Acts 7:2-8

I. Transition from Chaldea to Canaan by Abraham, Acts 7:2-8.

The very selection of the holy place was really attained by a great transition from the old state of things. Stephen’s purpose in tracing this history of Abraham’s secession Isaiah , 1 st, to show that he is himself in faith still a true Abrahamic Jew; 2d, that Abraham, like Jesus and the Church, in attaining a holy ultimate departed from the old order and encountered difficulties and oppositions at every step; and, 3d, that God is no local deity so attached to one sacred spot but that the true Abrahamic worshipper may anywhere find his God. On the second of these three points Stephen shows that by the command of God Abraham seceded from the idolatrous Chaldeans, and from a probably idolatrous father; and when he arrived at the spot, now held so immutably sacred, he found it preoccupied by the Canaanites, and attained nothing but a promise of its possession in the indefinite future.

The God of glory Not, as some have feebly rendered it, The glorious God, but the God of that glory which Stephen beheld, Acts 7:55. This glory was the visible resplendence of Jehovah’s own presence and person. It was called by the later Jewish writers the Shekinah, from the Hebrew shakan, to dwell. Thus the blaze of the burning bush that appeared to Moses, the splendour of the cloudy pillar that guided Israel, the “glory of the Lord a devouring fire” on Mount Sinai, the sudden flash that destroyed Nadab and Abihu, and the luminous splendour that filled the temple of Solomon at the dedication, were so many instances of the manifestation of the Shekinah, or dwelling Jehovah. In Romans 9:4, among the prerogatives of Israel over Gentilism Paul enumerates the glory.

Mesopotamia A Greek compound term signifying Between-the-rivers; namely, the rivers Euphrates and Tigris. According to Genesis 11:31, the original residence of Abraham was in Ur of the Chaldees, whence he was brought by his father to Haran, or Charran.

Before he dwelt in Charran God’s first appearance to Abraham mentioned in the Old Testament was not before he dwelt in Charran, but (Genesis 12:1-4) while he there dwelt. But there are traces in the Old Testament (Genesis 11:31) of a previous call, namely, in Ur of the Chaldeans; thus, (Genesis 15:7,) “I am Jehovah who brought thee out of Ur in Chaldea,” implies a divine call made in Chaldea itself. (See also Nehemiah 9:7.) And this is in accordance with the doctrine of Philo and other Jewish writers.