Commentary - Acts 7:17-29

Bird's-eye view

In this section of his defense, Stephen continues his masterful recitation of Israel's history, but it is a history lesson with a sharp, serrated edge. He is not simply giving a dry report to the Sanhedrin; he is building a case. The central point he is driving toward is that Israel has a long and tragic history of rejecting the deliverers God sends them. As he recounts the early life of Moses, every detail is selected to highlight a parallel between Moses and the Christ whom his accusers have just murdered. Stephen is showing them that their treatment of Jesus was not an anomaly. Rather, it was the consistent pattern of their fathers, a pattern they have now brought to its horrific climax. God's promises advance, His providence governs all things down to the last detail, but His people are stiff-necked. The story of Moses's first forty years is therefore a kind of prologue to the gospel, a story of a rejected savior who was nevertheless being prepared by God for the great work of redemption.

Stephen lays out the story with deliberate irony. God's promise to Abraham is drawing near, and so His people multiply. But this multiplication provokes the fear and hostility of a new Pharaoh, leading to oppression. Yet it is precisely in the midst of this murderous oppression that God raises up His chosen deliverer, Moses. He is providentially preserved, educated in the courts of the enemy, and at the right time, his heart is moved to visit his people. But when he acts to deliver them, they reject him. This rejection is the pivot point of the whole narrative. It demonstrates the spiritual blindness of the people and forces Moses into exile, where God will prepare him for another forty years. Stephen is holding up a mirror to the Sanhedrin, showing them their own faces in the faces of those who rejected Moses.

Outline

Context In Acts

Stephen's speech in Acts 7 is the longest in the book and serves as a crucial theological turning point. He has been falsely accused of speaking against Moses and the Temple (Acts 6:11-14). His defense is not a denial, but a radical reframing of Israel's history that shows his accusers to be the true blasphemers. He argues that God's presence and saving work have never been confined to the land of Israel or the physical Temple. God appeared to Abraham in Mesopotamia and was with Joseph in Egypt. Now, in this section, Stephen shows that God raised up Moses, the great lawgiver, outside the formal structures of Israelite life, and that this same Moses was rejected by the people he came to save. This theme of rejection will culminate in Stephen's final accusation: "You stiff-necked people... you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you" (Acts 7:51). The story of Moses's early life is exhibit A in Stephen's prosecution of the Sanhedrin.

Key Issues

The Rejected Savior Motif

One of the central threads running through the whole Bible is that God's people have a nasty habit of spitting in the face of the very men God sends to rescue them. It is a recurring theme, a constant refrain. Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers before he became their savior. Moses, as Stephen recounts here, was repudiated by the very man he was trying to help. David was hunted by Saul. The prophets were stoned, sawn in two, and murdered. And all of this was a foreshadowing of the ultimate rejection, when the Son of God Himself came to His own, and His own did not receive Him.

Stephen is a master of biblical theology. He understands that this is not just a series of unfortunate coincidences, but rather a divinely ordained pattern. It is a pattern that reveals two things simultaneously. First, it reveals the depth of human sin and rebellion. Our natural inclination is not to welcome God's grace, but to resist it. We want a ruler and a judge of our own making, not one sent from God. Second, it reveals the magnificent wisdom and power of God, who takes this very rejection and makes it the instrument of salvation. Joseph's betrayal led to the preservation of his family. Moses's exile led to his encounter with God at the burning bush. And Christ's crucifixion, the ultimate act of human rejection, became the very means by which God redeemed the world. Stephen is showing the Sanhedrin that in rejecting Jesus, they were not doing something new; they were simply playing their assigned part in this great, tragic, and ultimately glorious drama.

Verse by Verse Commentary

17 “But as the time of the promise was drawing near which God had assured to Abraham, the people increased and multiplied in Egypt,

Stephen begins with God's sovereign timing. The deliverance from Egypt was not an accident or a historical contingency; it was the fulfillment of a specific promise God had sworn to Abraham centuries before (Gen. 15:13-14). God's clock keeps perfect time. And notice the first sign that the promise is ripening: the people increased and multiplied. This is a direct echo of the creation mandate in Genesis, to be fruitful and multiply. God was building His nation, right under the nose of the world's superpower. This is how God's kingdom always advances, not with the pomp of earthly power, but with the quiet, inexorable power of life. While men are plotting, God is promising and populating.

