Stephen continued his review of Israel's history by proceeding into the period of the Exodus. He sought to refute the charge that he was blaspheming against Moses (6:11) and was speaking against the Mosaic Law (6:13).
Stephen's understanding of Moses was as orthodox as his view of God, but his presentation of Moses' career made comparison with Jesus' career unmistakable. As in the previous pericope, there is a double emphasis in this one, first, on God's faithfulness to His promises in the Abrahamic Covenant and, second, on Moses as a precursor of Jesus.
"More specifically than in the life of Joseph, Stephen sees in the story of Moses a type of the new and greater Moses--Christ himself."321
7:17-18 Stephen had gotten ahead of himself briefly in verse 16. Now he returned to his history of Israel just before the Exodus. "The promise"God had made to Abraham was that He would judge his descendants' enslaving nation and free the Israelites (Gen. 15:14). This was a particular way that He would fulfill the earlier promises to give Israel the land, to multiply the Israelites, and to curse those nations that cursed Israel (Gen. 12:1-3, 7). The Israelites increased in Egypt until another Pharaoh arose who disregarded Joseph (Exod. 1:7-8).
Similarly Christ had come in the fullness of time (Gal. 4:4). Before Moses appeared on the scene, Israel increased in numbers and fell under the control of an enemy that was hostile to her. Likewise before Jesus appeared, Israel had increased numerically and had fallen under Roman domination.
7:19 This Pharaoh took advantage of the Israelites and mistreated them by decreeing the death of their infants (Exod. 1:10, 16, 22). Like Pharaoh, Herod had tried to destroy all the Jewish babies at the time of Jesus' birth.
7:20-22 Moses, the great deliverer of his people, was born, preserved, protected (by Pharaoh's daughter no less), and educated in Egypt.
". . . the pillar of the Law was reared in a foreign land and in a Gentile court."322
Moses became a powerful man in word (his writings?) and deed. All this took place outside the Promised Land, which further depreciated the importance of that land.
Like Moses, Jesus was lovely in God's sight when He was born, and Mary nurtured Him at home before He came under the control of the Egyptians temporarily (cf. Matt. 1:13-21). Moses had great knowledge as did Jesus; both became powerful men in words and deeds (v. 22).
". . . after forty years of learning in Egypt, God put him [Moses] out into the desert. There God gave him his B. D. degree, his Backside of the Desert degree, and prepared him to become the deliverer."323
7:23-29 Moses' presumptive attempt to deliver his people resulted in his having to flee Egypt for Midian where he became an alien (cf. v. 6). These verses relate another story of an anointed leader of God's people, like Joseph, being rejected by those people. Yet God did not abandon Moses or his people. God blessed Moses in a foreign land, Midian, by giving him two sons.
Moses offered himself as the deliverer of his brethren, but they did not understand him. The same thing happened to Jesus. Moses' Jewish brethren who did not recognize that God had appointed him as their ruler and judge rejected him even though Moses sought to help them. Likewise Jesus' Jewish brethren rejected Him. Moses' brethren feared that he might use his power to destroy them rather than help them. Similarly the Jewish leaders feared that Jesus with His supernatural abilities might bring them harm rather than deliverance and blessing (cf. John 11:47-48). This rejection led Moses to leave his brethren and to live in a distant land where he fathered sons (v. 29). Jesus too had left His people and had gone to live in a distant land where He was producing descendants (i.e., Christians).
7:30-34 It was in Midian, after 40 years, that God appeared to Moses in the burning bush. The angel that appeared to Moses was the Angel of the Lord, very possibly the preincarnate Christ (vv. 31-33; cf. Exod. 3:2, 6; 4:2; John 12:41; 1 Cor. 10:1-4; Heb. 11:26). God commanded Moses to return to Egypt as His instrument of deliverance for the Israelites. God revealed Himself and His Law outside the Holy Land.
Moses received a commission from God in Midian to return to his brethren to lead them out of their oppressed condition. Jesus, on God's order, will return to the earth to deliver Israel from her oppressed condition during the Tribulation when He returns at His second coming.
7:35-36 The very man whom the Israelite leaders had rejected as their ruler and judge (v. 27) God sent to fulfill that role with His help. Moses proceeded to perform signs and wonders in Egypt, at the Red Sea, and in the wilderness.
