 17a; b. Meg. 25b; b. ʿAbod. Zar. 5a; Exod. Rab. 48.2; Lev. Rab. 2.15; 5.3; 9.49; 27.3; Deut. Rab. 3.10, 12). Some rabbis, however, tried to shift the blame onto the proselytes who came out of Egypt with the people (cf. Exod. Rab. 42.6; Lev. Rab. 27.8; Pesiq. Rab Kah. 9.8), or even onto God himself because he blessed Israel with all the gold with which they constructed the idol (cf. b. Sanh. 102a). But while the rabbis have much to say about the awfulness of the incident in Israel’s history, calling it by such euphemisms as “that unspeakable deed” (cf. Pesiq. Rab. 33.3; Num. Rab. 5.3) and forbidding a translation of the account into the vernacular in the synagogue services (cf. b. Meg. 25b), there is a decided difference between the way they treat the people’s rebellion and the way Stephen does. For the rabbis did not take the golden calf episode as the people’s rejection of Moses (though Korah’s later rebellion was so considered), but they laid emphasis on Moses’ successful intercession for Israel (cf. esp. b. Soṭah 14a); whereas Stephen lays all of his emphasis on Israel’s rejection of their deliverer and implicitly draws a parallel between their treatment of Moses and Israel’s treatment of Jesus—a parallel he will broaden and drive home in his scathing indictment of vv.51–53.
41–43 “In those days” (en tais hēmerais ekeinais; NIV, “that was the time”; NASB, “at that time”), says Stephen, “they made an idol in the form of a calf. They brought sacrifices to it and held a celebration in honor of what their hands had made.” So detestable to God was this episode in Israel’s wilderness experience that Stephen calls it a time when “God turned away and gave them over [ho theos paredōken autous] to the worship of the heavenly bodies” (v.42; cf. Ro 1:24, where ho theos paredōken autous, “God gave them over,” also occurs, though there the giving over was from idolatry to immorality). The inescapable inference from Stephen’s words is that Israel’s shameful behavior and God’s drastic response find their counterparts in the nation’s rejection of Jesus.
To support his assertion that Israel’s idolatry caused God to give them over to the worship of heavenly bodies, Stephen quotes Amos 5:25–27. The form of the Greek in Stephen’s quotation is fairly close to that of the LXX, which (1) understands “Sikkuth your king” (MT) to be “the shrine of Moloch” (deriving skēnē, “shrine” [GK 5008], from vocalizing the Hebrew sikkût to read sukkoth, “booths,” and “Moloch” from a misreading of the Hebrew malekkem, “your king”; cf. LXX at 4 Kgdms 23:10 [MT = 2Ki 23:10] and Jer 31:35 [MT = Jer 32:35]) and (2) transliterates the Hebrew name Kiyyûn as Raiphan (probably originally transliterated Kaipan). But Stephen’s use of Amos 5:25–27 is very much like that found among the Qumran covenanters (cf. CD 7:14–15), where the rejection of God’s redemptive activity in the eschatological day of salvation is the cause for God’s judgment despite all the sacrifices and offerings that may be offered, just as Israel’s idolatry of the golden calf eventuated in Israel’s exile “beyond Babylon” (or, as the LXX has it, “beyond Damascus”).
38 In Deuteronomy 4:10; 9:10; and 18:16 (LXX), ἡ ἡμέρα τῆς ἐκκλησίας (hē hēmera tēs ekklēsias, “the day of the assembly”) means the day when the people gathered to receive the law at Mount Sinai. This is probably what Stephen had in mind in speaking of “the assembly in the desert” (NASB, “the congregation in the wilderness”), particularly in view of the immediately following clauses: “with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai” and “with our ancestors [fathers].”
The view that angels were involved in the giving of the law at Mount Sinai was widely held in Second Temple Judaism (cf. Dt 33:2 [LXX]; Jub. 1:29; Philo, Somn. 1.141ff.; Josephus, Ant. 15.136; T. Dan 6:2; Ac 7:53; Gal 3:19; Heb 2:2).
The expression λόγια ζῶντα (logia zōnta, “living words”) stems from ἅυτη ἡ ζωὴ ὑμῶν (hautē hē zōē hymōn, “it is your life”) in Deuteronomy 32:47. Codices Sinaiticus (א) and Vaticanus (B), together with P74 and a number of minuscules, read ὑμῖ᾿ν (hymin, “to you”; so NASB) rather than ἡμῖν (hēmin, “to us”; so NIV). These plural pronouns were pronounced alike and so were frequently confused by scribes. Probably ἡμῖν (hēmin, “to us”) was the original reading, for as Metzger, 307, observes, “Stephen does not wish to disassociate himself from those who received God’s revelation in the past, but only from those who misinterpreted and disobeyed that revelation.”
43 On the relation between Acts 7:43 and CD 7:14–15 in the use of Amos 5:26–27, see de Waard, 41–47.
OVERVIEW
In the preceding section of his defense, Stephen met the accusation of blasphemy against the law by (1) reassessing Moses’ place in redemptive history and (2) countercharging his accusers with rejecting the One whom Moses spoke of and turning to idolatry in their refusal of Jesus the Messiah. In this section he proceeds to meet the charge of blasphemy against the temple in the same way. In form, this section recalls the more placid manner of vv.2–34; in tone and content, however, it carries on the strident and passionate appeal of vv.35–43, which amounts to a vigorous denunciation of the Jerusalem temple and the type of mentality that would hold to it as the apex of revealed religion.
44“Our forefathers had the tabernacle of the Testimony with them in the desert. It had been made as God directed Moses, according to the pattern he had seen. 45Having received the tabernacle, our fathers under Joshua brought it with them when they took the land from the nations God drove out before them. It remained in the land until the time of David, 46who enjoyed God’s favor and asked that he might provide a dwelling place for the God of Jacob. 47But it was Solomon who built the house for him.
48“However, the Most High does not live in houses made by men. As the prophet says:
49“‘Heaven is my throne,
and the earth is my footstool.
What kind of house will you build for me?
says the Lord.
Or where will my resting place be?
50Has not my hand made all these things?’”
COMMENTARY
44–46 Stephen’s assessment of Israel’s worship experience lays all the emphasis on the tabernacle, which he eulogistically calls “the tent [or tabernacle] of the Testimony” (hē skēnē tou martyriou, GK 5008, 3457). It was with our forefathers, he says, during that period in the desert which so many in his day considered exemplary. It was made according to the exact pattern that God gave Moses. It was central in the life of the nation during the conquest of Canaan under the leadership of Joshua. And it was the focus of national worship through the time of David, who found favor in God’s sight. So significant was it in Israel’s experience, in fact, that David asked to be allowed to provide a permanent “dwelling place” for God in Jerusalem (v.46). (Here Ps 132:5 is quoted, with 2Sa 6:17 and 1Ch 15:1 being alluded to.)
Like the covenanters at Qumran (cf. 1QS 8.7–8) and the writer to the Hebrews (cf. Heb 8:2, 5; 9:1–5, 11, 24)—and probably like many other nonconformist Jews of his time—Stephen seems to have viewed the epitome of Jewish worship in terms of the tabernacle, not the temple. Very likely it was because he felt the mobility of the tabernacle was a restraint on the status quo mentality that had grown up around the Jerusalem temple. But unlike the Qumranites, who desired a restoration of that classical ideal, Stephen, as well as the writer to the Hebrews, was attempting to lift his compatriots’ vision to something far superior to even the wilderness tabernacle, i.e., to the dwelling of God with men and women in Jesus of Nazareth, as expressed through the new covenant.
47 “But it was Solomon,” Stephen says rather tersely, “who built the house for him.” This brevity suggests something of Stephen’s pejorative attitude toward the Jerusalem temple. And his contrast between the tabernacle (vv.44–46) and the temple (v.47) shows his disapproval. Probably Stephen had in mind 2 Samuel 7:5–16 (cf. 1Ch 17:4–14). There God speaks through the prophet Nathan of his satisfaction with his “nomadic” situation and declines David’s offer to build a house for his divine presence, but then goes on to announce that David’s son would build such a house and promises to build a “house,” i.e., a lineage, for David. Certainly 2 Samuel 7:5–16 was a foundational passage at Qumran (cf. 4Q174 on 2Sa 7:10–14) and for much of early Christian thought (cf. Lk 1:32–33 alluding to 2Sa 7:12–16; Ac 13:17–22 on 2Sa 7:6:16; Heb 1:5b on 2Sa 7:14; and, possibly, 2Co 6:18 on 2Sa 7:14). But obviously Stephen did not consider Solomon’s temple to be the final fulfillment of God’s words to David in 2 Samuel 7. Probably he understood the announcement of a temple to be a concession on God’s part and laid greater emphasis on the promise of the establishment of David’s seed and kingdom (cf. 2Sa 7:12–16).
48–50 Stephen reaches the climax of his antitemple polemic by insisting that “the Most High does not live in houses made by men”—a concept he supports by citing Isaiah 66:1–2a. Judaism never taught that God actually lived in the Jerusalem temple or was confined to its environs, but spoke of his “Name” and presence as being there. In practice, however, this concept was often denied. This would especially appear so to Stephen, when further divine activity was refused by the people in their preference for God’s past revelation and redemption, as symbolized in the existence of the temple.
As a Hellenistic Jew, Stephen may have had a tendency to view things in a more “spiritual” manner, i.e., in more inward and nonmaterial terms. This was a tendency with both good and bad features. As a Christian, he could have been aware of the contrast in the primitive Christian catechesis (the oral instruction of new converts) between what is “made with hands” and what is “not made with hands” (cf. esp. Mk 14:58; Heb 8:2; 9:24). But whatever its source, Stephen’s assertion is that neither the tabernacle nor the temple was meant to be such an institutionalized feature in Israel’s religion as to prohibit God’s further redemptive activity or to halt the advance of God’s plan for his people. The response Stephen evidently wanted from his hearers was what God declared to be his desire for his people in the strophe that immediately follows the Isaiah passage just cited (Isa 66:2b):
This is the one I esteem:
he who is humble and contrite in spirit,
and trembles at my word.
To those who desired to localize God’s presence and confine his working, Stephen repeated the denunciation of Isaiah 66:1–2a and left this appeal in 66:2b to be inferred.
NOTES
46 Codices Sinaiticus (א), Vaticanus (B), Bezae (D), and Bodmer P74 read τῷ οἴκῷ ᾿Ιακώβ (tō oikō Iakōb, “for the house of Jacob”), whereas A, C, and the TR read τῷ θεῷ ᾿Ιακώβ (tō theō Iakōb, “for the God of Jacob”). Choosing between the two readings is not easy. For while “the house of Jacob” is more strongly supported by the textual tradition (both Alexandrian and Western witnesses) and was common among the Jews (so NRSV), the parallel with Psalm 132:5 and the contrast set up between David’s desire in v.46 and Solomon’s action in v.47 seem to require “the God of Jacob” here (so NIV, NASB). Evidently there has arisen a primitive corruption in the usually better textual sources (א B P74).
49–50 Isaiah 66:1 is quoted in the Epistle of Barnabas 16:2 with reference to the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in AD 70, with the same variation in text form from the LXX as here (ἤ τίς τόπος, ē tis topos; NIV, “or where”; NASB, “or what place”)—and Isaiah 66:1–2, together with Amos 5:25–27, is quoted by Justin (Dial. 22). This has raised the possibility that there existed within early Christian circles a testimonia collection in which Isaiah 66:1–2 and Amos 5:25–27 were brought together. But it is also possible that the writer of the Epistle of Barnabas and Justin Martyr were dependent on Acts.
OVERVIEW
The most striking feature of Stephen’s speech—the one that sets it off most sharply from Peter’s temple sermon of Acts 3—is its strong polemical stance toward Israel. As Stephen recounts the history of Israel, it is a litany of sin, rebellion, and rejection of God’s purposes that emphasizes, as Simon, 41, has rightly said, “the unworthiness and perpetual rebelliousness of the Jews who, in the long run, exhaust the immense riches of God’s mercy.”
