7 

7:51 Ye stiff necked - Not bowing the neck to God's yoke; and uncircumcised in heart - So they showed themselves, Act 7:54; and ears - As they showed, Act 7:57. So far were they from receiving the word of God into theirhearts, that they would not hear it even with their ears.Ye - And your fathers, always - As often as ever ye are called, resist the Holy Ghost - Testifying by the prophets of Jesus, and the whole truth. This is the sum of what he had shown at large.

7:53 Who have received the law by the administration of angels - God, when he gave the law on Mount Sinai, was attended withthousands of his angels, Gal 3:19; Psa 68:17.

7:55 But he looking steadfastly up to heaven, saw the glory of God - Doubtless he saw such a glorious representation, God miraculously operating on his imagination, as on Ezekiel's, when he sat in his house at Babylon, and saw Jerusalem, and seemed to himself transported thither, Eze 8:1-4. And probably other martyrs, when called to suffer the last extremity, have had extraordinary assistance of some similar kind.

7:56 I see the Son of man standing - As if it were just ready to receive him. Otherwise he is said to sit at the right hand of God.

7:57 They rushed upon him - Before any sentence passed.

7:58 The witnesses laid down their clothes at the feet of a young man, whose name was Saul - O Saul, couldst thou have believed, if one had told thee, that thou thyself shouldst be stoned in the same cause? and shouldst triumph in committing thy soul likewise to that Jesus whom thou art now blaspheming? His dying prayer reached thee, as well as many others. And the martyr Stephen, and Saul the persecutor, (afterward his brother both in faith and martyrdom,) are now joined in everlasting friendship, and dwell together in the happy company of those who have made their robes white in the blood of the Lamb.

7:59 And they stoned Stephen, invoking and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit - This is the literal translation of the words, the name of God not being in the original. Nevertheless such a solemn prayer to Christ, in which a departing soul is thus committed into his hands, is such an act of worship, as no good man could have paid to a mere creature; Stephen here worshipping Christ in the very same manner in which Christ worshipped the Father on the cross.

8 

8:1 At that time there was great persecution against the Church - Their adversaries having tasted blood, were the more eager. And they were all dispersed - Not all the Church: if so, who would have remained for the apostles to teach, or Saul to persecute? But all the teachers except the apostles, who, though in the most danger, stayed with the flock.

6 

6:30 What sign dost thou? - Amazing, after what they had just seen!

6:31 Our fathers ate manna - This sign Moses gave them. He gave them bread from heaven - From the lower sublunary heaven; to which Jesus opposes the highest heaven: in which sense he says seven times, Joh 6:32-33, Joh 6:38, Joh 6:50, Joh 6:58, Joh 6:62, that he himself came down from heaven.

6:32 Moses gave you not bread from heaven - It was not Moses who gave the manna to your fathers; but my Father who now giveth the true bread from heaven. Psa 78:24.

6:33 He that - giveth life to the world - Not (like the manna) to one people only: and that from generation to generation. Our Lord does not yet say, I am that bread; else the Jews would not have given him so respectful an answer, Joh 6:34.

6:34 Give us this bread - Meaning it still, in a literal sense: yet they seem now to be not far from believing.

6:35 I am the bread of life - Having and giving life: he that cometh - he that believeth - Equivalent expressions: shall never hunger,thirst - Shall be satisfied, happy, for ever.