Stephen next proceeded to show what God had done with Joseph and his family. He selected this segment of the patriarchal narrative primarily for two reasons. First, it shows how God miraculously preserved His people in faithfulness to His promises. Second, it shows the remarkable similarity between the career of Joseph, a savior God raised up, and that of Jesus. Jesus repeated many of Joseph's experiences illustrating God's choice of Him. Also the Israelites in the present were similar to Joseph's brothers in the past. Stephen's emphasis continued to be on God's faithfulness to His promises even though Joseph's brothers were wicked and the chosen family was out of the Promised Land. Stephen mentioned Jesus explicitly only once in his entire speech, in his very last sentence (v. 52). Nevertheless he referred to Him indirectly many times by drawing parallels between the experiences of Joseph and Moses and those of Jesus.
7:9-10 The patriarchs, Joseph's brothers, became jealous of him (Gen. 37:11) and sold him as a slave into Egypt (Gen. 37:28). Nevertheless God was with him (Gen. 39:2, 21) and rescued him from prison, gave him favor and wisdom before Pharaoh, and made him ruler over Egypt (Gen. 41:41) and his father's family. God was with Joseph because he was one of God's chosen people and because he followed God faithfully. This is what the Christians were claiming to be and do.
"The treatment of Joseph by his Hebrew brothers should have been a pointed reminder of the way Jesus had been dealt with by the Jewish nation."316
Like Joseph, Jesus' brethren rejected and literally sold Him for the price of a slave. Nevertheless God was with Joseph and Jesus (v. 9). God exalted Joseph under Pharaoh and placed Him in authority over his domain. God had done the same with Jesus.
7:11-12 The Jews' forefathers suffered from a famine in the Promised Land and sent to Egypt for food (Gen. 41:54-55; 42:2, 5). When hard times came upon God's people, He sustained them and brought them into blessing and under the rule of Joseph. So will it be in the future with Jesus. The Jews would suffer hardship (in the destruction of Jerusalem and in the Tribulation) and then God will bring them into blessing under Jesus' rule (in the Millennium).
7:13-14 On their second visit, Joseph revealed himself to his brothers, who could not believe he was their ruler, and he revealed his family's identity to Pharaoh (Gen. 45:1-4). In the future Israel will finally recognize Jesus as her Messiah (Zech. 12:10-14). Joseph then invited Jacob and his family, who numbered 75, to move to Egypt (Gen. 45:9-10). I take it that this was the number of people invited to Egypt. Some interpreters believe 75 people entered Egypt.
"Stephen apparently cited the LXX figure which really was not an error, but computed the total differently by including five people which the Masoretic text did not."317
"One of the most widely accepted solutions is to recognize that the Hebrew text includes Jacob, Joseph, and Joseph's two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh (a total of 70), but that the Septuagint omits Jacob and Joseph but includes Joseph's seven grandchildren (mentioned in 1 Chron. 7:14-15, 20-25). This is supported by the Hebrew in Genesis 46:8-26 which enumerates 66 names, omitting Jacob, Joseph, and Joseph's two sons."318
7:15 The number of people who made the trip and entered Egypt was probably 70 (Gen. 46:26-27; Exod. 1:5; Deut. 10:22). Jacob died safe and blessed under Joseph's rule. So will Israel end its days under Jesus' rule in the Millennium. Jacob died in Egypt as did his sons and their immediate descendants. Thus verses 11-15 record a threat to the chosen people and God's preservation of them, a second testimony to God's faithfulness in this pericope (cf. vv. 9-10).
7:16 From Egypt the chosen people eventually returned to the Promised Land. God had been with them out of the land, and He now returned them to the land. Believers in Jesus will end up in the final resting place of Jesus, heaven.
Shechem was of special interest to Stephen. The Israelites buried Joseph's bones there after their initial conquest of the land (Josh. 24:32). Stephen's allusion to this event was his way of concluding this period of Israel's history. Really Jacob, not Abraham, had purchased the tomb from Hamor in Shechem (Gen. 33:19; cf. 23:16; 50:13). This is probably a case of attributing to an ancestor what one of his descendants did (cf. Heb. 7:9-10). In the ancient oriental view of things, people regarded an ancestor as in one sense participating in the actions of his descendants (Gen. 9:25; 25:23; cf. Mal. 1:2-3; Rom. 9:11-13). Abraham had purchased Joseph's burial site in the sense that his grandson Jacob had purchased it (cf. Heb. 7:9-10). Stephen probably intended that his reference to Abraham rather than to Jacob would remind his hearers of God's faithfulness in fulfilling the promises God gave to Abraham. He did this in one sense when Israel possessed Canaan under Joshua's leadership. Israel will experience the ultimate fulfillment of God's land promises to Abraham when she enters rest under Jesus' messianic rule in the Millennium.
Two other explanations of this apparent error are these. Stephen telescoped two events into one: Abraham's purchase from Ephron in Hebron (Gen. 23:1-20), and Jacob's purchase from Hamor in Shechem.319Abraham really did purchase the plot in Shechem, though Moses did not record that (cf. Gen. 12:6-7), and Jacob repurchased it later.320
In Stephen's day Shechem was in Samaritan territory. He reminded the Sanhedrin that their ancestral deliverer was buried in the land that orthodox Jews despised and avoided. This was another instance of helping them see that they should not think that the only place God worked was in the Promised Land. Stephen had already referred to Mesopotamia as where God had revealed Himself to Abraham (v. 2).