Some have supposed that the suddenness and harshness of the indictment were occasioned by an angry outburst in the court, to which vv.51–53 are a kind of knee-jerk response. But there is little reason to assume this is the case. Stephen’s address has led naturally up to the invective. After his quotation of Isaiah 66:1–2a, there was really nothing to add.
51“You stiff-necked people, with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You are just like your fathers: You always resist the Holy Spirit! 52Was there ever a prophet your fathers did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One. And now you have betrayed and murdered him—53you who have received the law that was put into effect through angels but have not obeyed it.”
COMMENTARY
51 Stephen’s description of his accusers is loaded with pejorative theological nuances. The phrase “stiff-necked” was fixed in Israel’s memory as God’s own characterization of the nation when it rebelled against Moses and worshiped the golden calf (cf. Ex 33:5; Dt 9:13). The expression “with uncircumcised hearts and ears” recalls God’s judgment on the apostates among his people as being “uncircumcised in heart” (cf. Lev 26:41; Dt 10:16; Jer 4:4; 9:26). And now, says Stephen, speaking like a prophet of old, God’s indictment rests on you, just as it did on your idolatrous and apostate ancestors.
52 Israel’s persecution and killing of her prophets is a recurrent theme in Jewish writings. The OT not only speaks of the sufferings of individual prophets but also has a number of statements about how the nation had persecuted and killed God’s prophets (cf. 2Ch 36:15–16; Ne 9:26; Jer 2:30). Various compositions from the period of Second Temple Judaism elaborated this theme, particularly as a result of the idealization of martyrdom that arose in Maccabean times (cf. Sir 49:7; Jub. 1:12; 1 En. 89:51–53). In the Talmud, while there are scattered references to the prophets being wealthy (cf. b. Ned. 38a) and/or living to a great age (cf. b. Pesaḥ. 87b), there are also a great many statements about Israel persecuting and killing her prophets (cf. b. Giṭ. 57b; b. Sanh. 96b; Exod. Rab. 31.16; Pesiq. Rab. 26.1–2). All of these were for the council well-learned lessons from the past. Stephen’s accusation, however, was that nothing had been learned from the past, since an even more horrendous crime had been committed in the present by those who were so smug about Israel’s past failures: the betrayal and murder of “the Righteous One.”
52 On the christological title “the Righteous One,” see comments at 3:14.
53 On the law as mediated by angels, see Notes, 7:38.
REFLECTIONS
Stephen’s address began in v.2 with the fraternal greeting “men, brothers and fathers” (andres adelphoi kai pateres; NIV, “brothers and fathers”; NASB, “brethren and fathers”; cf. 22:1). It affirmed throughout his deep respect for such distinctly Jewish phenomena as the Abrahamic covenant (vv.3–8), circumcision (v.8), and the tabernacle (vv.44–46). It also repeatedly referred to “our father Abraham” and “our fathers” in such a way as to stress his ready acceptance of his Israelite heritage (vv.2, 11–12, 15, 19, 39, 44–45). Yet his repeated use of the second person plural pronoun in vv.51–53 shows his desire to disassociate himself from the nation in its constantly recurring refusal of God throughout its history. Therefore, taking the offensive, Stephen drives home his point: “Your fathers always resisted the Holy Spirit…. Your fathers persecuted the prophets…. You received the law put into effect through angels, but you have not obeyed it.” Perhaps he reinforced his statements by gesticulating with an extended index finger at his accusers, though even a blind man would have felt his verbal blows.
OVERVIEW
To interpret Stephen’s address as an absolute renunciation of the land, the law, and the temple and its sacrificial system is an exaggeration. Indeed, like the Qumran covenanters (though for different reasons), Stephen saw worship in terms of the tabernacle, not the temple, to be the ideal of Israel’s worship. But this is not to say he rejected the worship of the temple, particularly as it continued the pattern of worship instituted by God in the giving of the tabernacle. Nor can it be said that Stephen was proclaiming a law-free and universal gospel or suggesting the futility of a Christian mission to Israel. Rather, his desire, it seems, was to raise a prophetic voice within Israel by pleading, as Filson, 103, summed up his message, for “a radical recasting of Jewish life to make Jesus, rather than these traditionally holy things, the center of Jewish faith, worship, and thought.” Certainly Stephen was more daring than the Jerusalem apostles, more ready to explore the logical consequences of commitment to Jesus than they were, and more ready to attribute Israel’s rejection of its Messiah to a perpetual callousness of heart. Adolf Harnack, however, was probably right (at least in the main) to insist that “when Stephen was stoned, he died … for a cause whose issues he probably did not foresee” (The Mission and Expansion of Christianity [London: Williams & Norgate, 1908], 1:50).
54When they heard this, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him. 55But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. 56“Look,” he said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”
57At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, 58dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul.
59While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” 60Then he fell on his knees and cried out, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” When he had said this, he fell asleep.
8:1And Saul was there, giving approval to his death.
COMMENTARY
54 Stephen’s message was for his Jewish hearers flagrant apostasy, both in its content and in its tone. While his purpose was to denounce the status quo mentality that had grown up around the land, the law, and the temple, thereby clearing a path for a positive response to Jesus as Israel’s Messiah, this was undoubtedly taken as a frontal attack against the Jewish religion in its official and popular forms. And in the council’s eyes the assumed prophetic stance of Stephen’s address, together with what appeared to be its obnoxious liberal spirit, must have represented the worst of both Jewish Hellenism and the infant Christian movement. So, Luke tells us, “they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him.”
55–56 While the content and tone of his address infuriated the council, Stephen’s solemn pronouncement as he was dying raised again the specter of blasphemy and brought his hearers to a frenzied pitch: “Look,” he announced, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God” (v.56). Only a few years before, Jesus had stood before this same tribunal and was condemned for answering affirmatively the high priest’s question about his being Israel’s Messiah and for saying of himself, “You will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven” (Mk 14:62). Now Stephen was saying, in effect, that his vision confirmed Jesus’ claim and condemned the council for having rejected him. Unless the council members were prepared to repent and admit their awful error, they had no option but to find Stephen also guilty of blasphemy. Had he been judged only an impertinent apostate (cf. 5:40), the thirty-nine lashes of Jewish punishment would have been appropriate (cf. m. Mak. 3:10–15a). To be openly blasphemous before the council, however, was a matter that demanded his death.
Luke’s description of Stephen as “full of the Holy Spirit” (v.55) is in line with his characterizations of him in ch. 6 (vv.3, 5, 8, 15). The identification of Jesus as “the Son of Man” is used outside the Gospels only here and at Revelation 1:13; 14:14 (cf. Heb 2:6, though probably not as a christological title but as a locution for “man” in line with Ps 8:4). In the canonical gospels Jesus alone is portrayed as having used “Son of Man” with reference to himself (the apparent exceptions in Lk 24:7 and Jn 12:34 are, in actuality, only echoes of Jesus’ usage). Jesus used the expression both as a locution for the pronoun “I” and as a titular image reflecting the usage in Daniel 7:13–28 (esp. vv.13–14). As a title it carries the ideas of (1) identification with mankind and suffering and (2) vindication by God and glory. The title was generally not attributed to Jesus by the church between the time when his sufferings were completed and when he would assume his full glory. Here, however, an anticipation of Jesus’ full glory is set within a martyr context (as also at Rev 1:13; 14:14); and so the use of “Son of Man” as a title for Jesus is fully appropriate.
The juxtaposition of “the glory of God” and the name of Jesus in Stephen’s vision, together with his saying that he sees “heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God,” are christologically significant. Unlike the Greek understanding of doxa (“glory”) as akin to “opinion,” the Hebrew OT and Greek LXX viewed “the glory of God” (Heb. kebôd YHWH; Gr. doxa theou) as “the manifestation or revelation of the divine nature” and even as “the divine mode of being” itself (cf. TDNT 2.233–47). The bringing together of “the glory of God” and the name of Jesus, therefore, suggests something about Jesus’ person as the manifestation of the divine nature and the divine mode of being. Likewise, inasmuch as God dwells in the highest heaven, the open heaven with Jesus at God’s right hand suggests something about his work as providing access into the very presence of God.
Stephen’s reference to Jesus “standing” at the right hand of God, which differs from the “sitting” of Psalm 110:1 (the passage alluded to here), has been variously understood. Dalman (Words of Jesus, 311) argued that it is merely “a verbal change,” for both the perfect infinitive estanai (“to stand,” GK 2705) and the present infinitive kathēsthai (“to sit,” GK 2767) connote the idea “to be situated” (Heb. ʿamād), without any necessary implication for the configuration of posture. The majority of commentators, however, have interpreted “standing” to suggest Jesus’ welcome of his martyred follower, who like the repentant criminal of Luke 23:43 was received into heaven the moment he died. Dispensational commentators have taken Stephen’s reference to Jesus’ “standing” as supporting their view that the distinctive redemptive message for this age was not proclaimed until the Pauline gospel (either at its inauguration, its close, or somewhere in between), and so in the transitional period between Israel and the church Jesus is represented as not yet having taken his seat at God’s right hand. Others speak of Jesus as “standing” in order to enter his messianic office on earth or as “standing” in the presence of God, in line with the common representation of angels in God’s presence.
More likely, however, the concept of “witness” is what is primarily highlighted in the portrayal of Jesus as “standing” at Stephen’s martyrdom. F. F. Bruce, 168, has aptly noted that “Stephen has been confessing Christ before men, and now he sees Christ confessing His servant before God. The proper posture for a witness is the standing posture. Stephen, condemned by an earthly court, appeals for vindication to a heavenly court, and his vindicator in that supreme court is Jesus, who stands at God’s right hand as Stephen’s advocate, his ‘paraclete.’” Yet in accepting such an interpretation, one does well to keep Bruce’s further comment, 168–69, in mind:
When we are faced with words so wealthy in association as these words of Stephen, it is unwise to suppose that any single interpretation exhausts their significance. All the meaning that had attached to Psalm 110:1 and Daniel 7:13f. is present here, including especially the meaning that springs from their combination on the lips of Jesus when He appeared before the Sanhedrin; but the replacement of “sitting” by “standing” probably makes its own contribution to the total meaning of the words in this context—a contribution distinctively appropriate to Stephen’s present role as martyr-witness.
57–58 Haenchen, 274, has noted the progression in Luke’s portrayals of the trial scenes of 4:1–22; 5:17–40; and here—the first ending with threatenings (4:17, 21), the second with flogging (5:40), and the third with stoning (7:58–60). He observes from that pattern the following: “It goes without saying that in the circumstances the moderating Gamaliel and the Pharisees who (according to Luke!) to some extent sympathized with the Christians do not make themselves heard,” and he concludes from this account that “Luke possessed the happy gift of forgetting people when they might interfere with his literary designs.” But while Haenchen has rightly noted Luke’s developmental theme in the three trial scenes, he fails to appreciate the historical interplay of divergent ideological factors that gave rise to Judaism’s united stance against the Hellenistic Jewish believers in Jesus.
The message of Stephen served as a catalyst to unite the Sadducees, the Pharisees, and the common people (Heb. ʿam haʾāreṣ, “people of the land”; Gk. ho laos, “the people”) in opposition to the early believers in Jesus. Had Gamaliel been confronted by this type of preaching earlier, his attitude as reported in 5:34–39 would surely have been different. The Pharisees could tolerate Palestinian Jewish believers in Jesus because their messianic beliefs, though judged by them as terribly misguided, effected no change in their practice of the Mosaic law. Those early converts to Jesus “the Messiah” who had been raised as scrupulous Jews continued their scrupulous observance of the law, and those raised as “people of the land” continued to live in accordance with at least the law’s minimal requirements. But Hellenistic Jewish believers in Jesus, who had probably originally entered the Holy Land avowing their desire to become stricter in their religious practice, were now beginning to question the centrality of Israel’s traditional forms of religious expression and to propagate within Jerusalem a type of religious liberalism that, from a Pharisaic perspective, would eventually undercut the basis for the Jewish religion. The Jewish leaders might have been able to do little about such liberalism in the Diaspora and certain quarters within Palestine, but they were determined to preserve the Holy City from further contamination by such “foreign” ways of thinking—and so, as they believed, best prepare the way for the coming of the messianic age.
