Acts 7:57

57. Cried… ran upon him The succession of feeling through which they passed is curiously marked in the narrative. When first his face shone like an angel’s they were awed into quiet listening. As he lingered upon the honourable points of Jewish history their attention seems to have been rapt; but as the point of his argument was felt they began to manifest (Acts 7:51) their unwilling ears and mental resistance. When he charged them with violation of the law (Acts 7:53) they gnashed; but finally, when he claimed to station Jesus the Nazarene at the right hand of the Shekinah, they would stand it no longer. At such unheard-of blasphemy, stopping their ears and raising a howl, they rush, all at once, upon the victim.

This case may have begun with due judicial regularity; but it terminated in a scene of mob violence, paying some regard to the forms of law in the mode of execution. It is probable that the Sanhedrin possessed no power for capital punishment; but in those turbulent times daring acts of atrocity as deep as this were constantly occurring. Stoning to death was the Jewish punishment for blasphemy.