6 

6:9 There arose certain of the synagogue which is called - It was one and the same synagogue which consisted of these several nations. Saul of Cilicia was doubtless a member of it; whence it is not at all improbable, that Gamaliel presided over it.Libertines - So they were styled, whose fathers were once slaves, and afterward made free. This was the ease of many Jews who had been taken captive by the Romans.

6:14 We have heard him say - So they might. But yet the consequence they drew would not follow.

6:15 As the face of an angel - Covered with supernatural lustre.They reckoned his preaching of Jesus to be the Christ was destroying Moses and the law; and God bears witness to him, with the same glory as he did to Moses, when he gave the law by him.

7 

7:2 And he said - St. Stephen had been accused of blasphemy against Moses, and even against God; and of speaking against the temple and the law, threatening that Jesus would destroy the one, and change the other. In answer to this accusation, rehearsing as it were the articles of his historical creed, he speaks of God with high reverence, and a grateful sense of a long series of acts of goodness to the Israelites, and of Moses with great respect, on account of his important and honourable employments under God: of the temple with regard, as being built to the honour of God; yet not with such superstition as the Jews; putting them in mind, that no temple could comprehend God. And he was going on, no doubt, when he was interrupted by their clamour, to speak to the last point, the destruction of the temple, and the change of the law by Christ. Men, brethren, and fathers, hearken - The sum of his discourse is this: I acknowledge the glory of God revealed to the fathers, Act 7:2 the calling of Moses, Act 7:34 etc ; the dignity of the law, Act 7:8, Act 7:38, Act 7:44; the holiness of this place, Act 7:7, Act 7:45, Act 7:47. And indeed the law is more ancient than the temple; the promise more ancient than the law. For God showed himself the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and their children freely, Act 7:2, Act 7:9, Act 7:17, Act 7:32, Act 7:34-35, and they showed faith and obedience to God, Act 7:4, Act 7:20, Act 7:23 particularly by their regard for the law, Act 7:8 and the promised land, Act 7:16. Act 7:16 Meantime, God never confined his presence to this one place or to the observers of the law. For he hath been acceptably worshipped before the law was given, or the temple built, and out of this land, Act 7:2, Act 7:9, Act 7:33, Act 7:44. And that our fathers and their posterity were not tied down to this land, their various sojournings, Act 7:4, Act 7:14, Act 7:29, Act 7:44 and exile, Act 7:43, show. But you and your fathers have always been evil, Act 7:9; have withstood Moses, Act 7:25, Act 7:39; have despised the land, Act 7:39, forsaken God, Act 7:40, superstitiously honoured the temple, Act 7:48, resisted God and his Spirit, Act 7:50, killed the prophets and the Messiah himself, Act 7:51, and kept not the law for which ye contend, Act 7:53. Therefore God is not bound to you; much less to you alone. And truly this solemn testimony of Stephen is most worthy of his character, as a man full of the Holy Ghost, and of faith and power: in which, though he does not advance so many regular propositions, contradictory to those of his adversaries, yet he closely and nervously answers them all. Nor can we doubt but he would, from these premises, have drawn inferences touching the destruction of the temple, the abrogation of the Mosaic law, the punishment of that rebellious people; and above all, touching Jesus of Nazareth, the true Messiah, had not his discourse been interrupted by the clamours of the multitude, stopping their ears, and rushing upon him. Men, brethren, and fathers - All who are here present, whether ye are my equals in years, or of more advanced age. The word which in this and in many other places is rendered men is a mere expletive. The God of glory - The glorious God, appeared to Abraham before he dwelt in Haran - Therefore Abraham knew God, long before he was in this land. Gen 12:1.

7:3 Which I will show thee - Abraham knew not where he went.

7:4 After his father was dead - While Terah lived, Abraham lived partly with him, partly in Canaan: but after he died, altogether in Canaan.

7:5 No, not to set his foot on - For the field mentioned, Act 7:16, he did not receive by a Divine donation, butbought it; even thereby showing that he was a stranger in the land.

7 

7:48 Yet the Most High inhabiteth not temples made with hands - As Solomon declared at the very dedication of the temple, Ki1 8:27.The Most High - Whom as such no building can contain. Isa 66:1.

7:49 What is the place of my rest? - Have I need to rest?

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.

4 

4:47 To come down - For Cana stood much higher than Capernaum.

4:48 Unless ye see signs and wonders - Although the Samaritans believed without them.

4:52 He asked the hour when he amended - The more exactly the works of God are considered, the more faith is increased.