It is not easy to determine whether the stoning of Stephen was only the result of mob action or was carried out by the Sanhedrin in excess of its jurisdiction. Josephus (Ant. 20.200) recounts a somewhat parallel instance when the high priest Ananus killed James the Just during the procuratorial interregnum between Festus’s death and Albinus’s arrival in AD 61. The reference in v. 58 to “the witnesses” (hoi martyres, GK 3457), whose grisly duty it was to knock the offender down and throw the first stones, suggests an official execution. This hardly corresponds with the stipulation in the Mishnah that “in capital cases a verdict of acquittal may be reached on the same day [as the trial], but a verdict of conviction not until the following day” (m. Sanh. 4:1). Nor is it in accord with the Roman regulation that death sentences in the provinces could not be carried out unless confirmed by the Roman governor. But if (as I believe) Stephen’s martyrdom occurred sometime in the mid-30s AD, during the final years of Pilate’s governorship over Judea (AD 26–36), and if (as I have argued) the Pharisees were not prepared to come to his defense in the council, conditions may well have been at a stage where the Sanhedrin felt free to overstep its legal authority. Pontius Pilate normally resided at Caesarea, and the later years of his governorship were beset by increasing troubles that tended to divert his attention (e.g., the Samaritan affair where he killed a number of Samaritan fanatics in an action that ultimately resulted in his removal from office).
“The witnesses,” Luke tells us, in preparing for their onerous work of knocking Stephen down and throwing the first stones, “laid their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul” (v.58). This suggests that Saul had some official part in the execution. The term neanias (GK 3733), which is translated “young man,” was used in Greek writings of the day for a male of about twenty-four to forty years old (cf. BDAG, 667; see 20:9; 23:17–18, 22). Some have argued from the action of the witnesses and Saul’s age that he was a member of the Jewish Sanhedrin at the time, though he may have been exercising only delegated authority.
59–60 As Stephen was being stoned (note the imperfect verb elithoboloun, “they were stoning” [GK 3344], which suggests a process), he cried out, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit,” and, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” The cries are reminiscent of Jesus’ words from the cross (Lk 23:34, 46), though the sequence and wording are not exactly the same. It is probably going too far to say that Luke meant Stephen’s execution to be a reenactment of the first great martyrdom, that of Jesus, as many commentators have proposed (so C. H. Talbert, Luke and the Gnostics [Nashville: Abingdon, 1966], 76). The parallelism, however, can hardly be seen as simply inadvertent. It was probably included to show that the same spirit of commitment and forgiveness that characterized Jesus’ life and death was true as well of his earliest followers.
The expression “fall asleep” (koimaō, GK 3121) is a common biblical way of referring to the death of God’s own (cf. Ge 47:30 [LXX]; Dt 31:16 [LXX]; Jn 11:11; Ac 13:36; 1Co 7:39; 11:30; 15:6, 51; 2Pe 3:4). While the nuances of a doctrine of “soul sleep” are incompatible with the biblical message, the word “sleep” suggests something as to the nature of the believer’s personal existence during that period of time theologians call “the intermediate state.”
In comparing Stephen’s death to that of a Stoic philosopher, Oscar Cullmann (Immortality of the Soul or Resurrection of the Dead? [London: Epworth, 1958], 60) made this apt observation:
The Stoic departed this life dispassionately; the Christian martyr on the other hand died with spirited passion for the cause of Christ, because he knew that by doing so he stood within a powerful redemptive process. The first Christian martyr, Stephen, shows us how very differently death is bested by him who dies in Christ than by the ancient philosopher: he sees, it is said, “the heavens open and Christ standing at the right hand of God!” He sees Christ, the Conqueror of Death. With this faith that the death he must undergo is already conquered by Him who has Himself endured it, Stephen lets himself be stoned.
8:1a Again, as in 7:58, Luke makes the point that Saul was present at Stephen’s death and approved of it. Because of the use of the verb syneudokeō (“agree with,” “approve of,” “consent to,” GK 5306) and its parallel usage in 26:10, some have taken the reference here to be to Saul’s official vote as a member of the Sanhedrin. But this is not necessarily implied. Nor is it possible to argue from v.1a that the seeds of Saul’s later Christian teaching on the law were implanted either through the force of Stephen’s preaching or the sublimity of his death. Paul himself credits his conversion and theology to entirely other factors. All Luke wants to do here is to provide a transition in his portrayal of the developing Christian mission.
55 The Western text (D, and as represented by various Old Latin and Coptic recensions) characteristically adds τὸν κύριον (ton kyrion, “the Lord”) after ᾿Ιησοῦν (Iēsoun, “Jesus”).
56 Bodmer P74 reads τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ θεοῦ (ton huion tou theou, “the Son of God”) for the better-supported τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου (ton huion tou anthrōpou, “the Son of Man”). On the christological title “Son of Man,” see my Christology of Early Jewish Christianity, 82–93.
58 Some later MSS (H P and many minuscules) omit αὐτῶν (autōn, “their”), suggesting that Stephen’s clothes were laid at the feet of Saul. But Acts 22:20 confirms that it was the clothes of the executioners (“the witnesses”) that were entrusted to Saul for safekeeping.
The Qumran covenanters (cf. CD 10:4–10) speak of a complement of ten men to act as judges in the community and stipulates that “their minimum age shall be twenty-five and their maximum sixty,” with no one over sixty eligible to hold a judicial office—which is an interesting parallel.
1bOn that day a great persecution broke out against the church at Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. 2Godly men buried Stephen and mourned deeply for him. 3But Saul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off men and women and put them in prison.
COMMENTARY
1b Taken in the broader context of Luke’s presentation, we should probably understand the “great persecution” (diōgmos megas, GK 1501, 3489) that broke out “against the church at Jerusalem” as directed primarily against the Hellenistic Jewish Christians rather than against the whole church (so Hans Lietzmann, A History of the Early Church [New York: World, 1967], 1:90; Filson, 62–64, though roundly denied by Geoffrey W. H. Lampe, St. Luke and the Church of Jerusalem [London: Athlone, 1969], 20–21). A certain stigma must also have fallen on the native-born, more scrupulous Jewish believers in Jesus, and they probably became as inconspicuous as possible in the countryside and towns around Jerusalem. The Hellenistic Jews of the city had been able to disassociate themselves from the Hellenistic Jewish Christians among them. And Jewish officials probably made a similar distinction between the Hellenistic Jewish believers and the more Hebraic believers within the Jerusalem church.
In a somewhat sweeping statement, Luke reports that “all” (pantes) the Christians of Jerusalem “except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria.” But only the Hellenistic believers in Jesus, it seems, felt it inadvisable to return. So while we should not minimize the protecting power of God or the courage of the earliest Christian leaders, it might not have been impossible, even within such difficult circumstances, for the apostles to have remained in Jerusalem in order to preserve the continuity of the community.
As a result of the persecution that began with Stephen’s martyrdom, the gospel was carried beyond the confines of Jerusalem, in initial fulfillment of Jesus’ directive in 1:8: “And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” From this time onward—i.e., until AD 135, when the Roman emperor Hadrian banished all Jews from Jerusalem and refounded the city as the Roman colony Aelia Capitolina—the church at Jerusalem seems to have been largely, if not entirely, devoid of Hellenistic Jewish Christians. With the martyrdom of Stephen, believers in Jesus at Jerusalem had learned the bitter lesson that to espouse a changed relationship to the land, the law, and the temple was (1) to give up the peace of the church and (2) to abandon the Christian mission to Israel (cf. Walter Schmithals, Paul and James [London: SCM, 1965], 44–45). The issues and events connected with Stephen’s death, together with the expulsion of those who shared his concerns, would stand as a warning to the Jerusalem congregation throughout its brief and turbulent history and exert mental pressure on believers in the city to be more circumspect in their future activities within Judea.
2 Luke has already used the expression “godly men” (andres eulabeis, GK 467, 2327) of the Jews at Pentecost who were receptive to the working of God’s Spirit (cf. 2:5). He has also used the adjective “devout” (eulabēs, GK 2327) of the aged Simeon in the temple (cf. Lk 2:25), and he will later use it of Ananias of Damascus (cf. Ac 22:12). Therefore, when Luke says that “godly men [andres eulabeis] buried Stephen,” he apparently means that certain devout Jews who were open to the Christian message asked for Stephen’s body and buried him, much as Joseph of Arimathea did for Jesus (cf. Lk 23:50–53). The Mishnah speaks of “open lamentation” as inappropriate for anyone who has been stoned, burned, beheaded, or strangled under Sanhedrin judgment, but does allow “mourning” in such cases, “for mourning has place in the heart alone” (m. Sanh. 6:6). Luke tells us that those who buried Stephen “mourned deeply for him,” which may be Luke’s way of suggesting their repentance toward God as well as their sorrow for Stephen.
3 Haenchen, 294, takes the occasion here to mock Luke’s portrayal: “The transformation in the picture of Saul is breathtaking, to say the least. A moment ago he was a youth looking on with approval at the execution. Now he is the arch-persecutor, invading Christian homes to seize men and women and fling them into gaol.” But as noted, the Greek word for “young man” in 7:58 signifies a man between the ages of twenty-four and forty—hardly a youth in our modern sense. Furthermore, the description of Saul’s presence at the execution suggests some kind of official capacity, even though it may have been only a delegated authority. Saul in 7:58 and 8:1 hardly appears to have been a casual onlooker. And while Luke reserves the fuller account of Saul’s persecuting activities and his conversion for the narrative in 9:1–30 and the speeches in 22:1–21 and 26:2–23, here he introduces these accounts and ties them in with Stephen’s martyrdom—using, in particular, the inceptive imperfect verb elymaineto (“he began to destroy,” GK 3381)—to tell us that at this time “Saul began to destroy the church.”
1b The Western text (D, and as reflected in the Coptic Sahidic version) adds καὶ θλῖψις (kai thlipsis, “and affliction,” GK 2568) either after (so D) or before (so Copsa) διωγμὸς μέγαs (diōgmos megas, “great persecution”), which addition only underlines the obvious. For a similar Western expansion, see Notes, 13:50. Nor do we need to be told regarding the apostles, as Codex Bezae (D), some Latin and Coptic versions, and Augustine have it, that οἵ ἔμειναν ἐν ᾿Ιερουσαλήμ (hoi emeinan en Ierousalēm, “they remained in Jerusalem”).
On the use of πάντες (pantes, “all”) in Luke’s writings and the NT, see comments at 1:1. Barnabas of Cyprus (4:36) and Mnason of Cyprus (21:16) may be seen as exceptions to the expulsion of the Hellenistic Jewish believers from the city, though only if we define a “Hellenist” exclusively along geographic lines. Barnabas, however, is also spoken of as a Levite. Mnason, who lived in Jerusalem and to whose home Paul and his Gentile companions were brought on the occasion of Paul’s final visit to Jerusalem, is referred to as ἀρχαίῳ μαθητῇ (archaiō mathētē, “a disciple from the beginning”; NIV, “one of the early disciples”; NASB, “a disciple of long standing”).
