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Stephen’s Defense

Now the [a]high priest asked [Stephen], “Are these charges true?”

And he answered, “Brothers and fathers, listen to me! The God of glory [the Shekinah, the radiance of God] appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran,(A) and He said to him, ‘Leave your country and your relatives, and come to the land that I will show you.’(B) Then he left the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran. And from there, after his father died, God sent him to this country in which you now live.(C) But He did not give him inheritable property, not even enough ground to take a step on, yet He promised that He would give it to Him as a possession, and to his descendants after him.(D) And this is, in effect, what God spoke [to him]: That his descendants would be aliens (strangers) in a foreign land, and that they would be enslaved and mistreated for four hundred years. And I will judge any nation to whom they will be in bondage,’ said God, ‘and after that they will come out and serve Me [in worship] in this place.’(E) And God gave Abraham a covenant [a formal agreement to be strictly observed] of [which] circumcision [was the sign]; and so [under these circumstances] Abraham became the father of Isaac, and circumcised him on the eighth day; and Isaac [became the father] of [b]Jacob, and Jacob [became the father] of the [c]twelve patriarchs.(F)

“The [ten elder] patriarchs, overwhelmed with jealousy, sold [their younger brother] Joseph into [slavery in] Egypt; but God was with him,(G) 10 and He rescued him from all his suffering, and gave him favor and wisdom in the sight of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and he made Joseph governor over Egypt and over his entire household.(H)

11 “Now a famine came over all Egypt and Canaan, bringing great distress and our fathers could not find food [for their households and livestock].(I) 12 But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent our fathers there the first time.(J) 13 And on the second visit Joseph identified himself to his brothers, and Joseph’s family and background were revealed to Pharaoh.(K) 14 Then Joseph sent and invited Jacob his father and all his relatives to come to him, seventy-five persons in all.(L) 15 And Jacob (Israel) went down into Egypt, and [d]there he died, as did our fathers;(M) 16 and [from Egypt] [e]their bodies were taken back to Shechem and placed in the tomb which Abraham had purchased for a sum of money from the sons of Hamor in Shechem.(N)

17 “But as the time [for the fulfillment] of the promise which God had made to Abraham was approaching, the [Hebrew] people increased and multiplied in Egypt,(O) 18 until [the time when] there arose another king over egypt who did not know joseph [nor his history and the merit of his service to Egypt].(P) 19 He shrewdly exploited our race and mistreated our fathers, forcing them to expose their [male] babies so that they would die.(Q) 20 It was at this [critical] time that Moses was born; and he was lovely in the sight of God, and for three months he was nourished in his father’s house.(R) 21 Then when he was set outside [to die], Pharaoh’s daughter rescued him and claimed him for herself, and cared for him as her own son.(S)

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Footnotes

  1. Acts 7:1 Probably Caiaphas. See 4:6.
  2. Acts 7:8 Jacob’s name was changed to Israel (Gen 32:28).
  3. Acts 7:8 Ancestral fathers of the twelve tribes: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph, and Benjamin.
  4. Acts 7:15 Jacob was buried in Abraham’s tomb at Machpelah in Canaan.
  5. Acts 7:16 Lit they, i.e. the bodies of Joseph and his brothers.

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