The third reference to 40 years (cf. vv. 23, 30, 36) divides Moses' career into three distinct parts. These stages were (1) preparation ending with rejection by his brethren, (2) preparation ending with his return to Egypt, and (3) ruling and judging Israel. The parallels with the career of Jesus become increasingly obvious as Stephen's speech unfolds.
"Jesus too had been brought out of Egypt by Joseph and Mary, had passed through the waters of Jordan at his baptism (the Red Sea), and had been tempted in the wilderness for forty days."324
As Moses became Israel's ruler and judge with angelic assistance, so will Jesus. As Moses had done miracles, so had Jesus. The ultimate prophet that Moses had predicted would follow him was Jesus (cf. 3:22).
"Stephen naturally lingers over Moses, in whom they trusted' (Jn. v. 45-47), showing that the lawgiver, rejected by his people (35), foreshadowed the experience of Christ (Jn. i. 11)."325
Stephen continued dealing with the Mosaic period of Israel's history, but focused more particularly now on Moses' teaching, the Mosaic Law. This is what the Jews of his day professed to venerate and follow exactly, but Stephen showed that they really had rejected what Moses taught.
7:37-38 Stephen stressed the fact that "this"Moses was the man who had given the prophecy about the coming prophet (Deut. 18:15) and had received other divine oracles for the Israelites.326Stephen clearly respected Moses, but he noted that Moses himself had predicted that a prophet like himself would appear (cf. Acts 3:22). Therefore the Jews should not have concluded that the Mosaic Law was the end of God's revelation to them.327
". . . preaching Christ was not disloyalty to an ancient tradition, but its fulfilment. This was powerful argument, and a continuation of Peter's theme (iii. 22, 23). (This truth was to be more fully developed for similar minds in the Epistle to the Hebrews; see iii. 1-6, ix. 18-20, xii. 24).)"328
Jesus had spent a time of temptation in the wilderness (40 days) and had heard God speaking audibly from heaven at His baptism. He too had rubbed shoulders with Israel's leaders and had received revelations from God for His people.
7:39-40 The Israelites in the wilderness refused to listen to Moses and repudiated his leadership of them (Num. 14:3-4; Exod. 32:1, 23). By insisting on the finality of the Mosaic Law so strongly, as they did, Stephen's hearers were in danger of repudiating what Moses had prophesied about the coming prophet.
The Israelites refused to follow Moses but sought to return to their former place of slavery. So had Israel refused to follow Jesus but turned back instead to her former condition of bondage under the Law (cf. Gal. 5:1).
7:41-43 The Israelites turned from Moses to idolatry, and in this their high priest, Aaron, helped them. Consequently God gave them over to what they wanted (cf. Rom. 1:24). He also purposed to send them into captivity as punishment (Amos 5:25-27).
By implication, turning from the revelation that Jesus had given amounted to idolatry. Stephen implied that by rejecting Moses' coming prophet, Jesus, his hearers could expect a similar fate despite the sacrifices they brought to God.
"Stephen's quotation of Amos 5:27, I will carry you away beyond Babylon,' differs from the OT. Both the Hebrew text and the LXX say Damascus.' The prophet Amos was foretelling the exile of the northern kingdom under the Assyrians which would take them beyond Damascus. More than a century later, the southern kingdom was captured because of her similar disobedience to God and was deported to Babylon. Stephen has merely substituted this phrase in order to use this Scripture to cover the judgment of God on the entire nation."329
Israel had turned from Jesus to idolatry, and her high priest had helped her do so. The Israelites rejoiced in their idolatry in the wilderness and more recently since Jesus was out of the way. God had turned from them for their apostasy in the past, and He was doing the same in the present. They did not really offer their sacrifices to God, and He did not accept them since they had rejected His anointed Ruler and Judge. The Israelites were heading for another wilderness experience. They adopted a house of worship and an object of worship that were not God's choice but their creations. God would remove them far from their land in punishment (i.e., in 70 A.D.).
Stephen had answered his accusers' charge that he had spoken against Moses (6:11, 13) by showing that he believed what Moses had predicted about the coming prophet. It was really his hearers who rejected Moses since they refused to allow the possibility of prophetic revelation that superseded the Mosaic Law.
"Joseph's brethren, rejecting the beloved of their father, Moses' people, turning with scorn and cursing on the one who only sought to give them freedom--these were prototypes which the audience would not fail to refer to themselves."330
