Pastor Jeremy M. Thomas
Fredericksburg Bible Church
107 East Austin
Fredericksburg, Texas 78624
830-997-8834      jthomas@fbgbible.org
A0834 – August 24, 2008 – Acts 7:17-43 – The Typology Of Moses

Acts 7:17-4317Καθὼς δὲ ἤγγιζεν ὁ χρόνος τῆς ἐπαγγελίας ἧς ὡμολόγησεν ὁ θεὸς τῷ Ἀβραάμ, ηὔξησεν ὁ λαὸς καὶ ἐπληθύνθη ἐν Αἰγύπτῳ 18ἄχρι οὗ ἀνέστη βασιλεὺς ἕτερος [ἐπʼ Αἴγυπτον] ὃς οὐκ ᾔδει τὸν Ἰωσήφ. 19οὗτος κατασοφισάμενος τὸ γένος ἡμῶν ἐκάκωσεν τοὺς πατέρας [ἡμῶν] τοῦ ποιεῖν τὰ βρέφη ἔκθετα αὐτῶν εἰς τὸ μὴ ζῳογονεῖσθαι. 20Ἐν ᾧ καιρῷ ἐγεννήθη Μωϋσῆς καὶ ἦν ἀστεῖος τῷ θεῷ· ὃς ἀνετράφη μῆνας τρεῖς ἐν τῷ οἴκῳ τοῦ πατρός, 21ἐκτεθέντος δὲ αὐτοῦ ἀνείλατο αὐτὸν ἡ θυγάτηρ Φαραὼ καὶ ἀνεθρέψατο αὐτὸν ἑαυτῇ εἰς υἱόν. 22καὶ ἐπαιδεύθη Μωϋσῆς [ἐν] πάσῃ σοφίᾳ Αἰγυπτίων, ἦν δὲ δυνατὸς ἐν λόγοις καὶ ἔργοις αὐτοῦ. 23Ὡς δὲ ἐπληροῦτο αὐτῷ τεσσερακονταετὴς χρόνος, ἀνέβη ἐπὶ τὴν καρδίαν αὐτοῦ ἐπισκέψασθαι τοὺς ἀδελφοὺς αὐτοῦ τοὺς υἱοὺς Ἰσραήλ. 24καὶ ἰδών τινα ἀδικούμενον ἠμύνατο καὶ ἐποίησεν ἐκδίκησιν τῷ καταπονουμένῳ πατάξας τὸν Αἰγύπτιον. 25ἐνόμιζεν δὲ συνιέναι τοὺς ἀδελφοὺς [αὐτοῦ] ὅτι ὁ θεὸς διὰ χειρὸς αὐτοῦ δίδωσιν σωτηρίαν αὐτοῖς· οἱ δὲ οὐ συνῆκαν. 26τῇ τε ἐπιούσῃ ἡμέρᾳ ὤφθη αὐτοῖς μαχομένοις καὶ συνήλλασσεν αὐτοὺς εἰς εἰρήνην εἰπών· ἄνδρες, ἀδελφοί ἐστε· ἱνατί ἀδικεῖτε ἀλλήλους; 27ὁ δὲ ἀδικῶν τὸν πλησίον ἀπώσατο αὐτὸν εἰπών· τίς σε κατέστησεν ἄρχοντα καὶ δικαστὴν ἐφʼ ἡμῶν; 28μὴ ἀνελεῖν με σὺ θέλεις ὃν τρόπον ἀνεῖλες ἐχθὲς τὸν Αἰγύπτιον; 29ἔφυγεν δὲ Μωϋσῆς ἐν τῷ λόγῳ τούτῳ καὶ ἐγένετο πάροικος ἐν γῇ Μαδιάμ, οὗ ἐγέννησεν υἱοὺς δύο. 30Καὶ πληρωθέντων ἐτῶν τεσσεράκοντα ὤφθη αὐτῷ ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ τοῦ ὄρους Σινᾶ ἄγγελος ἐν φλογὶ πυρὸς βάτου. 31ὁ δὲ Μωϋσῆς ἰδὼν ἐθαύμαζεν τὸ ὅραμα, προσερχομένου δὲ αὐτοῦ κατανοῆσαι ἐγένετο φωνὴ κυρίου· 32ἐγὼ ὁ θεὸς τῶν πατέρων σου, ὁ θεὸς Ἀβραὰμ καὶ Ἰσαὰκ καὶ Ἰακώβ. ἔντρομος δὲ γενόμενος Μωϋσῆς οὐκ ἐτόλμα κατανοῆσαι. 