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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Acts 7:53 - 7:53
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
53. οἵτινες κ.τ.λ., ye who received the Law, from Sinai.
εἰς διαταγὰς ἀγγέλων. Literally, ‘unto ordinances of angels,’ which signifies ‘at the ministration of angels’ or ‘as it was ordained by angels.’ St Paul (Gal 3:19) has the same expression concerning the Law, that it was ‘ministered by angels.’ The LXX. have in Deu 33:2, speaking of the giving of the Law, ἐκ δεξιῶν αὐτοῦ ἄγγελοι μετ' αὐτοῦ, and Josephus (Ant. XV. 5. 3) represents the same tradition, ‘We have learned from God the most excellent of our doctrines and the most holy part of our Law by angels.’ So Pesikta Rabbathi, par. xxi., ‘There came down with the Holy One to Sinai twenty-two thousand ministering angels, like the camp of the Levites.’
καὶ οὐκ ἐφυλάξατε, and ye kept it not. Stephen here points back along the whole history of the Jews, and shews how the Law, which was intended to lead men to Christ, had not been guarded in its best sense, the spirit having been sacrificed to the letter, and so the result had been that they rejected and slew Him of whom the whole Law was speaking. The Law, given by angels, was the glory of Israel, the perverse use of it had proved their shame and destruction.