18 until ANOTHER KING AROSE OVER EGYPT WHO DID NOT KNOW ABOUT JOSEPH.

History turns on such hinges. A new dynasty, a new political reality. This king's ignorance of Joseph was not a simple lapse in memory. It was a willful, political forgetting. To "know" Joseph would be to acknowledge the debt Egypt owed to him and his people, to recognize their special status. This king chose not to know. He saw the multiplying Hebrews not as a blessing, but as a threat. This is the constant response of the kingdoms of men to the kingdom of God. When the church grows, when Christian families are fruitful, the secular state begins to get nervous and starts to forget the foundational role that the faith once played.

19 It was he who deceitfully took advantage of our family and mistreated our fathers to set their infants outside so that they would not survive.

The political ignorance of verse 18 now blossoms into active, cunning malice. The word for "deceitfully took advantage" implies a crafty, sophistical kind of oppression. Pharaoh used statecraft and policy to attack God's people. And the attack was aimed at the heart of the promise: the children. His policy wasraw infanticide, dressed up as state necessity. He commanded them to expose their infants, to leave them to die. This is the devil's ancient strategy. From Pharaoh to Herod to the abortionist down the street, the war against God is always a war against the seed. Satan attacks the children because he is trying to cut off the line of the promised Seed, Jesus Christ.

20 It was at this time that Moses was born, and he was lovely in the sight of God, and he was nurtured three months in his father’s home.

Right at the apex of Pharaoh's murderous plot, at the very moment of maximum darkness, God injects His chosen instrument of light. "At this time." God's timing is impeccable. When the enemy's policy is "let them not survive," God brings forth the savior. And this child was not just another baby; he was "lovely in the sight of God." This phrase means more than just a cute baby; it signifies that he was set apart, chosen, and pleasing to God for his appointed task. God's favor rested on him from birth. And in a direct act of civil disobedience, his parents hid him, defying the king's edict because they saw by faith that this was no ordinary child (Heb. 11:23).

21 And after he had been set outside, Pharaoh’s daughter took him away and nurtured him as her own son.

Here the divine irony is almost thick enough to taste. The parents obey God up to a point, but then they are forced to obey the king's edict and set him outside. But they do so in a waterproof basket, a little ark of salvation. And who finds him? The daughter of the very man who ordered his death. God reaches into the heart of the enemy's household and commandeers the princess to rescue and raise His deliverer. Not only that, but she ends up paying Moses's own mother to nurse him. Pharaoh is unknowingly funding the upbringing of the man who will one day bring his empire to its knees. This is our God. He makes his enemies pay for the rope that will be used to bind them.

22 And Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was powerful in words and deeds.

So Moses receives a world-class classical education, courtesy of the Egyptian crown. He is trained in rhetoric, law, military strategy, and administration. He becomes "powerful in words and deeds." God was preparing his man for leadership, and He used the resources of a pagan nation to do it. This is the principle of plundering the Egyptians. All truth is God's truth, and all skills can be consecrated to His service. God is not afraid of pagan wisdom; He is the author of all wisdom, and He can press it into the service of His redemptive plan. Moses was being trained to be a king, and he would one day be the prince and lawgiver for God's people.

23 But when he was approaching the age of forty, it entered his heart to visit his brothers, the sons of Israel.

Forty is a significant number in Scripture, often representing a period of testing or preparation. After forty years of living as an Egyptian prince, the call of his blood, the pull of his covenant identity, asserts itself. God puts it into his heart. This was not a whim; it was a divine summons. He identifies with the slaves, not the masters. He chooses, as Hebrews tells us, "to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin" (Heb. 11:25). This is the turning point of his life, the great renunciation of worldly power for the sake of God's covenant people.

24 And when he saw one of them being treated unjustly, he defended him and took justice for the oppressed by striking down the Egyptian.

His visit is not one of mere sentiment. He sees injustice and he acts. He acts as a prince, as a judge. His striking down of the Egyptian was not a hot-headed murder; it was an act of judgment. He was "taking justice" for the oppressed. He was acting as the magistrate God had raised him up to be. It was a righteous, albeit premature and perhaps clumsy, act of deliverance. He was stepping into the role for which God had been preparing him for forty years.

