‘But I will judge the nation that they serve,’ said God, ‘and after that they shall come out and worship me in this place.’
7. The nation whom they shall serve. This judgment is joined with the deliverance of the people. For, whereas God doth punish the cruelty and tyranny of the wicked Egyptians, he doth that for his people’s sake, whom he took into his tuition, that it may be seen that he is the deliverer of his Church.
Stephen is now at the bar before the great council of the nation, indicted for blasphemy: what the witnesses swore against him we had an account of in the foregoing chapter, that he spoke blasphemous words against Moses and God; for he spoke against this holy place and the law. Now here, I. The high priest calls upon him to answer for himself, Act 7:1.
Commenting on Acts 7:1-16
And the nation to whom they shall be in bondage,.... At the end of the four hundred years, and which was the Egyptian nation: I will judge, said God; that is, condemn and punish them, as he did, by inflicting the ten plagues upon them: and after that they shall come forth; out of the land of Egypt, and their hard bondage there; and which...