38-40. To keep prominent the ill treatment received by Moses at the hands of the people, the speaker proceeds to note their conduct in the wilderness. (38) "This is he that was in the congregation in the wilderness, with the angel who spoke to him at Mount Sinai, and with our fathers, who received the living oracles to give to us. (39) Whom our fathers were not willing to obey, but thrust him from them, and in their hearts turned back into Egypt, (40) saying to Aaron, Make us Gods who shall go before us; for this Moses, who led us out of the land of Egypt, we know not what is become of him." This instance of their rejection of Moses was much more flagrant than the first, seeing that it occurred immediately after the most splendid manifestations of God's presence with him; and that, in the very words which they addressed to Aaron, they acknowledged that it was he who had brought them out of Egypt. These circumstances also render more striking the analogy which Stephen is about to develop between him and Jesus; for he also had been rejected, notwithstanding the admission, by his enemies, that he had wrought miracles.

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Old Testament