33εἶπεν δὲ αὐτῷ ὁ κύριος· λῦσον τὸ ὑπόδημα τῶν ποδῶν σου, ὁ γὰρ τόπος ἐφʼ ᾧ ἕστηκας γῆ ἁγία ἐστίν. 34ἰδὼν εἶδον τὴν κάκωσιν τοῦ λαοῦ μου τοῦ ἐν Αἰγύπτῳ καὶ τοῦ στεναγμοῦ αὐτῶν ἤκουσα, καὶ κατέβην ἐξελέσθαι αὐτούς· καὶ νῦν δεῦρο ἀποστείλω σε εἰς Αἴγυπτον. 35Τοῦτον τὸν Μωϋσῆν ὃν ἠρνήσαντο εἰπόντες· τίς σε κατέστησεν ἄρχοντα καὶ δικαστήν; τοῦτον ὁ θεὸς [καὶ] ἄρχοντα καὶ λυτρωτὴν ἀπέσταλκεν σὺν χειρὶ ἀγγέλου τοῦ ὀφθέντος αὐτῷ ἐν τῇ βάτῳ. 36οὗτος ἐξήγαγεν αὐτοὺς ποιήσας τέρατα καὶ σημεῖα ἐν γῇ Αἰγύπτῳ καὶ ἐν ἐρυθρᾷ θαλάσσῃ καὶ ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ ἔτη τεσσεράκοντα. 37οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ Μωϋσῆς ὁ εἴπας τοῖς υἱοῖς Ἰσραήλ· προφήτην ὑμῖν ἀναστήσει ὁ θεὸς ἐκ τῶν ἀδελφῶν ὑμῶν ὡς ἐμέ. 38οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ γενόμενος ἐν τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ μετὰ τοῦ ἀγγέλου τοῦ λαλοῦντος αὐτῷ ἐν τῷ ὄρει Σινᾶ καὶ τῶν πατέρων ἡμῶν, ὃς ἐδέξατο λόγια ζῶντα δοῦναι ἡμῖν, 39ᾧ οὐκ ἠθέλησαν ὑπήκοοι γενέσθαι οἱ πατέρες ἡμῶν, ἀλλὰ ἀπώσαντο καὶ ἐστράφησαν ἐν ταῖς καρδίαις αὐτῶν εἰς Αἴγυπτον 40εἰπόντες τῷ Ἀαρών· ποίησον ἡμῖν θεοὺς οἳ προπορεύσονται ἡμῶν· ὁ γὰρ Μωϋσῆς οὗτος, ὃς ἐξήγαγεν ἡμᾶς ἐκ γῆς Αἰγύπτου, οὐκ οἴδαμεν τί ἐγένετο αὐτῷ. 41καὶ ἐμοσχοποίησαν ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις ἐκείναις καὶ ἀνήγαγον θυσίαν τῷ εἰδώλῳ καὶ εὐφραίνοντο ἐν τοῖς ἔργοις τῶν χειρῶν αὐτῶν. 42ἔστρεψεν δὲ ὁ θεὸς καὶ παρέδωκεν αὐτοὺς λατρεύειν τῇ στρατιᾷ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ καθὼς γέγραπται ἐν βίβλῳ τῶν προφητῶν· μὴ σφάγια καὶ θυσίας προσηνέγκατέ μοι ἔτη τεσσεράκοντα ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ, οἶκος Ἰσραήλ; 43καὶ ἀνελάβετε τὴν σκηνὴν τοῦ Μόλοχ καὶ τὸ ἄστρον τοῦ θεοῦ [ὑμῶν] Ῥαιφάν, τοὺς τύπους οὓς ἐποιήσατε προσκυνεῖν αὐτοῖς, καὶ μετοικιῶ ὑμᾶς ἐπέκεινα Βαβυλῶνος. (NA27)