OVERVIEW
The accounts of Philip’s ministries in Samaria and to the Ethiopian minister of finance are placed in Acts between the Hellenistic Jewish Christians’ expulsion from Jerusalem and the outreach of the gospel to the Gentiles—an outreach prepared for by Saul’s conversion and first effected through the preaching of Peter to Cornelius. As such, Luke uses these accounts of Philip’s ministries as a kind of bridge in depicting the advance of the church. Each account represents a further development in the proclamation of the gospel within a Jewish milieu: the first, an outreach to a dispossessed group within Palestine often considered by Jerusalem Jews as half-breeds, both racially and religiously; the second, an outreach to a proselyte or near-proselyte from another land.
OVERVIEW
Historically, the movement of the gospel into Samaria—following directly on the heels of the persecution of Hellenistic Jewish Christians in Jerusalem—makes a great deal of sense. Doubtless a feeling of kinship would easily have been established between the formerly dispossessed Samaritans and the recently dispossessed Hellenistic Jewish Christians. Stephen’s opposition to the mentality of mainstream Judaism and its veneration of the Jerusalem temple would have facilitated a favorable response to Philip and his message in Samaria. Redactionally, the thrust of the church into its mission after the persecution of the Christian community at Jerusalem is parallel to Luke’s portrayal in his gospel of the spread of Jesus’ fame after the devil’s assault in the wilderness (cf. Lk 4:1–15).
The Tübingen school of “tendency criticism” focused on this account of a Christian mission to Samaria as a prime example of the “tendentiousness” of Acts, arguing that the sources used by Luke must have viewed Simon Magus as a cover figure for Paul, who was bested by Peter (as set out in the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies and Recognitions), and that Luke recast Simon as an entirely different person with an entirely different history in an endeavor to protect his hero Paul. Modern source criticism tends to see two or three separate stories intertwined here, which Luke has somewhat confusedly worked together: one of Philip in Samaria; another of Peter and John in Samaria; and yet another account of the early “Christian” experience of the arch-Gnostic Simon Magus. Earlier source critics, however, following the hypothesis of Adolf Harnack, viewed the intermeshing of these stories as the type of thing that results from an oral recounting of experiences on the part of an enthusiastic storyteller and even suggested that Philip himself may have been the source of Luke’s narrative here. I believe there is much in the narrative to support this latter suggestion, whether from an account given to him orally or one that came to him in some written form.
The equation of the Hellenists of Acts 6–7 with the Samaritans of ch. 8 has little to commend it (see comments at 6:1). Likewise, Oscar Cullmann’s thesis (The Johannine Circle [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1976]) of a “triangular relationship” existing between (1) his “Johannine Circle” (which includes John, the Hellenists of Ac 6–7, and the writer of Hebrews), (2) the Samaritans, and (3) the Qumranites is far too specific for the data presently available. Nonetheless, it remains true that in the highly fluid and syncretistic atmosphere of first-century Palestine a number of analogical parallels of outlook and ideology existed between various Jewish nonconformist groups. Stephen, the covenanters of Qumran, and the Samaritans, for example, all had an antitemple polemic, which at least superficially could have drawn them together, though in reality their respective positions were based on different rationales. In addition, as the antagonism of the Jerusalem Jews became focused on the Hellenistic Jewish believers in Jesus, these lately dispossessed Jewish believers undoubtedly found a welcome among the Samaritans, who had for so long felt themselves the objects of a similar animosity.
4Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went. 5Philip went down to a city in Samaria and proclaimed the Christ there. 6When the crowds heard Philip and saw the miraculous signs he did, they all paid close attention to what he said. 7With shrieks, evil spirits came out of many, and many paralytics and cripples were healed. 8So there was great joy in that city.
9Now for some time a man named Simon had practiced sorcery in the city and amazed all the people of Samaria. He boasted that he was someone great, 10and all the people, both high and low, gave him their attention and exclaimed, “This man is the divine power known as the Great Power.” 11They followed him because he had amazed them for a long time with his magic. 12But when they believed Philip as he preached the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. 13Simon himself believed and was baptized. And he followed Philip everywhere, astonished by the great signs and miracles he saw.
14When the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them. 15When they arrived, they prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit, 16because the Holy Spirit had not yet come upon any of them; they had simply been baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus. 17Then Peter and John placed their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.
18When Simon saw that the Spirit was given at the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money 19and said, “Give me also this ability so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.”
20Peter answered: “May your money perish with you, because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money! 21You have no part or share in this ministry, because your heart is not right before God. 22Repent of this wickedness and pray to the Lord. Perhaps he will forgive you for having such a thought in your heart. 23For I see that you are full of bitterness and captive to sin.”
24Then Simon answered, “Pray to the Lord for me so that nothing you have said may happen to me.”
25When they had testified and proclaimed the word of the Lord, Peter and John returned to Jerusalem, preaching the gospel in many Samaritan villages.
COMMENTARY
4 Luke connects his account of the evangelization of Samaria by his favorite connective men oun (“then,” “so”; untranslated in NIV; NASB, “therefore”), which he uses also in v.25 to conclude the narrative (NIV, “when”; NASB, “so”). Between this twofold use of the connective he inserts the mission to Samaria, which was begun by Philip and carried on by Peter and John, as “Exhibit A” in the explication of his thesis that “those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went.” Luke does this because in the mission to Samaria he sees, in retrospect, a significant advance in the outreach of the gospel.
5 Philip, the second of the Seven enumerated in 6:5 (cf. 21:8) and one of the Hellenistic Jewish Christians expelled from Jerusalem, traveled to the north and proclaimed “the Christ” (ton Christon, i.e., “the Messiah”) to Samaritans. The text is uncertain as to which city of Samaria Philip preached in, for every direction from Jerusalem is “down” (note the adverbial participle katelthōn, GK 2982, “went down”). The MS evidence varies regarding the inclusion of the article tēn (“the”), reading “the city of Samaria” (P74 א A B etc.), or simply “a city of Samaria” (C D E etc.). Some commentators, following the better-attested reading, insist that “the city of Samaria” can mean only the capital city of the province, which in OT times bore the name “Samaria.” Herod the Great, however, rebuilt ancient Samaria as a Greek city and renamed it “Sebaste” in honor of Caesar Augustus (Sebastos is the Greek equivalent of the Latin Augustus). But Sebaste was a wholly pagan city in NT times, and it seems somewhat strange for it to be referred to here by its archaic name. Other commentators, either accepting the articular reading (so NASB, NRSV) or preferring the less-well-attested “a city in Samaria” (so RSV, NEB, NIV), believe that Shechem, the religious headquarters of the Samaritans, is the city in mind, because during the Greek period it was the leading Samaritan city (cf. Josephus, Ant. 11.340) and was brought within the Jewish orbit of influence by the conquest of John Hyrcanus (ibid., 13.255).
Others prefer to think of the Samaritan city of Gitta as in view here, because Justin Martyr (1 Apol. 1.26) says that Simon Magus was a native of Gitta. Still others think of Sychar, for it was near (even at times identified with) Shechem and is the principal Samaritan city in the gospel tradition (cf. Jn 4:5). But Luke, while he probably had some particular city in mind when he wrote, was evidently not interested in giving us a precise geographical identification, as his general reference to “many Samaritan villages” in v.25b also suggests. So we will have to leave it at that.
Animosity between Judeans and Samaritans stemmed from very early times and fed on a number of incidents in their respective histories. The cleavage began in the tenth century BC with the separation of the ten northern tribes from Judah, Benjamin, and the city of Jerusalem in the disruption of the Hebrew monarchy after Solomon’s death. It became racially fixed with Sargon’s destruction of the city of Samaria in 722 BC and the Assyrians’ policy of deportation and mixing of populations. It was intensified in Judean eyes by (1) the Samaritans’ opposition to the rebuilding of the Jerusalem temple in the fifth century (cf. Ne 2:10–6:14; 13:28; Josephus, Ant. 11.84–103, 114, 174); (2) the Samaritans’ erection of a schismatic temple on Mount Gerizim sometime around the time of Alexander the Great (cf. Josephus, Ant. 11.310–11, 322–24; 13.255–56); and (3) the Samaritans’ identification of themselves as Sidonians and joining with the Seleucids against the Jews in the conflict of 167–164 BC (cf. ibid., 12.257–64). On the other hand, it was sealed for the Samaritans by John Hyrcanus’s destruction in 127 BC of the Gerizim temple (cf. ibid., 13.256) and the city of Samaria itself (ibid., 13.275–77).
The intensity of Samaritan feelings against Jerusalem is shown by the Samaritans’ refusal of Herod’s offer in 25 BC to rebuild their temple on Mount Gerizim when it was known that he also proposed to rebuild the Jerusalem temple—a rebuilding that began about 20–19 BC (ibid., 15.280–425). The Judean antagonism to Samaria is evident as early as Sirach 50:25–26, which lumps the Samaritans with the Idumeans and the Philistines as Israel’s three detested nations and then goes on to disparage them further by the epithets “no nation” and “that foolish people that dwell in Shechem.” Many such pejorative references to the Samaritans also appear elsewhere in writings reflecting or reporting a Judean stance (e.g., 4QpPs37 on Ps 37:14; 4QpNa on Na 3:6; Jn 8:48). Nevertheless, Jeremiah and Ezekiel treated the northern tribes as an integral part of Israel, and, conversely, there were always a few in Samaria who viewed Judean worship with respect (cf. 2Ch 30:11; 34:9). Furthermore, Samaritans accepted the Pentateuch as Holy Writ and looked for a coming messianic Restorer (the Taeb), who would be Moses redivivus.
6–8 Philip’s preaching was defined in v.5 as a proclamation of “the Messiah” (ton Christon), with its content further specified in v.12 as “the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ.” Undoubtedly he used Deuteronomy 18:15, 18–19 as a major testimonium passage in his preaching, as Peter and Stephen had done before him. With the Pentateuch as their Scriptures, and looking for the coming of a Mosaic Messiah, the Samaritans were open to Philip’s message. Furthermore, God backed up Philip’s preaching by various “miraculous signs” (ta sēmeia, GK 4956), with many demoniacs, paralytics, and lame people being healed (vv.6–7). Thus Luke summarizes the response of the Samaritans to Philip’s ministry by writing, “So there was great joy in that city” (v.8).
9 Simon the sorcerer, or Simon Magus as he is called in postapostolic Christian writings, was a leading heretic in the early church. Justin Martyr (d. ca. 165), who was himself a Samaritan, says that nearly all his countrymen revered Simon as the highest god (1 Apol. 1.26; Dial. 120). Irenaeus (Haer. 1.23; writing ca. 180) speaks of him as the father of Gnosticism and identifies the sect of the Simonians as being derived from him. The second-century Acts of Peter has extensive descriptions of how Simon Magus corrupted Christians in Rome by his teachings and how he was repeatedly bested by Peter in their displays of magical powers. These themes were picked up by the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies and Recognitions of the third and fourth centuries, though in them Simon was used as a cover figure for Paul in a radically Ebionite manner. Hippolytus (d. ca. 236) outlines Simon’s system, which he avers was contained in a Gnostic tractate titled “The Great Disclosure,” and tells how he allowed himself to be buried alive in Rome with the prediction that he would rise on the third day (Refutation of All Heresies 6.2–15). Justin Martyr (1 Apol. 1.26) tells of Simon being honored with a statue in Rome on which was written, “To Simon the Holy God”—which was probably a misreading either by Justin or the Simonians of an inscription beginning SEMONI SANCO DEO (“To the God Semo Sancus,” an ancient Sabine deity) that either he or they read as SIMONI SANCTO DEO.
Just how Simon of Acts 8 is related to Simon Magus of later legend is not clear. They may have been different men, though the church fathers regularly equated them. Luke’s statement about the Samaritans’ veneration of Simon—that they said, “This man is the divine power known as the Great Power”—seems to support the Fathers’ identification. Likewise, what exactly is meant by the title “the Great Power” (v.10) is uncertain. It may mean that Simon was acclaimed to be God Almighty (so Dalman, Words of Jesus, 200), or the Grand Vizier of God Almighty (so J. de Zwaan, in Beginnings of Christianity [ed. Foakes-Jackson and Lake], 2:58). At any rate, he claimed to be an exceedingly great person and supported his claim by many acts of magic.
