Acts 7:52

τίνα τῶν προφ. ἀσυνδέτως, to mark the vehemence of the speech, as above, Acts 7:51 : cf. 2 Chronicles 36:16 for the general statement, and for individual cases, Jeremiah, Amos, and probably Isaiah, the prophet just quoted. We may compare the words of our Lord, Matthew 5:12; Luke 13:34, and also Luke 11:49; Matthew 23:29-37 where the same words ἐδίωξαν and ἀπέκτειναν are used of the treatment of the prophets. καὶ ἀπέκ.: “they even slew” perhaps the force of καί (Wendt), “they slew them also” (Rendall). ἐλεύσεως : only here in the N.T., not in LXX or Apocrypha, or in classical writers, but found in Acta Thomæ 28, and in Iren., i., 10, in plural, of the first and second advent of Christ (see also Dion. Hal., iii., 59). τοῦ δικαίου, see Acts 3:14 and note. It has been suggested that it is used here and elsewhere of our Lord from His own employment of the same word in Matthew 23:29, where He speaks of the tombs τῶν δικαίων whom the fathers had slain whilst the children adorned their sepulchres. But it is more probable that the word was applied to our Lord from the LXX use of it, cf. Isaiah 53:11. Even those Jews who rejected the idea of an atoning Messiah acknowledged that His personal righteousness was His real claim to the Messianic dignity, Weber, Jüdische Theologie, p. 362; Taylor, Sayings of the Jewish Fathers, p. 185, second edition. We cannot forget that one of those present who heard St. Stephen's burning words was himself to see the Just One and to carry on the martyr's work, cf. Acts 22:14, ἰδεῖν τὸν δίκαιον κ. τ. λ. νῦν ἐγένεσθε : “of whom ye have now become,” R.V., the spirit of their fathers was still alive, and they had acted as their fathers had done; ὑμεῖς again emphatic.