Acts 7:54

(54) They were cut to the heart.—Literally, were sawn through and through. (See Note on Acts 5:33.) The word describes a keener pang than the “pricked” of Acts 2:37, producing, not repentance, but the frenzy of furious anger.

They gnashed on him with their teeth.—The passage is worth noting as the only example of the literal use of a phrase with which we are so familiar in its figurative application (Matthew 8:12; Matthew 13:42, et al.). Here it clearly expresses brute passion rather than despair. At this point rage and fury—the fury caused by the consciousness that the stern words are true—had become altogether beyond control. They had passed beyond articulate speech into the inarticulate utterances of animal ferocity.