Acts 13:17

First Division of the Sermon Sketch of the Story of Israel till the Days of David.

Acts 13:17. The God of this people of Israel chose our fathers. The Eternal chose Israel out of the various peoples of the world for ‘His own,' to keep burning, in the midst of the varied populations given up to idolatry, and exposed to the terrible consequences which followed impure idol- worship, the light of the knowledge of the one true, pure God. The special work of Israel was not what is usually termed human learning, nor were the schools of Jerusalem and the Holy Land at any period resorted to by foreigners, and yet the Hebrew nation ranks with the Greeks as educators of the human race. It has been well and truly said, if we take away two nations from the history of the world, the people of the earth might still have sat in darkness and in the shadow of death, though in their most flourishing periods they have scarcely counted one-hundredth part of the human race; and this influence, which they alone shared with the people of antiquity most famous for letters, was only a small part of the work worked in the world by the people whom God chose for ‘His own.'

Exalted the people. Not only by increasing their numbers, but exalting them in the eyes of the nations by the mighty works wrought by Moses previous to the exodus.

With an high arm. The expression ‘high arm' is the same used in Exodus 6:6 (LXX.), rendered in the English Version ‘with stretched-out arm.' The figure was probably originally suggested to Moses and the children of Israel by the familiar hieroglyphic which represents ‘Might' by two outstretched arms.