Acts 7:58

7:58 When ¹  they had driven him out of the city, they began to stone him, ²  and the witnesses laid their cloaks ³  at the feet of a young man named Saul.

Acts 8:1

8:1 And Saul agreed completely with killing ⁴  him.

Saul Begins to Persecute the Church

Now on that day a great ⁵  persecution began ⁶  against the church in Jerusalem, ⁷  and all ⁸  except the apostles were forced to scatter throughout the regions ⁹  of Judea and Samaria.

[7:58]  ¹ tn Grk “And when.” Because of the length of the Greek sentence and the tendency of contemporary English style to use shorter sentences, καί (kai) has not been translated here; a new sentence is begun instead.

[7:58]  ² sn They began to stone him. The irony of the scene is that the people do exactly what the speech complains about in v. 52.

[7:58]  ³ tn Or “outer garments.”

[8:1]  ⁴ tn The term ἀναίρεσις (anairesi") can refer to murder (BDAG 64 s.v.; 2 Macc 5:13; Josephus, Ant. 5.2.12 [5.165]).

[8:1]  ⁵ tn Or “severe.”

[8:1]  ⁶ tn Grk “Now there happened on that day a great persecution.” It is less awkward to say in English “Now on that day a great persecution began.”

[8:1]  ⁷ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[8:1]  ⁸ sn All. Given that the Jerusalem church is still active after this and that the Hellenists are the focus of Acts 6-8, it is possible to argue that only the Hellenistic Christians were forced to scatter.

[8:1]  ⁹ tn Or “countryside.”