Acts 7:17 - Meaning and Application

Stephen now goes on to speak about the remarkable growth of Israel in Egypt. By God’s providence, the people rose from a family to a nation in a short time. This happened right as the time of the promise drew near, the time when God would form them into a people. In the first 215 years after God’s promise to Abraham, the family of the covenant grew only to 70 people. In the next 215 years, they grew to 600,000 fighting men. God’s work can move fastest when it is closest to its goal. So we should not lose heart when God’s promises seem slow in coming. God knows how to recover time that seems lost, and when the year of rescue arrives, he can do in one day what looks like a double day’s work.

This growth happened in Egypt, where they were oppressed and treated harshly. Their lives were made so bitter that one might think they would have avoided having children. Instead, they married in faith that God would visit them at the right time, and God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply.” Times of suffering have often been times of growth for the church.

Stephen then turns to the severe hardship they suffered there (Acts 7:18-19). As the Egyptians saw the Hebrews increase in number, they increased their burdens. Stephen points out three things about this treatment. First, there was shameful ingratitude. They were oppressed by a new king who did not know Joseph, meaning he did not remember Joseph’s great service to Egypt. If he had, he would not have repaid Joseph’s family so badly. People who harm good people are deeply ungrateful, because such people are blessings to the age and place where they live.

Second, there was wicked craft and policy. The Egyptians dealt subtly with our people. They said, in effect, “Let us handle this wisely,” thinking they were protecting themselves. But they were really acting foolishly, because they were only storing up wrath for themselves. Anyone who thinks he is wise while acting deceitfully or cruelly toward his brothers is badly mistaken.

Third, there was brutal cruelty. To wipe them out, they cast out their newborn children so that they would not live. Killing the babies seemed like a sure way to crush a nation in its infancy. Stephen brings this up partly to remind them how humble Israel’s beginnings were, like a helpless and unwanted infant (Ezekiel 16:4). He also wants them to remember how much they owed God for caring for them, a care they had not deserved. And he means them to see that what they were doing against the young Christian church was just as wicked and unjust, and just as useless in the end, as what the Egyptians had done against Israel. “You think you are acting wisely in hurting us,” he says in effect, “and in persecuting new believers you are doing what the Egyptians did when they cast out the children. But you will find it will do no good. Despite your hatred, Christ’s disciples will increase and multiply.”

Next, Stephen speaks of Moses, whom God raised up to be Israel’s deliverer. Since Stephen was accused of speaking against Moses, he speaks of him with great honor. Moses was born when the persecution of Israel was at its worst, especially during the cruel order to kill newborn children. At that very time, Moses was born (Acts 7:20), and he himself was in danger of becoming a victim of that bloody command, just as Jesus later was in Bethlehem. God often prepares deliverance for his people when their darkness is deepest and their trouble is greatest.

Moses was also very beautiful. His face seemed to shine from birth, as a sign of the honor God planned for him. The phrase means he was beautiful to God, set apart from the womb, and this made him lovely in God’s sight. Holiness is the beauty God values most. He was also wonderfully preserved as a baby. First, his careful parents kept him in their home for three months as long as they dared. Then God’s providence led him into the arms of Pharaoh’s daughter, who took him in and raised him as her own son (Acts 7:21). Those whom God plans to use in special ways, he also watches over in special ways. If God protected the child Moses, then he will certainly guard the interests of his holy servant Jesus (Acts 4:27) against all enemies gathered against him.

Moses then became a great learner, trained in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, who were known for polished learning, especially philosophy, astronomy, and perhaps the hieroglyphic studies that may have helped lead them into idolatry. Because he was educated at court, he had access to the best books, teachers, and company, and he had the ability to make good use of them. Still, there is good reason to think he did not forget the God of his fathers or waste himself on the unlawful studies and practices of Egypt’s magicians, except so far as was needed to expose and refute them.

He also became a leading man in Egypt, which seems to be what is meant by his being mighty in words and deeds. Even if he was not quick of speech, but stammered, he still spoke with great sense. What he said carried weight, and people could see its reason and force. In action, he showed courage, skill, and success. In this way, human education prepared him for service, though he still could not be fully equipped without God’s own light.

