NLT Illustrated Study Bible - Book of Acts - Flipbook - Page 24
A cts 7 : 2 5
1980
man’s defense and avenged him, killing the
Egyptian. 25 Moses assumed his fellow Isra
elites would realize that God had sent him
to rescue them, but they didn’t.
26 “The next day he visited them again and
saw two men of Israel fighting. He tried to be
a peacemaker. ‘Men,’ he said, ‘you are broth
ers. Why are you fighting each other?’
27 “But the man in the wrong pushed
Moses aside. ‘Who made you a ruler and
judge over us?’ he asked. 28 ‘Are you going
to kill me as you killed that Egyptian yester
day?’ 29 When Moses heard that, he fled the
country and lived as a foreigner in the land
of Midia n. There his two sons were born.
30 “Forty years later, in the desert near
Mount Sinai, an angel appeared to Moses in
the flame of a burning bush. 31 When Moses
saw it, he was amazed at the sight. As he
went to take a closer look, the voice of the
Lord called out to him, 32 ‘I am the God of
your ancestors—the God of Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob.’ Moses shook with terror and did
not dare to look.
33 “Then the Lord said to him, ‘Take off
your sandals, for you are standing on holy
ground. 34 I have certainly seen the oppres
sion of my people in Egypt. I have heard
their groans and have come down to rescue
them. Now go, for I am sending you back to
Egypt.’*
35 “So God sent back the same man his
people had previously rejected when they
demanded, ‘Who made you a ruler and
judge over us?’ Through the angel who ap
peared to him in the burning bush, God sent
Moses to be their ruler and savior. 36 And by
means of many wonders and miraculous
signs, he led them out of Egypt, through
the Red Sea, and through the wilderness for
forty years.
37 “Moses himself told the people of Is
rael, ‘God will raise up for you a Prophet like
me from among your own people.’* 38 Moses
was with our ancestors, the assembly of God’s
people in the wilderness, when the angel
spoke to him at Mount Sinai. And there Moses
received life-giving words to pass on to us.*
39 “But our ancestors refused to listen to
oses. They rejected him and wanted to
M
return to Egypt. 40 They told Aaron, ‘Make
us some gods who can lead us, for we don’t
know what has become of this Moses, who
brought us out of Egypt.’ 41 So they made an
idol shaped like a calf, and they sacrificed
to it and celebrated over this thing they had
made. 42 Then God turned away from them
and abandoned them to serve the stars of
heaven as their gods! In the book of the
prophets it is written,
‘Was it to me you were bringing
sacrifices and offerings
during those forty years in the
wilderness, Israel?
43 No, you carried your pagan gods—
the shrine of Molech,
the star of your god Rephan,
and the images you made to worship
them.
So I will send you into exile
as far away as Babylon.’*
44 “Our ancestors carried the Tabernacle*
with them through the wilderness. It was
constructed according to the f plan God had
shown to Moses. 45 Years later, when Joshua
led our ancestors in battle against the na
tions that God drove out of this land, the
Tabernacle was taken with them into their
new territory. And it stayed there until the
time of King David.
46 “David found favor with God and asked
for the privilege of building a permanent
Temple for the God of Jacob.* 47 But it was
Solomon who actually built it. 48 However,
the Most High doesn’t live in temples made
by human hands. As the prophet says,
49 ‘Heaven is my throne,
and the earth is my footstool.
Could you build me a temple as good
as that?’
asks the Lord.
‘Could you build me such a resting
place?
50
Didn’t my hands make both heaven
and earth?’*
7:2628
*Exod 2:1314
7:29
Exod 2:15
7:3031
Exod 3:14
7:3234
*Exod 3:410
7:35
*Exod 2:14
7:36
Exod 7:3; 12:41
7:37
*Deut 18:15
Acts 3:22
7:38
Exod 19:16
Deut 32:4547
7:39
Num 14:3
7:40
*Exod 32:1, 23
7:4243
*Amos 5:2527
7:44
Exod 25:9, 40
Heb 8:5
f tupos (5179)
Rom
5:14
7:45
Josh 3:1417; 18:1;
23:9
2 Sam 7:2, 6
7:46
2 Sam 7:216
1 Kgs 8:17
Ps 132:15
7:47
1 Kgs 6:138;
8:1721
7:48
2 Chr 2:6
Isa 57:15
Eph 2:22
1 Pet 2:5
7:4950
*Isa 66:12
:3134 Exod 3:510. 7:37 Deut 18:15. 7:38 Some manuscripts read to you. 7:4243 Amos 5:2527 (Greek version).
7
7:44 Greek the tent of witness. 7:46 Some manuscripts read the house of Jacob. 7:4950 Isa 66:12.
7:37 This verse quotes Deut 18:15.
Moses had prophesied that the Messiah
would come, and it had happened as
Moses said.
7:3940 Just as the ancient Jews had
rejected what Moses was saying, now
Stephen was speaking to descen
dants who were still rejecting God’s
deliverers—in this case, Jesus, the ulti
mate deliverer.
T H E P E N TAT E U C H
7:4243 This passage quotes Amos
5:2527 (Greek version) to illustrate how
the people of Israel rebelled against
Moses (Acts 7:3941). Molech was a
Canaanite god to whom human sacri
fices were offered (Lev 18:21; 20:25;
1 Kgs 11:7; 2 Kgs 23:10; Jer 32:35).
Rephan was a star god identified with
the planet Saturn, who was worshiped
by the Israelites during their wilderness
wanderings.
ISRAEL’S HISTORY
7:4850 One of the charges was that
Stephen was speaking against the Temple
(cp. 6:14). The leading priests and scribes
controlled the Temple commerce and
had a vital business interest in maintain
ing their enterprises unhindered (see
Luke 19:4548). That is why these lead
ers were so worried about the Temple
despite the fact that God himself had said
that the Most High doesn’t live in temples
made by human hands.
POETRY & WISDOM