13 Nevertheless, as the gospel advanced into Samaria, Simon believed and was baptized. His conversion must have been a momentous event that greatly impressed the Samaritans. Philip, too, who was their evangelist, must have long remembered it. But Simon himself, to judge by the narrative that follows, was more interested in the great acts of power that accompanied Philip’s preaching than God’s reign in his life or the proclamation of Jesus’ messiahship. Simon’s belief in Jesus seems to have been like that spoken of in John 2:23–25—a belief based only on miraculous signs, and therefore inferior to true commitment to Jesus.
14 For the early church the evangelization of Samaria was not just a matter of an evangelist’s proclamation and a people’s response; it also involved the acceptance of these new converts by the mother church at Jerusalem. Thus Luke takes pains to point out that the Jerusalem church sought to satisfy itself as to the genuineness of the Samaritans’ conversion (as it did later with regard to Cornelius’s conversion in 10:1–11:18) and that they did this by sending Peter and John to investigate. Concomitant with his interest in development and advances in the outreach of the gospel, Luke is also interested in establishing lines of continuity and highlighting features of unity within the church. So in his account of Philip’s mission in Samaria, he tells also of the visit of Peter and John. Instead of minimizing Philip’s success in Samaria, as some have proposed, it is more likely that Luke wants us to understand the ministry of Peter and John in Samaria as confirming and extending Philip’s ministry. And just as in Romans 15:26 and 2 Corinthians 9:2, where a whole province is regarded as acting in a Christian manner when represented by only one or two congregations located there, so Luke here speaks sweepingly of the Jerusalem church’s hearing “that Samaria had accepted the word of God,” even though in v.25 he refers to further evangelistic activity in other Samaritan villages.
15–17 When Peter and John arrived (lit., “went down,” katabantes, GK 2849), they prayed for the Samaritan converts, laid their hands on them, and “they received the Holy Spirit” (v.17). Before this, Luke tells us, “the Holy Spirit had not yet come upon any of them; they had simply been baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus” (v.16). We are not told how the coming of the Holy Spirit on these new converts was expressed in their lives. But the context suggests that his presence was attended by such external signs as marked his coming on the earliest believers at Pentecost, and so, probably, by some form of glossolalia.
The temporal separation of the baptism of the Spirit from commitment to Jesus and water baptism in this passage has been of perennial theological interest. Catholic sacramentalists take this as a biblical basis for the separation between baptism and confirmation. Charismatics of various denominational persuasions see in it a justification for their doctrine of the baptism of the Spirit as a second work of grace following conversion. But before making too much of this separation theologically, one does well, as noted earlier (see comments at 2:38), to look at the circumstances and ask an elementary question, yet one of immense importance: What if both the logical and the chronological relationships of conversion, water baptism, and the baptism of the Spirit, as proclaimed in Peter’s call to repentance at Pentecost (cf. 2:38; see also Ro 8:9; 1Co 6:11), had been fully expressed in this case?
The Jerusalem Jews considered the Samaritans to be second-class residents of Palestine and kept them at arm’s length religiously. For their part, the Samaritans returned the compliment. It is not too difficult, therefore, to imagine what would have happened had the apostles at Jerusalem been the first missionaries to Samaria. They may well have been rebuffed, just as they were rebuffed earlier in their travels with Jesus when the Samaritans associated them with the city of Jerusalem (cf. Lk 9:51–56). But God in his providence used as their evangelist the Hellenistic Jewish Christian Philip, who shared their fate (though for different reasons) of being rejected at Jerusalem—and the Samaritans received him and accepted his message.
But what if the Spirit had come on them at their baptism, which was administrated by Philip? Undoubtedly, whatever feelings there were against Philip and the Hellenists generally would have carried over to them, and they would then have been doubly under suspicion. But God in his providence withheld the gift of the Holy Spirit until Peter and John laid their hands on the Samaritans—these two leading apostles, who were highly thought of in the mother church at Jerusalem and who would have been accepted as brothers in Christ by the new converts in Samaria. In effect, therefore, in this first advance of the gospel outside the confines of Jerusalem, God worked in ways conducive not only to the reception of the good news in Samaria but also to the acceptance of these new converts by believers at Jerusalem.
The further question as to how far the Jerusalem church’s acceptance would have been extended had Samaritan believers in Jesus actually traveled to Jerusalem to meet and worship with the Jerusalem believers is left unanswered. Nor does Luke tell us anything about how these Samaritan believers expressed their commitment to Jesus in their cultural and religious milieu. These are matters of interest to us today, but they seem not to have concerned Luke. What Luke does tell us is that in such a manner as this vignette shows, God was working in ways that promoted both the outreach of the gospel and the unity of the church. Rather than try to extract from the account further theological nuances of a deeper kind, it would be better to expend our energies in trying to work out in theory and practice the implications of such a divine interest in “outreach” and “unity” for the church today.
18–19 Simon’s response to the presence of God’s Spirit and evidences of God’s power is one of those tragic stories that accompany every advance of the gospel. Whenever and wherever God is at work, there are not only genuine responses but also counterfeit ones. Simon “believed” and “was baptized,” Luke has reported (v.13). Evidently Simon was included among those on whom Peter and John laid their hands (v.17). But the NT frequently reports incidents and events from a phenomenal perspective without always giving the divine or heavenly perspective. For this reason the verb “believe” (pisteuō, GK 4409) is used in the NT to cover a wide range of responses to God and to Christ (e.g., Jn 2:23; Jas 2:19). Neither baptism nor the laying on of hands conveys any status or power of itself, though Simon with his shallow spiritual perception thought they could.
20–24 Simon’s offer to pay for the ability to confer the Holy Spirit through the laying on of hands evoked Peter’s consignment of Simon and his money to hell. Simon regarded the bestowal of the Spirit as a specially effective bit of magic, and he had, it seems, no idea of the spiritual issues at stake. Peter’s analysis of the situation, however, is that Simon’s heart was “not right before God” (v.21)—it was still “full of bitterness and captive to sin” (v.23). So Peter urges him, “Repent of this wickedness and pray to the Lord. Perhaps he will forgive you for having such a thought in your heart” (v.22). But Simon, preoccupied with external consequences and physical effects, asks only, and rather lamely, “Pray to the Lord for me so that nothing you have said may happen to me” (v.24).
We would like to know more from this narrative. Did Simon later become the heretic Simon Magus of ecclesiastical legend? Or did he repent and genuinely respond to God, thereby becoming a true Christian? How did the Samaritan Christians respond to Simon’s perverse request and to his possible later heretical activity? Beyond what Luke tells us, we can only speculate. Instead of such speculations, it is better to allow the sobering truth of what Luke does tell us to penetrate into our consciousness, namely, that it is all too often possible to make a counterfeit response to the presence and activity of God’s Spirit.
25 Luke closes his account of the evangelization of Samaria with a transitional sentence that uses the same connective he began with: men oun (NIV, “when”; NASB, “so”). Here he tells us that on the apostles’ return journey to Jerusalem further evangelization of Samaria took place. The “they” of the third person pronominal suffix in the verb hypestrephon (“they returned,” GK 5715) refers primarily to Peter and John, though it may also include Philip for part of the journey as he and the two Jerusalem apostles evangelized together in the southern regions of Samaria.
4 On the use of μὲν οὖν (men oun, “so,” “then”) in Acts, see comments at 1:6.
Several Western texts (e.g., E and Augustine) add τοῦ θεοῦ (tou theou, “of God”) after τὸν λόγον (ton logon, “the word”). Some Latin translations of the Western text (e.g., certain recensions of the Old Latin and Vulgate) add at the end of the verse circa ciuitates et castella Iudee (“all around the cities and regions of Judea”). Both additions are unnecessary interpolations.
5 For other references in Acts that speak of “going down” from Jerusalem, see the verbs κατέρχομαι (katerchomai, GK 2982) in 9:32; 11:27; 15:1, 30; 21:10 and καταβαίνω (katabainō, GK 2849) in 7:15; 8:26; 18:22; 24:1, 22; 25:6–7. On “going up” to Jerusalem, see ἀναβαίνω (anabainō, GK 326) in 11:2; 21:12, 15; 24:11; 25:1, 9.
7 This verse has a syntactical anacoluthon, i.e., an inconsistency or incoherence, which is attested in all the most reliable MSS (P74 א A B C), particularly in its use of πολλοί (polloi, “many”) as the subject of the sentence. Codex Bezae (D) attempted to correct this by reading πολλοῖς (pollois, “to the many”), and codices H and P, the Coptic Boharic version, and Chrysostom read πολλῶν (pollōn, “of the many”). Some scholars have argued that the anacoluthon represents a conjectural Aramaic original, where such a suspended construction is not an unusual phenomenon. Probably, however, we should view what we have here as “‘one of those tricks of mental “telescoping” to which all writers are liable,’ and that, as such, ‘it is one of several indications in the text that it was never finally revised’” (Metzger, 313, quoting K. Lake and alluding to H. Cadbury).
9–11 While Simon of Acts 8 is likely the same as “Simon Magus,” who is referred to by the church fathers, he need not be thought of as a full-blown Gnostic. Much of Simon’s Gnosticism was probably attributed to him by later adherents (cf. R. McL. Wilson, Gnosis and the New Testament [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1968], 49, 141).
10 The present passive participle καλουμένη (kaloumenē, “the one called”; NIV, “known as”; NASB, “what is called”) is syntactically awkward but textually well supported (P74 א A B C D E etc.). It is omitted by later Byzantine texts and replaced by λεγομένη (legomenē, “the so-called”) in several minuscules.
12 On the use of ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ (hē basileia tou theou, “the kingdom of God”) in Acts, see comments at 1:3.
15 On the use of καταβαίνω (katabainō) in Acts in contexts of “going down” from Jerusalem, see note above at v.5.
16 On the use of εἰς (eis, “into”) for ἐν (en, “in”) in the expression “baptized in [or into] the name of the Lord Jesus,” see comments and note at 2:38. The prepositions were frequently used synonymously (cf. 7:4, 12), and probably should be taken in that way here and at 19:5.
17 For other instances in Acts of the practice of laying hands on someone, see 6:6; 9:17; 13:3; 19:6.
18 Most textual witnesses, both early and late (e.g., P45 P74 A C D E etc.), read τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἃγιον (to pneuma to hagion, “the Holy Spirit”). Only Sinaiticus (א) and Vaticanus (B), as well as the Coptic Sahidic version and the Apostolic Constitutions, omit τὸ ἃγιον (to hagion, “holy”). The shorter version, however, is preferable (so NIV, NASB), since “the addition of τὸ ἃγιον was as natural for Christian scribes to make as its deletion would be inexplicable” (Metzger, 314).
19 Codex Bezae (D) adds παρακαλῶν καί (parakalōn kai, “answering and”) before λέγων (legōn, “saying”), which is a combination of verbs often found elsewhere in the NT and probably inserted here to parallel v.24, but is unnecessary.
24 Codex Bezae (D) adds at the end of the sentence ὃς πολλὰ κλαίων οὐ διελίμπανεν (hos polla klaiōn ou dielimpanen, “who did not stop weeping profusely”), evidently attempting to suggest Simon’s repentance (though in the Clementine Homilies 20:21 and Recognitions 10:63 his tears are portrayed as tears of rage and disappointment). The verb διαλιμπάνω (dialimpanō, “stop,” GK 1366) appears again in Codex Bezae at Acts 17:13 but nowhere else in the NT.
