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Stephen began his defense by going back to Abraham, the father of the Jewish nation, and to the Abrahamic Covenant, God's foundational promises to the Jews.
7:2-3 Stephen called for the Sanhedrin's attention addressing his hearers respectfully as "brethren and fathers"(cf. 22:1). These men were his brethren, in that they were fellow Jews, and fathers, in that they were older leaders of the nation.
He took the title "God of glory"from Psalm 29:2 where it occurs in a context of God revealing His glory by speaking powerfully and majestically. God had revealed His glory by speaking this way to their father (ancestor) Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia. Genesis 12:1-3 records God's instruction for Abraham to leave his homeland to go to a foreign country that God would show him. Stephen was quoting from the Septuagint translation of Genesis 12:1.313
God directed Abraham to a promised land. The Promised Land had become a Holy Land to the Jews, and in Stephen's day the Jews venerated it too greatly. We see this in the fact that they looked down on Hellenistic Jews, such as Stephen, who had not lived there all their lives. What was a good gift from God, the land, had become a source of inordinate pride that made the Jews conclude that orthodoxy was bound up with being in the land.
7:4 Obeying God's call Abraham left Mesopotamia, specifically Ur of the Chaldeans (cf. Gen. 15:7; Josh. 24:3; Neh. 9:7), and settled temporarily in Haran, near the top of the Fertile Crescent. After Abraham's father Terah died, God directed Abraham south into Canaan, the land the Jews occupied in Stephen's day (Gen. 12:5).
"A comparison of the data in Genesis (11:26, 32; 12:4) seems to indicate that Terah lived another 60 years after Abraham left [Haran]. . . . The best solution seems to be that Abraham was not the oldest son of Terah, but was named first because he was the most prominent (11:26)."314
The father of Judaism was willing to depart from where he was to follow God into unknown territory on the word of God alone. The Jews in Stephen's day were not willing to depart from where they were in their thinking even though God's word was leading them to do so, as Stephen would point out. Stephen wanted them to follow Abraham's good example of faith and courage.
7:5 Stephen also contrasted Abraham's lack of inheritance in the land with God's promise to give the land to Abraham's descendants as an inheritance (Gen. 12:7; cf. Heb. 11:8). God promised this when the patriarch had no children. Thus the emphasis is on God's promise of future possession of the land through descendants to come. Of course, Abraham did possess the cave of Machpelah in Canaan (Gen. 23:3-20), but perhaps Stephen meant that God gave no continuing or full possession to Abraham.
The Jews of Stephen's day needed to realize that God had not exhausted His promises to Abraham in giving them what they presently had and valued so highly. There was greater inheritance to come, but it would come to future generations of their descendants, not to them. Specifically it would come to those who continued to follow Abraham's good example of faith by believing in Jesus. God sought to teach these Jews that there were spiritual descendants of Abraham who were not his physical descendants (Gal. 3:6-9, 29).
7:6 God also told Abraham that his offspring would be slaves and suffer mistreatment outside their land for 400 years (Gen. 15:13).315
The Israelites were currently under Roman oppression but were about to lose their freedom and experience antagonism outside the land for many years. Jesus had predicted this (Matt. 23:1-25:46).
7:7 God promised to punish the nations that oppressed Israel (Gen. 12:3) and to bring her back into the land eventually (Gen. 15:13). God had told Moses that he would bring the Israelites out of Egypt and that they would worship Him at Mt. Sinai (Exod. 3:12). Stephen's point was that God had promised to punish those who oppressed His people. The Jews had been oppressing the Christians by prohibiting their preaching and even flogging them (4:18; 5:40). Gamaliel had warned that if the Christians were correct the Jewish leaders would be fighting against God by opposing them (5:39). God's promise to judge His people's oppressors went back into the Abrahamic Covenant, which the Jews treasured and Stephen reminded them of here.
7:8 Stephen probably referred to God giving Abraham the covenant of circumcision (Gen. 17) because this was the sign that God would deliver what He had promised. It was the seal of the Abrahamic Covenant. God's promise was firm. Moreover God enabled Abraham to father Isaac, whom Abraham obediently circumcised, and later Isaac gave birth to Jacob who fathered the 12 patriarchs. Thus this chapter in Israel's history ends with emphasis on God's faithfulness to His promises to Abraham. The Sanhedrin needed to reevaluate these promises in the light of how God was working in their day.
Stephen affirmed belief that the God of glory had given the Abrahamic Covenant, which contained promises of land (vv. 2-4), seed (v. 5), and blessing (vv. 6-7). He had sealed this covenant with a sign, namely circumcision (v. 8). Circumcision was one of the Jewish customs that would pass away in view of the new revelation that had come through Jesus Christ (cf. 6:14).
Throughout his speech Stephen made many statements that had revolutionary implications for traditional Jewish thinking of his day. He did not expound these implications, but they are clear in view of what the disciples of Jesus were preaching. As such his speech is a masterpiece of understatement, or rather non-statement. That the Sanhedrin saw these implications and rejected them becomes clear at the end of the speech when they reacted as negatively as possible.