Acts 7:17-43 “But as the time of the promise was approaching which God had assured to Abraham, the people increased and multiplied in Egypt, 18until there arose another king over Egypt who knew nothing about Joseph. 19“It was he who took shrewd advantage of our race and mistreated our fathers so that they would expose their infants and they would not survive. 20“It was at this time that Moses was born; and he was lovely in the sight of God, and he was nurtured three months in his father’s home. 21“And after he had been set outside, Pharaoh’s daughter took him away and nurtured him as her own son. 22“Moses was educated in all the learning of the Egyptians, and he was a man of power in words and deeds. 23“But when he was approaching the age of forty, it entered his mind to visit his brethren, the sons of Israel. 24“And when he saw one of them being treated unjustly, he defended him and took vengeance for the oppressed by striking down the Egyptian. 25“And he supposed that his brethren understood that God was granting them deliverance through him, but they did not understand. 26“On the following day he appeared to them as they were fighting together, and he tried to reconcile them in peace, saying, ‘Men, you are brethren, why do you injure one another?’ 27“But the one who was injuring his neighbor pushed him away, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and judge over us? 28‘You do not mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday, do you?’ 29“At this remark, Moses fled and became an alien in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons. 30“After forty years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in the flame of a burning thorn bush. 31“When Moses saw it, he marveled at the sight; and as he approached to look more closely, there came the voice of the Lord: 32‘I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.’ Moses shook with fear and would not venture to look. 33“But the Lord said to him, ‘Take off the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground. 34‘I have certainly seen the oppression of My people in Egypt and have heard their groans, and I have come down to rescue them; come now, and I will send you to Egypt.’ 35“This Moses whom they disowned, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge?’ is the one whom God sent to be both a ruler and a deliverer with the help of the angel who appeared to him in the thorn bush. 36“This man led them out, performing wonders and signs in the land of Egypt and in the Red Sea and in the wilderness for forty years. 37“This is the Moses who said to the sons of Israel, ‘God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brethren.’ 38“This is the one who was in the congregation in the wilderness together with the angel who was speaking to him on Mount Sinai, and who was with our fathers; and he received living oracles to pass on to you. 39“Our fathers were unwilling to be obedient to him, but repudiated him and in their hearts turned back to Egypt, 40saying to Aaron, ‘Make for us gods who will go before us; for this Moses who led us out of the land of Egypt—we do not know what happened to him.’ 41“At that time they made a calf and brought a sacrifice to the idol, and were rejoicing in the works of their hands. 42“But God turned away and delivered them up to serve the host of heaven; as it is written in the book of the prophets, ‘It was not to Me that you offered victims and sacrifices forty years in the wilderness, was it, O house of Israel? 43‘You also took along the tabernacle of Moloch and the star of the god Rompha, the images which you made to worship. I also will remove you beyond Babylon.’ (NASB95)

How do we know Potiphar was a “eunuch?”

We know this because Potiphar is called an “officer” in Gen 37:36 and the word there derives from an Akkadian title for a court official for the king. See, in the ancient near east the kings had officials who carried out various functions, they might guard the king’s harem for instance and to make sure there was no funny business the men that held these positions were castrated. The word came in time to mean “eunuch” and Potiphar was one such “eunuch.” And this resulted in his wife’s sexual fantasies with Joseph, which he escaped from but got imprisoned. Now, an interesting point about this is that Joseph had clearly been gaining prestige under Potiphar but then he got rejected, put in prison. Then he came back later and was exalted under Pharaoh who put him over all things. What’s the parallel with Jesus? Didn’t Jesus gain popularity with the people but then He was rejected, lost his prestige and was killed. Then to round out the analogy He was resurrected and exalted to a high position. 