By saying all this, Stephen shows that, despite the false charges against him, he held Moses in the highest honor. Stephen also points to Moses’ first attempt to deliver Israel, which they rejected and would not accept. This part of the story is important, as shown in Exodus 2:11-15, and also in Hebrews 11:24-26, where it is described as an act of holy self-denial. Here, Stephen presents it as the beginning of the public work Moses was called to do (Acts 7:23). When Moses was forty years old, in the full strength of life and ready for honor in Pharaoh’s court, it came into his heart, put there by God, to visit his brothers, the children of Israel, and see how he might help them. He showed himself as a public man, acting in a public role. He began as Israel’s deliverer by defending an oppressed Israelite and killing the Egyptian who abused him (Acts 7:24).

Seeing one of his fellow Israelites suffer injustice, Moses felt both compassion for the victim and righteous anger against the one who was doing wrong. In that public role, he defended the oppressed man and struck down the Egyptian. If Moses had been only a private man, he could not rightly have done this, but he knew his calling from heaven would support him. He also assumed that his brothers, who surely knew the promise God made to Abraham, would understand that God was using him to bring them deliverance.

Moses could not have acted with such courage and strength unless God had given him special power and authority. If the people had understood the signs of the time, they could have seen this as the beginning of their rescue. But they did not understand it. They did not take this as the raising of a banner and the sounding of a trumpet to announce Moses as their deliverer.

Second, Moses acted as Israel’s judge. He gave a clear sign of this the next day, when he tried to settle a dispute between two Hebrews, as Acts 7:26 says. He showed himself to them while they were fighting, and, with the dignity and authority of a ruler, he tried to bring them back together. As their leader, he wanted to decide the matter between them and said, “Men, you are brothers by birth and by your faith. Why are you hurting one another?” He saw that, as in most quarrels, both sides had some fault. If peace and friendship were to be restored, both sides needed to yield and forgive.

When Moses was to be Israel’s deliverer from Egypt, he killed the Egyptian and so rescued Israel from his hand. But when he was to be Israel’s judge and lawgiver, he ruled with a golden scepter, not an iron rod. He did not kill the people when they fought. Instead, he gave them good laws and settled their disputes and appeals, as Exodus 18:16 says.

But the Israelite who was more in the wrong pushed Moses away, as Acts 7:27 says. He would not accept the correction, even though it was fair and gentle. He was ready to attack Moses with words and asked, “Who made you a ruler and a judge over us?” Proud and quarrelsome people do not like to be corrected. These Israelites would rather be ruled harshly by their taskmasters than be delivered and have their minds guided by reason through their deliverer.

The man was so angry at Moses’ rebuke that he threw the killing of the Egyptian back in his face. What should have been seen as the first sign of more help to come, he turned into a charge against Moses: “Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?” (Acts 7:28). In effect, he treated Moses’ act as a crime and threatened to report him. Yet that act had been a sign of challenge to the Egyptians and a sign of love and rescue for Israel.

After this, Moses fled to the land of Midian and made no further attempt to deliver Israel for forty years. There he lived as a stranger, married, and had two sons by Jethro’s daughter, as Acts 7:29 says.

Now we can see how this supports Stephen’s point. They accused him of speaking against Moses, but he turns that accusation back on them by pointing to the insults their fathers had shown Moses. They should have been ashamed and humbled by that history, not picking fights with Stephen while claiming to defend Moses’ honor. He had as much respect for Moses as any of them did.

They were also persecuting him for speaking up for Christ and the gospel, while setting up Moses and his law against Jesus. Stephen’s warning is plain: be careful that you do not repeat your fathers’ mistake and reject one whom God has raised up as your Prince and Savior. If they would not stubbornly shut their eyes to the light, they could see that God would use this Jesus to deliver them from a worse slavery than Egypt. So they must not thrust him away, but receive him as their ruler and judge.

They must also beware that they do not suffer the same fate as their fathers. Because their fathers rejected Moses, they were justly left to die in their bondage, and the promised deliverance did not come until forty years later. If they pushed away the gospel, it would go to the Gentiles. If they would not have Christ, then they would not have him. That would be their judgment, as in Matthew 23:38-39.