OVERVIEW
This account of Philip’s ministry to a high-ranking Ethiopian government official represents a further step in the advance of the gospel from its strictly Jewish confines to a full-fledged Gentile mission. Though a Gentile, the official was probably a Jewish proselyte or near-proselyte (a “Proselyte of the Gate”) and was therefore viewed by Luke as still within a Jewish religious milieu. He had been to Jerusalem to worship, was studying the prophecy of Isaiah, and was open to further instruction from a Jew. The “enthusiastic historiography” that many have detected in the narrative may well reflect Philip’s enthusiasm in telling the story, which Luke may have captured either directly or from a written source. In any event, here was a notable instance of providential working that carried the development of the gospel proclamation even beyond Samaria.
26Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Go south to the road—the desert road—that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” 27So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians. This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, 28and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the book of Isaiah the prophet. 29The Spirit told Philip, “Go to that chariot and stay near it.”
30Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. “Do you understand what you are reading?” Philip asked.
31“How can I,” he said, “unless someone explains it to me?” So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.
32The eunuch was reading this passage of Scripture:
“He was led like a sheep to the slaughter,
and as a lamb before the shearer is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
33In his humiliation he was deprived of justice.
Who can speak of his descendants?
For his life was taken from the earth.”
34The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?” 35Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.
36As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water. Why shouldn’t I be baptized?” 38And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him. 39When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing. 40Philip, however, appeared at Azotus and traveled about, preaching the gospel in all the towns until he reached Caesarea.
COMMENTARY
26 We are not told just where Philip was when he received his divine directive to “go south to the road … from Jerusalem to Gaza.” Most have assumed he was at the Samaritan city referred to in v.5—whether Sebaste, Samaria, Gitta, or Sychar. Some have seen him at Jerusalem because of the eis Hierosolyma—apo Ierousalēm (“into Jerusalem—from Jerusalem”) couplet in vv.25–26, while others think of him as already at Caesarea. It is also possible that Philip was in one of the Samaritan villages alluded to in v.25, if he is included in the pronominal suffix “they” of that verse. But Luke is not interested in the specifics of geography, and it is idle to speculate further. What our author is interested in is highlighting the fact that Philip’s ministry to the Ethiopian eunuch was especially arranged by God and providentially worked out in all its details.
When Luke wants to stress the special presence and activity of God, he often uses the expression the “angel of the Lord” (angelos kyriou) for the more normal reference to “the spirit of the Lord” (pneuma kyriou), as he does in Luke 1:11; 2:9; Acts 8:26; 12:7, 23 (cf. also angelos tou theou, “angel of God,” in 10:3, and simply angelos, “angel,” in 7:30, 35, 38; 10:7, 22; 11:13; 12:11; 27:23). Here he begins in just such a way and with such a purpose, telling us that “an angel of the Lord” began the action by giving instructions to Philip—also, of course, he sustained it throughout, but with the more usual “the Spirit” and “the Spirit of the Lord” being used in vv.29 and 39.
In the LXX the word mesēmbria (GK 3540) usually means “midday” or “noon,” and it is used that way in Acts 22:6. Here, however, as in Daniel 8:4, 9 (LXX), mesēmbria probably means “south,” with kata mesēmbrian (lit., “according to the south”) meaning “toward the south” or “southward.” The clarifying phrase hautē estin erēmos (“this is desert”) can refer grammatically either to “the road” (tēn hodon, as RSV, NEB, JB, NIV, NASB) or to the area of the city of Gaza itself (see NASB text note). Gaza was the southernmost of the five chief Philistine cities in southwestern Palestine and the last settlement before the desert that stretched on to Egypt. The fifty-mile journey from Jerusalem to Gaza trailed off at its southwestern terminus into patches of desert, and most commentators think that the expression “this is desert” has reference to that southernmost portion of the road.
Sometime around 100–96 BC, however, Gaza was destroyed by the Maccabean priest-king Alexander Jannaeus and literally laid waste (cf. Josephus, Ant. 13.358–64). A new city was built under Pompey’s orders by Gabinius in 57 BC (ibid., 14.76, 88). Strabo and Diodorus of Sicily seem to refer to this new Gaza as located a bit to the south of the old site and to distinguish it from a “Desert Gaza” or “Old Gaza” (cf. Schürer, 2.1:71). So some commentators understand “this is desert” to be specifying the old city of Gaza (“Desert Gaza”) rather than the new city.
27–28 It is difficult to determine from the text how Luke wanted his readers to understand the Ethiopian eunuch’s relation to Judaism. Furthermore, it is uncertain how first-century Judaism would have viewed a eunuch coming to worship at Jerusalem. While Deuteronomy 23:1 explicitly stipulates that no emasculated male could be included within the Jewish religious community, Isaiah 56:3–5 speaks of eunuchs being accepted by the God of boundless loving-kindness. Likewise, it is not at all as clear as it might appear what was the Ethiopian official’s physical condition, for the word “eunuch” (eunouchos, GK 2336) frequently appears in the LXX and Greek vernacular writings “for high military and political officials; it does not have to imply emasculation” (TDNT 2.766). We are probably justified in taking “eunuch” here to be a governmental title in an Oriental kingdom. Rather than focusing on his physical condition, two facts are to be emphasized when considering the Ethiopian’s relation to Judaism: (1) he had been on a religious pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and (2) he was returning with a copy of the prophecy of Isaiah in his possession, which would have been difficult for a non-Jew to get.
Admittedly, Luke leaves us in some doubt when he might well have used some such expression as prosēlytos (“proselyte,” “Jewish convert,” GK 4670; cf. 6:5; 13:43), sebomenos ton theon (“God-fearer,” “Proselyte of the Gate,” “near-convert”; cf. 13:50; 16:14; 17:4, 17; 18:7), phoboumenos ton theon (“reverent,” GK 5828, which is used in 13:16, 26 as equivalent to sebomenos ton theon, though in 10:2, 22, 35 with no necessary relation to Judaism involved), or even eusebēs (“pious,” GK 2356, with no necessary relation to Judaism involved; cf. 10:2, 7). Nevertheless, judging by what Luke does tell us and by the placement of this vignette in his overall plan, we are probably to understand that this Ethiopian government official was a proselyte or near-proselyte to Judaism.
The ancient kingdom of Ethiopia lay between Aswan and Khartoum and corresponds to modern Nubia. It was ruled by a queen mother who had the dynastic title Candace and who ruled on behalf of her son the king, since the king was regarded as the child of the sun and so was too holy to be involved in the merely secular functions of the state (cf. Strabo, Geogr. 17.1.54; Pliny, Nat. 6.186; Cassius Dio, Hist. 54.5.4; Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 2.1.13). One of the ministers of the Ethiopian government, the minister of finance, having become either a full proselyte or a Proselyte of the Gate, had gone to Jerusalem to worship at one of the Jewish festivals and was now returning home, reading Isaiah on the way. It might even have been Isaiah 56:3–5 that first caught his attention and caused him to return to Isaiah again and again:
Let no foreigner who has bound himself to the Lord say,
“The Lord will surely exclude me from his people.”
And let not any eunuch complain,
“I am only a dry tree.”
For this is what the Lord says:
“To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths,
and hold fast to my covenant—
to them I will give within my temple and its walls
a memorial and a name
better than sons and daughters;
I will give them an everlasting name
that will not be cut off.”
If he had begun reading here, he would doubtless have gone on to read what immediately follows (56:6–8):
“And foreigners who bind themselves to the Lord
to serve him,
to love the name of the Lord,
and to worship him,
all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it
and who hold fast to my covenant—
these I will bring to my holy mountain
and give them joy in my house of prayer.
Their burnt offerings and sacrifices
will be accepted on my altar;
for my house will be called
a house of prayer for all nations.”
The Sovereign Lord declares—
he who gathers the exiles of Israel:
“I will gather still others to them
besides those already gathered.”
But whatever got him into Isaiah’s prophecy, the interpretation of the Servant passage of Isaiah 52:13–53:12 troubled him.
29–30 Having been directed to the desert road on the way to Gaza, Philip is again directed by the Spirit to the carriage in which the Ethiopian minister of finance is traveling. As Philip approaches, he hears the minister reading from Isaiah, for reading aloud to oneself was “the universal practice in the ancient world” (Cadbury, 18). So while running along beside the Ethiopian’s carriage Philip asks, “Do you understand what you are reading?” (ginōskeis ha anaginōskeis—which is in Greek a play on words).
31–34 The Ethiopian, being open to instruction from a Jew, invites Philip into his carriage to explain Isaiah 53:7–8 to him. His problem, it seems, concerns the suffering and humiliation references, and his question is, “Who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?” (v.34). Perhaps he had heard an official explanation of this passage at Jerusalem but still had questions about its meaning.
While in Second Temple Judaism the concept of “God’s Servant” carried messianic connotations in certain contexts and among certain groups, there is no evidence that any pre-Christian Jew ever thought of the Messiah in terms of a “Suffering Servant.” The Talmud speaks of suffering sent by God as having atoning efficacy (cf. W. D. Davies, Paul and Rabbinic Judaism [4th ed.; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980], 262–65). And there are many indications that “humility and self-humiliation, or acceptance of humiliation from God’s hand, were expected of a pious man and thought to be highly praiseworthy” (E. Schweizer, Lordship and Discipleship [London: SCM, 1960], 23; see the fuller discussion in 23–31). But there is no explicit evidence that this general attitude toward suffering was ever consciously carried over to ideas regarding the Messiah, God’s Servant par excellence. Joseph Klausner’s dictum still holds true: “In the whole Jewish Messianic literature of the Tannaitic period there is no trace of the ‘suffering Messiah’” (The Messianic Idea in Israel [New York: Macmillan, 1955], 405).
The Targum on the earlier and later prophets, the so-called Pseudo-Jonathan, which stems from a Palestinian milieu, consistently applies all mention of suffering and humiliation in Isaiah 52:13–53:12 either to the nation Israel (at 52:14; 53:2, 4, 10) or to the wicked Gentile nations (at 53:3, 7–9, 11). Nor can it be said that the Dead Sea Scrolls have a suffering messianology. The Thanksgiving Hymns or Hodayot, it is true, bring us somewhat closer to such a concept than anything extant from the world of Judaism—chiefly in their association of suffering and the Servant of God with ideas about the coming Messiah(s): (1) that the psalmist (the Teacher of Righteousness himself?) was conscious of being God’s servant (cf. 1QH 13.18–19; 14.25; 17.26); (2) that persecution and suffering were the lot of both the Teacher and the community in following God’s will (cf. 1QH 5.15–16; 8.26–27, 35–36); and (3) that the group at times expressed itself in language drawn from the Servant Songs of Isaiah (cf. 1QH 4.5–6, which is an expanded paraphrase of Isa 42:6). But that these ideas were ever brought together at Qumran to form a Suffering Servant messianology is at best highly uncertain. It may be that rabbinic Judaism later purged a Suffering Servant messianology based on Isaiah’s Servant Songs from its own traditions because of the use made of such a doctrine and these passages by Christians, as Joachim Jeremias has argued (cf. TDNT 5.695–700). More likely, however, the lack of clarity regarding such a connection of concepts at Qumran—from whence we might have expected greater precision on this point, had it existed in early Judaism—points to the conclusion that, while the individual elements for a suffering conception of the Messiah may have been in the process of being formed in certain quarters, a doctrine of a suffering Messiah was unheard of and considered unthinkable in first-century Jewish religious circles generally.