Alright, this morning let’s return to Stephens’s apologia, Acts 7. Remember, Stephen is in court, he’s been accused of repudiating Moses, repudiating God and the Sanhedrin is investigating this. By the end of it Stephen’s investigating them. He’s shifted the argument such that he accuses them of repudiating Moses and God. And this turns out to be such a potent argument that not only do they cut him off mid-speech, they resort to stoning him to death. Now you don’t do this over little matters, whatever Stephen accomplishes must be extremely enraging. And we learn from the speech exactly what he was doing. He was wrecking their whole framework of life, he shattered their whole philosophical foundation, that’s what pissed them off. But the positive results of this is that the gospel went out. So this is the chapter where the witness goes out from Jerusalem to Judea and Samaria. And the way he does this is through typological interpretation. This is the system where you take one historic event or events and another historic event or events and show that the two series have points of correspondence. For example, last week we dealt Jesus and Joseph and Stephen’s point was that Jesus’ life parallels Joseph’s life. We see parallels. We listed five of these parallels that Stephen made. We saw first that both Joseph and Jesus were rejected by their fellow Jewish brethren. Second we saw that both Joseph and Jesus were rejected by people who had an evil purpose in mind but God intended it for a good purpose. And so we have the verse in the Old Testament of Genesis 50:20 “what you meant for evil, God meant for good,” which is equivalent to the New Testament Romans 8:28, “All things work together for good to them that love God.” The third parallel between the two was that Joseph’s brethren did not recognize him on their first visit and Jesus was not recognized by the nation Israel on his first visit. Following this the fourth parallel between Joseph and Jesus was that the second time that Joseph’s brethren visited him they did recognize him and the parallel is that the Lord Jesus Christ, when he returns, he will be recognized by the nation Israel. Finally a fifth parallel between the two men is that after Joseph was recognized by his brethren the entire house of Jacob gathered around him and lived with him forever. So after Jesus Christ returns then the entire house of Jacob will gather around Him and live with Him forever. Finally last week we saw the last point, they all died down in Egypt but had their bones moved up to Shechem, and though Stephen is telescoping events the point is that the patriarchs were not buried in Jerusalem. Fact is Joseph was buried up in Samaria, one of the most detestable spots to these Jews, yet that was where the plan of God was going. It had started with Abraham in Iraq, it had been down in Egypt with Joseph and then it moved to Shechem. So don’t get all tied up around Jerusalem, the word of God is for all men and the glory of God is not limited to Israel, the word is going out to the nations. And so we see the great commission being fulfilled in the Book of Acts. 

So Stephen here is defending the Christian faith, he’s saying, look Sanhedrin, God is moving this way and that’s why I’m moving this way, why aren’t you coming along, why are you rejecting the plan of God in history. Watch how Stephen does this because Stephen is an apologist and the way he gives an apologetic is to emphasize historical events. So he starts the with the Call of Abraham, he moves to the Life of Joseph, he deals with the Exodus event, he reminds them of Mt Sinai, the Conquest and Settlement under Joshua and finally King David. So what does he do? He goes to event and doctrine, event and doctrine, event and doctrine. This is the way this man thought. This is the way this man defended Christianity. And he quotes, OT quote after OT quote after OT quote. Why is he doing that? To focus these men on the original source material, get them away from tradition that had grown up around these texts. So he’s saying, “Let’s go back to the source.” One of the problems is they had learned all this tradition and the tradition had taken on the truth value of the Scripture. We have this so often in our own culture. It’s part and parcel of the way we’re taught and the way we learn. You go into the classroom and they teach evolution and you go out on the street and you ask people, “Do you believe in evolution or creation.” And they say evolution. Then you say, “Alright, give me ten reasons you believe in evolution.” I don’t know, that’s what I was taught, and that’s right, they were taught a tradition and it never dawned on people to get back to the source material, think through the issues and resolve it, they just accept it because that’s what they were taught in the public school. Now that’s what had happened to the Pharisees, they were taught by tradition and so Stephen is forcing them to go back to the original source material. And we’re having a real problem getting people to research today, go back and really dig into the original source. 