25 And he supposed that his brothers understood that God was granting them salvation through him, but they did not understand.

This is the tragic heart of the passage. Moses acted in faith, assuming his people would recognize the hand of God in his actions. He thought the sign was clear: a prince of Egypt, one of their own blood, risking everything to defend a Hebrew slave. How could they not see it? But they were blind. "They did not understand." Their years in slavery had not just broken their backs, but had also clouded their spiritual vision. They could not recognize God's salvation when it stood right in front of them, wielding a sword on their behalf. And in this, they were a perfect foreshadowing of the generation that would look at Jesus, who cast out demons and healed the sick, and fail to understand that God was granting them salvation through Him.

26-27 On the following day he appeared to them as they were fighting together, and he tried to reconcile them in peace, saying, ‘Men, you are brothers, why are you treating one another unjustly?’ But the one who was treating his neighbor unjustly pushed him away, saying, ‘WHO MADE YOU A RULER AND JUDGE OVER US?

Having acted as a judge against the Egyptians, Moses now acts as a reconciler among the Hebrews. He finds two of his brothers fighting and appeals to their covenant bond. "You are brothers." But his appeal is met with belligerent rejection. The guilty party, the one in the wrong, is the one who challenges Moses's authority. And his question is dripping with satanic irony. "Who made you a ruler and a judge over us?" The answer, of course, was God. God had made him their ruler and judge. But they did not want a ruler appointed by God; they wanted to continue in their own petty squabbles. This is the very question the chief priests would ask Jesus in the temple: "By what authority are you doing these things?" (Matt. 21:23). It is the cry of the rebellious human heart in every generation.

28 DO YOU INTEND TO KILL ME AS YOU KILLED THE EGYPTIAN YESTERDAY?’

The man's retort reveals that Moses's act of deliverance was already common knowledge. But instead of seeing it as an act of salvation, he twists it into a threat. He throws the act of rescue back in Moses's face. "Are you going to treat me like you treated our enemy?" This is the height of spiritual perversity. He identifies more with the dead Egyptian oppressor than with his living Hebrew brother and deliverer. He fears the justice of the savior more than he hates the injustice of the slave master.

29 At this remark, MOSES FLED AND BECAME A SOJOURNER IN THE LAND OF MIDIAN, where he was the father of two sons.

This rejection is what drives the deliverer into exile. Hearing that his actions are known, and seeing that his own people have repudiated him, Moses flees for his life. The would-be king becomes a sojourner, a wandering alien. But even in this exile, God's plan is not thwarted. It is in Midian that Moses will be humbled, where he will learn to be a shepherd, and where, after another forty years, God will meet him at a burning bush. The rejection by men leads to a deeper commissioning by God. And even in exile, God's promise of fruitfulness continues: he becomes the father of two sons. The line of the covenant continues, even when the deliverer is on the run.

Application

Stephen's history lesson for the Sanhedrin is a history lesson for us. The central warning of this passage is against the sin of failing to recognize God's deliverance when it shows up in a form we weren't expecting. The Hebrews wanted out of slavery, but they didn't want a ruler and a judge to get them there. They wanted the benefits of salvation without submitting to the authority of the savior. How often are we guilty of the same thing?

We want God to rescue us from our financial troubles, but we resent the man of God who preaches on tithing and stewardship. We want God to fix our broken marriages, but we push away the elders who call us to repent of our bitterness and selfishness, asking, "Who made you a ruler over me?" We want a ticket to heaven, but we don't want a Lord who meddles in our business, our politics, or our entertainment choices. We want a Jesus who is a gentle spiritual guide, not a King who demands total allegiance.

Moses came with all the credentials. He was educated, powerful, and willing to identify with his people at great personal cost. But they rejected him because he demanded that they stop acting like slaves and start acting like brothers. Christ has come with credentials that are infinitely greater. He is the Son of God, powerful in word and deed, who laid aside His glory to identify with us. The question this text poses to us is this: When He comes to us, speaking through His Word and His Church, to bring peace and justice among us, do we recognize Him? Or do we, like that ancient Hebrew, push Him away and challenge His authority? May God give us the grace to see our Deliverer for who He is, and to submit to Him as the rightful Ruler and Judge over every area of our lives.