35 At a time when only what Christians call the OT was Scripture, what better book to use in proclaiming the nature of divine redemption than Isaiah—and what better passage could be found than Isaiah 52:13–53:12? Thus Philip began with the very passage the Ethiopian was reading and proclaimed to him “the good news about Jesus” by explaining from Isaiah 53:7–8 and its context a suffering messianology. Of the evangelists, Matthew and John apply Isaiah 53 to Jesus’ ministry of healing (cf. Mt 8:17 on 53:4; Jn 12:38 on 53:1; see also Mt 12:18–21 on 42:1–4). Luke, however, alone among the evangelists portrays Jesus as quoting Isaiah 53 as being fulfilled in his passion (cf. Lk 22:37 on 53:12). In his two volumes, therefore, Luke sets up a parallel between Jesus’ use of Isaiah 53 and Philip’s preaching based on that same passage, and he implies in that parallel that the latter was dependent on the former (cf. also 1Pe 2:22–25 on 53:4–6, 9, 12). But Philip, we are told, only began his preaching about Jesus with Isaiah 53. Probably he went on to include other passages from that early Christian block of testimonium material that has been dubbed “Scriptures of the Servant of the Lord and the Righteous Sufferer,” which also probably included Isaiah 42:1–44:5; 49:1–13; 50:4–11; and Psalms 22; 34; 69; 118 (cf. C. H. Dodd, According to the Scriptures [London: Nisbet, 1952], 61–108).
36–38 The eunuch responded to Philip by asking for baptism. As a Jewish proselyte or near-proselyte, the eunuch probably knew that water baptism was the expected external symbol for a Gentile’s repentance and conversion to the religion of Israel. Therefore, it would have been quite natural for him to view baptism as the appropriate expression for his commitment to Jesus, whom he had come to accept as the fulfillment of Israel’s hope and promised Messiah. Or perhaps Philip closed his exposition with an appeal similar to Peter’s at Pentecost (cf. 2:38) and his own in Samaria (cf. 8:12). But however the subject of baptism arose, “both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him.” Traditionally the Wadi el-Hesi, located northeast of Gaza, has been identified as the place of the eunuch’s baptism. But Luke’s interest is not geography but the fact that in baptism the Ethiopian minister of finance proclaims his commitment to Jesus. This is the climax Luke has been building up to.
39–40 The account of the Ethiopian’s conversion ends as it began—with a stress on the special presence of God and his direct intervention. We are told that the Spirit of the Lord “suddenly took away” (hērpasen; NASB, “snatched away”) Philip from the scene. The verb harpazō (“take” or “snatch away,” GK 773) connotes both a forceful and sudden action by the Spirit and a lack of resistance from Philip.
With our Western interest in cause-and-effect relations and our modern-day understanding of historiography, we would like to know more about what took place between the eunuch and Philip and more about their subsequent lives. Irenaeus (Haer. 3.12), writing sometime during AD 182–188, says that the eunuch on his return became a missionary to the Ethiopians, though we do not know whether he only inferred that from this account in Acts or had independent knowledge about it. All Luke tells us about the eunuch is that his conversion was a significant episode in the advance of the gospel and that he “went on his way rejoicing.”
Likewise, all Luke tells us about Philip is that his early ministries in Samaria and to the eunuch were important features in the development of the Christian mission from its strictly Jewish confines to its Gentile outreach. He refers to further evangelistic activity on the part of Philip in the maritime plain of Palestine and to a final ministry at Caesarea (v.40). Later he mentions Philip and his four prophetess daughters at Caesarea in connection with Paul’s last visit to Jerusalem (cf. 21:8–9). Beyond these meager references, Luke tells us nothing, because his interest was in the advances of the gospel proclamation and not in what happened after that.
NOTES
28 The designation τὸ ἅρμα (to harma, GK 761) was commonly used of a war chariot, though here it refers more to a traveling chariot or carriage (see also v.38).
33 The better MS evidence (P74 א A B) omits the possessive pronoun αὐτοῦ (autou, “his”), which is present in most other MSS. The LXX reading of Isaiah 53:8 also lacks the pronoun, though it is included in the MT. While such external testimony in support of the omission usually carries conviction as to its originality (since the Hebrew text, from which the LXX was translated, evidently included this third person singular possessive pronoun, and since the sense of the quotation in this verse demands it), most translations (so NIV, NASB) and commentators have also included it, though sometimes in brackets.
34 The earliest messianic use in the Talmud of the suffering element in an Isaian Servant passage is in b. Sanh. 98b, where the Hebrew nāgûaʿ (“stricken”) led some rabbis to speak of the Messiah as “the leprous one” or “the sick one.” The attribution, however, can be dated no earlier than AD 200.
37 The better MSS omit v.37. Codex Bezae (D) is lacking for 8:26–10:14, but E, a number of minor texts, and such church fathers as Irenaeus, Tertullian, Cyprian, Ambrose, Ambrosiaster, and Augustine add (with minor variations), “Philip said, ‘If you believe with your whole heart, you may.’ He answered and said, ‘I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.’” The Byzantine text (H L P and most minuscules) also omits this reading. But Erasmus included it in his critical editions because he judged that it had been “omitted by the carelessness of scribes,” and so it became embedded in the TR and resultant KJV. There is, however, no reason why scribes would have omitted this verse if it had originally been in the text. Furthermore, (1) the construction τὸν ᾿Ιησοῦν Χριστόν (ton Iēsoun Christon) and its use as a proper name breaks a Lukan pattern in the first half of Acts (see comments at 2:36); (2) the wording πιστεύω …Χριστόν (pisteuō … Christon, “I believe … the Christ”) was a formula used by the early church in baptismal ceremonies; and (3) the verse adds nothing to the narrative except to make explicit what is already implied, i.e., that the eunuch confessed his faith in Jesus Christ before being baptized.
39 The Western text (though D is lacking here) reads, “The Holy Spirit fell upon the eunuch, and the angel of the Lord suddenly took Philip away,” thereby setting up a parallel of expression with the Spirit’s coming on believers at Pentecost and in Samaria, as well as picking up the expression “the angel of the Lord” from v.26.
Luke’s gospel is aptly described as “the Gospel of Messianic Joy,” with words of joy, rejoicing, and exultation occurring with notable frequency: χαίρω (chairō, “rejoice,” “be glad,” GK 5897) twelve times in Luke (six times in Matthew, twice in Mark); χαρά (chara, “joy,” GK 5915) eight times in Luke (six times in Matthew, once in Mark); ἀγαλλίασις (agalliasis, “exultation,” GK 21) twice in Luke (not at all in Matthew or Mark); ἀγαλλιάω (agalliaō, “exult,” “be glad,” GK 22) twice in Luke (once in Matthew, not at all in Mark); σκιρτάω (skirtaō, “leap,” “spring about” as a sign of joy, GK 5015) three times in Luke (not at all in Matthew or Mark). Here in Acts this emphasis is continued in recounting that the eunuch “went on his way rejoicing.”
OVERVIEW
There are three accounts of Paul’s conversion in Acts: the first here in ch. 9 and two more in Paul’s defenses in chs. 22 and 26. Source criticism has had a field day with these accounts, often attributing the repetitions to a plurality of sources and the differences to divergent perspectives among the sources. Haenchen, 327, however, has rightly pointed out that “Luke employs such repetitions only when he considers something to be extraordinarily important and wishes to impress it unforgettably on the reader. That is the case here.”
The major charges against Paul were his willingness to carry the gospel directly to Gentiles and his refusal to be confined to a mission to Israel. His defense before the people of Jerusalem in ch. 22 ends with him quoting his divinely given commission to go to the Gentiles and the people’s fervent objection to it (cf. 22:21–22). Paul’s defense before Agrippa II in ch. 26 also ends on this same note and is followed by Festus’s comment that he was mad (cf. 26:23–24).
Paul would have had no great problem with either Judaism or Rome had he contented himself with a mission to Jews, and Christianity would have been spared the head-on collision with both Judaism and Rome. But Luke’s point in ch. 9—one he will make twice more in chs. 22 and 26—is that Christ himself brought about this change in the strategy of divine redemption. It was not a strategy Paul thought up or a program given to him by another. Rather, it was a compelling call that came directly from Christ himself. Nor can it be explained psychologically or as an evolution of ideas whose time was ripe. It came to him by revelation and he had no choice but to obey. Luke, therefore, climaxes his portrayals of three pivotal figures in the advance of the gospel to the Gentile world with an account of the conversion of Saul of Tarsus that emphasizes the supernatural nature of the call and the miraculous circumstances of the conversion. With these emphases, though with inevitable variations in detail, Paul himself was in full agreement (cf. Gal 1:1–24).
1Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples. He went to the high priest 2and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem. 3As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. 4He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”
5“Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked.
“I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied. 6“Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”
7The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not see anyone. 8Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. So they led him by the hand into Damascus. 9For three days he was blind, and did not eat or drink anything.
COMMENTARY
1–2 The account of Saul’s conversion opens with the picture of him “still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples.” The adverb eti (“still”) ties the narrative into what has gone before (cf. 8:3). It also suggests that, even after the death of Stephen and the expulsion of the Hellenistic Jewish Christians from Jerusalem, Saul saw that it was necessary to continue the persecution of Hellenistic Jewish believers in Jesus in localities outside the Sanhedrin’s immediate jurisdiction. The expression apeilēs kai phonou—which the NIV, together with a number of other translations (e.g., NEB), treats as a hendiadys (i.e., one idea expressed through the use of two independent words connected by the conjunction “and”) and translates as “murderous threats” (though the NASB translates it as “threats and murder”)—may have connoted in Luke’s source material the dual ideas of a legal warning (apeilē, GK 581) and a judicial punishment (phonos, GK 5840), as was inherent in Jewish jurisprudence (cf. Introduction, pp. 682; Overview at 4:1–31; see also Dupont, 44 n. 43), though it seems that Luke himself took it to be simply a hendiadys and so made no effort to spell out the exact nuances of Jewish legal procedure.
Past generations of commentators, particularly those of the English-speaking world, often read into such passages as Romans 7:14–25; Galatians 1:13–14; Philippians 3:4–6; and the portrayals of Acts 9, 22, and 26 a mental and spiritual struggle on the part of Saul that was—either consciously or unconsciously—fighting fervently against the logic of the early Christians’ preaching, the dynamic quality of their lives, and/or their fortitude under oppression. Therefore Saul’s “breathing out murderous threats” was taken as his attempt to slay externally the dragons of doubt that he could not silence within his own heart and to repress “all humaner tendencies in the interests of his legal absolutism” (C. H. Dodd, The Mind of Paul: Change and Development [Manchester: John Rylands Library, 1934], 36; cf. Dodd’s companion lecture of the same year titled The Mind of Paul: A Psychological Approach, esp. 12–13). But the day of the psychological interpretation of Paul’s conversion experience appears to be over, and deservedly so. Indeed, Luke connects historically the martyrdom of Stephen, the persecution of the Hellenistic Jewish Christians, and the conversion of Saul. But the argument for a logical connection among these events is far from certain.
It is, of course, impossible today to speak with certainty about what was going on in Saul’s subconscious mind, for psychoanalysis nearly two millennia later is hardly a fruitful exercise. His own references as a Christian to this earlier time in his life, however, do not require us to view him as struggling with uncertainty, doubt, or guilt before becoming a Christian. Rather, they suggest that, humanly speaking, he was immune to the Christian proclamation and immensely satisfied with his own ancestral faith (cf. my Paul, Apostle of Liberty, 65–105). While he looked forward to the full realization of the hope of Israel, Paul seems from his reminiscences of those earlier days to have been thoroughly satisfied with the revelation of God given through Moses and to have counted it his chief delight to worship God through those revealed forms. Nor need we suppose that the logic of the early Christian preachers greatly affected the Pharisee Saul. His later references to “the offense of the cross” in 1 Corinthians 1:23 and Galatians 5:11 (cf. also Justin Martyr, Dial. 32, 89) suggest that for him the cross was the great stumbling block to any acknowledgment of Jesus of Nazareth as Israel’s Messiah—a stumbling block that no amount of logic or verbal gymnastics could remove.
