Acts 7:51

σκληροτράχηλοι καὶ ἀπερίτμητοι τῇ καρδίᾳ, cf. Exodus 33:3; Exodus 33:5; Exodus 34:9; Deuteronomy 9:6, Bar 2:30, etc., Sir 16:11 (cf. Cicero, Verr., iii., 95, “tantis cervicibus est”). Both adjectives had been used to describe the sins of Israel in former days. On this reading see above and Wendt, critical note, p. 190, cf. Kennedy, Sources of N. T. Greek, p. 116. For the expression ἀπερ., cf. Deuteronomy 10:16; Jeremiah 4:4, and ἀπερ. τὰ ὦτα, Jeremiah 6:10. In the N.T. cf. Romans 2:25; Romans 2:29 (which sounds like another echo of St. Stephen's teaching), cf. also Epist. Baru., ix. (Jeremiah 4:4). Similar expressions occur in Philo and the Rabbis, and also 1Ma 1:48; 1Ma 2:46, and see further Deissmann, Bibelstudien, pp. 150, 151. Many writers have maintained that St. Stephen's sharp and abrupt declaration marks the increasing impatience of his hearers at this point, as if the speaker felt that the murmurs of his audience would not allow him much more speech. But on the other hand St. Stephen's whole speech led up to this point, and his words were not so much an interruption, but a continuance and a summary of what had gone before. No doubt the speech was left unfinished: “cujus cursus ad Iesum tendebat” (Blass); since in His rejection the obstinacy of the people which had marked and marred their history had reached its climax; and the indignant words of St. Stephen bring to mind the indignation of a greater than he against the hyprocrisy and wilfulness of the nation “the wrath of the Lamb” against the Pharisees and the oppressors (Briggs, Messiah of the Apostles, p. 68). ἀεὶ : “summa tractationis semper quotiescumque vocamini” Bengel. ἀντιπίπτετε, cf. Numbers 27:14, of Israel striving against God, and also in Polyb. and Plut.