Acts 7:30-33

7:30 “After ¹  forty years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the desert ²  of Mount Sinai, in the flame of a burning bush. ³  7:31 When Moses saw it, he was amazed at the sight, and when he approached to investigate, there came the voice of the Lord, 7:32 ‘I am the God of your forefathers, ⁴  the God of Abraham, Isaac, ⁵  and Jacob.’ ⁶  Moses began to tremble and did not dare to look more closely. ⁷  7:33 But the Lord said to him, ‘Take the sandals off your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy ground. ⁸ 

Acts 7:35

7:35 This same ⁹  Moses they had rejected, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and judge?’ ¹⁰  God sent as both ruler and deliverer ¹¹  through the hand of the angel ¹²  who appeared to him in the bush.

[7:30]  ¹ tn Grk “And after.” Because of the difference between Greek style, which often begins sentences or clauses with “and,” and contemporary English style, which generally does not, καί (kai) has not been translated here.

[7:30]  ² tn Or “wilderness.”

[7:30]  ³ sn An allusion to Exod 3:2.

[7:32]  ⁴ tn Or “ancestors”; Grk “fathers.”

[7:32]  ⁵ tn Grk “and Isaac,” but καί (kai) has not been translated since English normally uses a coordinating conjunction only between the last two elements in a series of three or more.

[7:32]  ⁶ sn A quotation from Exod 3:6. The phrase suggests the God of promise, the God of the nation.

[7:32]  ⁷ tn Or “to investigate,” “to contemplate” (BDAG 522 s.v. κατανοέω 2).

[7:33]  ⁸ sn A quotation from Exod 3:5. The phrase holy ground points to the fact that God is not limited to a particular locale. The place where he is active in revealing himself is a holy place.

[7:35]  ⁹ sn This same. The reference to “this one” occurs five times in this speech. It is the way the other speeches in Acts refer to Jesus (e.g., Acts 2:23).

[7:35]  ¹⁰ sn A quotation from Exod 2:14 (see Acts 7:27). God saw Moses very differently than the people of the nation did. The reference to a ruler and a judge suggests that Stephen set up a comparison between Moses and Jesus, but he never finished his speech to make the point. The reader of Acts, however, knowing the other sermons in the book, recognizes that the rejection of Jesus is the counterpoint.

[7:35]  ¹¹ tn Or “liberator.” The meaning “liberator” for λυτρωτήν (lutrwthn) is given in L&N 37.129: “a person who liberates or releases others.”

[7:35]  ¹² tn Or simply “through the angel.” Here the “hand” could be understood as a figure for the person or the power of the angel himself. The remark about the angel appearing fits the first century Jewish view that God appears to no one (John 1:14-18; Gal 3:19; Deut 33:2 LXX).