It is probable that Saul took up his brutal task of persecution with full knowledge of the earnestness of his opponents, the stamina of the martyrs, and the agony he would necessarily cause. Fanaticism was not so foreign to Palestine in his day as to leave him unaware of such factors. And it is quite possible he was prepared for the emotional strain involved in persecuting those whom he believed to be dangerous schismatics within Israel.
More important, however, in days when the rabbis viewed the keeping of the Mosaic law as the vitally important prerequisite for the coming of the messianic age (cf. b. Sanh. 97b–98a; b. B. Bat. 10a; b. Yoma 86b), Paul could validate his actions against the Christians by reference to such godly precedents as (1) Moses’ slaying of the immoral Israelites at Shittim (cf. Nu 25:1–5); (2) Phinehas’s killing of the Israelite man and Midianite woman (cf. Nu 25:6–15); and (3) the actions of Mattathias and the Hasidim in rooting out apostasy among the people (cf. 1 Macc 2:23–28, 42–48). Perhaps even the divine commendation of Phinehas’s action in Numbers 25:11–13 rang in his ears:
Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest, has turned my anger away from the Israelites; for he was as zealous as I am for my honor among them, so that in my zeal I did not put an end to them. Therefore tell him I am making my covenant of peace with him. He and his descendants will have a covenant of a lasting priesthood, because he was zealous for the honor of his God and made atonement for the Israelites.
And 2 Maccabees 6:13 counsels that “it is a mark of great kindness when the impious are not let alone for a long time, but punished at once.”
The Dead Sea Scrolls define a righteous man as one who “bears unremitting hatred toward all men of ill repute” (1QS 9.22). Furthermore, they speak of unswerving allegiance to God and his laws as alone providing a firm foundation for the Holy Spirit, truth, and the arrival of Israel’s hope (cf. 1QS 9.3–4, 20–21), and they call for volunteers who are blameless in spirit and body to root out apostasy in the final eschatological days (cf. 1QM 7.5; 10.2–5). The Qumran psalmist (1QH 14.13–15), in fact, directly associates commitment to God and his laws with zeal against apostates and perverters of the law: “The nearer I draw to you, the more am I filled with zeal against all who do wickedness and against all men of deceit. For they who draw near to you cannot see your commandments defiled, and they who have knowledge of you can brook no change of your words, seeing that you are the essence of right, and all your elect are the proof of your truth.”
With such precedents and parallels, coupled with the rising tide of messianic expectation within Israel, Saul may well have felt justified in mounting a further persecution against the early Christians. He probably felt that, in light of Israel’s rising messianic hopes, the nation must be united and faithful in its obedience to the law and kept from schism or going astray. And in his task, he doubtless expected to receive God’s commendation.
According to 1 Maccabees, the three great Hasmonean rulers—Judah, Jonathan, and Simeon—established friendly relations with Rome (cf. 1 Macc 8:17–32; 12:1–4; 14:16–24), with a reciprocal extradition clause included in Rome’s reply to Simeon (cf. 1 Macc 15:15–24). And the decrees of the Roman senate recorded by Josephus (Ant. 13.259–66; 14.145–48) seem to indicate that the treaties of friendship between Rome and the Jewish people were renewed in the time of John Hyrcanus. While the Sadducean high priests of Jerusalem no longer exercised the civil authority of their predecessors, they were recognized by Rome as the titular rulers of their people in most internal matters—including, it seems, the right of extradition in strictly religious situations. Saul, therefore, seeking the return and punishment of the Hellenistic Jewish Christians, “went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem” (cf. 22:5; 26:12).
Damascus was a large and thriving commercial center at the foot of the Anti-Lebanon mountain range. Since 64 BC it had been part of the Roman province of Syria and was granted certain civic rights by Rome as one of the ten cities of eastern Syria and the Transjordan called the Decapolis (cf. Mk 5:20; 7:31). It had a large Nabatean Arab population and may have been ruled by the Nabatean king Aretas IV (9 BC–AD 40) at some time during this period (cf. 2Co 11:32). It also had a large Jewish population, 10,500 of whom Josephus reports were killed by the people of Damascus at the outbreak of Jewish-Roman hostilities in AD 66 (cf. J.W. 2.561, though in J.W. 7.368 the number given is 18,000). It was to this city that Saul went with the authority of the Jewish Sanhedrin, seeking to return to Jerusalem those Christians who had fled the city in order to contain the spread of what he considered to be a pernicious and deadly contagion within Israel.
While I have spoken repeatedly of the early believers in Jesus as Christians, the name “Christian” (Christianos) was first coined at Antioch of Syria (cf. 11:26) and appears only three times in the entire NT (11:26; 26:28; 1Pe 4:16). It was probably first given by others in derisive mocking of the early believers as “Those Who Belong to Christ” or “Christ’s People.” But before being so identified at Syrian Antioch, and before accepting what was originally meant as a taunting nickname, those who accepted Jesus as Messiah and claimed him as their Lord called themselves those of “the Way” (hē hodos, GK 3847, cf. 19:9, 23; 22:4; 24:14, 22; see also 16:17; 18:25–26), while their opponents spoke of them as members of “the sect of the Nazarenes” (hē hairesis tōn Nazōraiōn; cf. 24:5, 14; 28:22). The origin of the absolute use of “the Way” for the early believers is uncertain, though it surely had something to do with their consciousness of walking in the true path of God’s salvation and moving forward to accomplish his purposes. In the vignette of 9:1–30, it is synonymous with such self-designations as “the Lord’s disciples” (vv.1, 10, 19), “saints” (v.13), “all who call on [Jesus’] name” (v.14), and “brothers” (vv.17, 30).
3 As he approached Damascus, Saul saw “a light from heaven” (v.3) and heard a voice (v.4). In 22:6 it is “a bright light from heaven,” and in 26:13 it is “a light from heaven, brighter than the sun.” Here in v.3 and in 22:6 the light is spoken of as shining around Saul alone, whereas in 26:13 it includes his companions as well. But these are matters that can be paralleled in the portrayals of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels and are of small consequence in any repeated telling of an event. As Haenchen, 321 n.3, rightly notes, “It is open to a narrator [whether here Paul himself or Luke] to counter the lulling effect of repetition by reinforcing the emphasis of salient features.”
4 Likewise, in v.4 it is reported that Saul heard the voice (ēkousen phōnēn, GK 201, 5889) and in v.7 that his companions also heard the voice (akouontes men tēs phōnēs), whereas in 22:9 it is said that his companions did not hear the voice (tēn phōnēn ouk ēkousan) and in 26:14 that only Saul heard the voice speaking to him (ēkousa phōnēn legousan pros me). Some commentators have seen here a flagrant contradiction in Luke’s source materials, which he unwittingly incorporated into his finished product. But since the noun phōnē means both “sound” in the sense of any noise, tone, or voice and “articulated speech” in the sense of language, undoubtedly it was understood by all concerned (as the respective contexts suggest) to mean that while the whole group traveling to Damascus heard the sound from heaven, only Saul understood the spoken words.
As Saul fell to the ground, the voice from heaven intoned his name in solemn repetition: “Saul, Saul.” It was common in antiquity for a person in a formal setting to be addressed by the repetition of his name (cf., e.g., Ge 22:11; 46:2; Ex 3:4; 1Sa 3:10; Lk 10:41; 22:31; 2 Esd 14:1; 2 Bar. 22:2). The fact that the transliterated form Saoul (from Heb. and Aram. šāʾul) was used in addressing Saul, rather than the Greek vocative Saule, suggests that the words came to him in either Hebrew or Aramaic (cf. 26:14). Of more significance is the fact that Saul understood the voice to be a message from God himself, for in the rabbinic thought of the day to hear a voice from heaven (a bat qôl, lit., “a daughter of the [divine] voice”) never meant to hear a lower deity in the pantheon of gods speaking, as in Greek religious speculations, or some psychological disturbance, as many would presume today. Rather, it always connoted a rebuke or a word of instruction from the one true God himself. So when the voice went on to ask, “Why do you persecute me?” Saul was undoubtedly thoroughly confused. As he saw it, he had not been persecuting God; he was defending God and his laws!
5 Some have translated Saul’s reply as, “Who are you, sir?” since the Greek word kyrios was used in the ancient world not only as an ascription of worshipful acclaim but also as a form of polite address. Furthermore, the context suggests that Saul did not know to whom he was speaking. But he did know that he had been struck down by a light from heaven and addressed by a voice from heaven, both of which would have signaled the divine presence. So his use of “Lord,” even when first uttered, was probably meant in a worshipful manner, though he was thoroughly confused as to how he could be rebuked by God for doing the will and service of God. Unable to articulate his confusion, yet realizing the need for some response in the presence of the divine, he cries out in stumbling fashion, “Who are you, Lord?”
In what must have been for Saul almost total disbelief, he hears the reply, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” Then in a manner that throws Saul entirely on the guidance of Jesus apart from anything he could do or work out for himself, the voice continues: “Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”
Such a confrontation and such a rebuke must have been exceedingly traumatic for Saul. Time would be needed to heal his emotions and to work out the implications of this experience. Both Saul’s later Christian letters and Luke’s second volume reveal something of the process of that development as it went on throughout the rest of his life. But in this supreme revelational encounter, Saul received a new perspective on divine redemption, a new agenda for his life, and the embryonic elements of his new Christian theology.
Once Saul had been encountered by Jesus on the Damascus road, a number of realizations must have begun to press in on his consciousness—each of which would receive further explication in his life and thought as time went on, though here in their elemental forms they could not be evaded. These realizations may be enumerated as follows:
7–9 The effect on Saul’s traveling companions of this encounter with Jesus was dramatic. Acts 26 says that they fell to the ground at the flash of heavenly light. Here we are told that after getting up they “stood there speechless” (v.7). Evidently they were able to regain a semblance of composure and so lead Saul into Damascus (v.8). For Saul, for whom the spoken message was even more traumatic than the light and the sound, the experience was overpowering. Physically, as his system reacted to the emotional shock, he became blind for three days, during which time he neither ate nor drank as he waited in Damascus for further instructions (v.9).
NOTES
2 Some have noted that in 9:1–2, 14 and 26:10, 12 it is the high priest (or “chief priests”) from whom Saul received letters of delegated authority, whereas in 22:5 he is depicted as saying that he obtained such letters from the whole council (i.e., “the high priest and all the Council”). The difference, however, is merely verbal.
3–4 Though the apparition of 2 Maccabees 3 of the great horse, its frightful rider, and the two accompanying youths who attacked Heliodorus has been compared to Luke’s portrayal here, the resemblances are superficial.
4–5 The Western text adds σκληρόν σοι πρὸς κέντρα λακτίζειν (sklēron soi pros kentra laktizein, “it is hard for you to kick against the goads”) at one of two places: either after διώκεις (diōkeis, “persecute,” GK 1503) in v.4 (so E, some Syriac and Latin recensions, Jerome, and Augustine) or after the same verb διώκεις (diōkeis, “persecute”) in v.5 (so other Latin recensions, Lucifer, and Ambrose). The most reliable MSS (P74 א A B C etc.) do not include the clause, though through Erasmus it found its way into the TR and therefore the KJV. Most scholars consider the clause to be an interpolation taken from 26:14.
6 The TR deletes the adversative ἀλλά (alla) and begins the verse: τρέμων τε καὶ θαμβῶν εἶπε, Κύριε, τί με θέλεις ποιῆσαῖ; καὶ ὁ κύριος πρὸς αὐτόν (tremōn te kai thambōn eipe, Kurie, ti me theleis poiēsai; kai ho kurios pros auton, “Trembling and astonished he said, ‘Lord, what will you have me to do?’ And the Lord said to him”). No extant Greek MS has these words at this place. They have evidently been taken from 26:14 and 22:10. They were, however, included here in the Latin Vulgate (also some Syriac and Coptic versions) and inserted by Erasmus from the Vulgate into his Greek New Testament of 1516, and so found their place in the KJV.