So if vv 2-16 are the original source material for the patriarchal period then vv 17-43 are the original source material from Moses’ period. So we’re moving about 400 years after Joseph to the birth of Moses and the Exodus event. So in terms of our biblical framework we’ve gone from the Call of Abraham to the Exodus and we’ll end up at Mt Sinai. And what Stephen is arguing is that, what you saw in the life of Moses is paralleled by the life of Christ. You guys are out of kilter with the plan of God in history, why are you rejecting this? Don’t you believe in divine providence? And of course they did, so here they get in hot water with Stephen. A second side argument is that this Moses, I’m not against him, I haven’t blasphemed him at all. A third side argument is that where did God appear to Moses, the great Moses, the lawgiver of Israel? Did he appear to Moses in Jerusalem in the Temple? No, in a Gentile territory called Sinai, the burning bush experience. So he weaves everything together in a great tapestry defense; impenetrable by any opposition.

Verse 17, “But as the time of the promise was approaching which God had assured to Abraham, the people increased and multiplied in Egypt, 18until there arose another king over Egypt who knew nothing about Joseph. 19“It was he who took shrewd advantage of our race and mistreated our fathers so that they would expose their infants and they would not survive. 20“It was at this time that Moses was born and so forth. Now for those of you who like to mark up your Bible’s, there are phrases in these verses that come one after another from the OT text, either quotes or allusions. If you have a study Bible go over there and mark them and just notice, time and time again Stephen goes back to the OT. So you come to the NT and so many churches just study the NT over and over and over and the problem with that is manifested plain as day when you check your margins because you realize, “Boy, this isn’t new at all, it comes right out of the Old,” yes, cast in a new light, but the basis of it is all in the Old and so you think your coming to study something new, your not, most of it is old with a few new applications. 

But as the time of the promise was approaching. What promise is he talking about? The promise from verse 6 to the effect that Abraham’s family would go down and be oppressed and enslaved by a foreign power for 400 years and then God was going to deliver them. So the time of fulfilling that promise was approaching. The people are in anticipation, there’s an expectation among the people of deliverance. Now you have to keep asking yourself what is Stephen doing, don’t forget what he’s doing, so you have to keep asking, “Why is he making this point?” And it’s because in some way this is a parallel with Christ.

So when you turn to the Book of Daniel chapter 9 there’s another promise of a time period, this one’s not 400 years but 483 years, we call it the seventy sevens and the first 69 sevens = 483 years and when they came to a close the Messiah would arrive. So when you turn to the first century of Israel and study their history you realize that the first century was the century for Messiah’s, there was all kinds of speculation that the Messiah was about to arrive, there’s been nothing like it before or after, the first century, up to 70AD was unique and that had to do with all this Messianic emotionalism that came from the chronology of Daniel. So obviously Stephen’s point is that look, in the time of Moses there was this anticipation of a deliverer and then that deliverer arrived, it was Moses. Now in the same way in our century there’s been this anticipation for a deliverer on the basis of Daniel’s chronology and that deliverer was Jesus Christ. Surely you can see this. 

He continues, and the people increased and multiplied in Egypt, there was a supernatural increase of the Hebrew population down in Egypt and this went on for 400 years until verse 18, there arose another king over Egypt who knew nothing about Joseph. And now we have trouble. See the Greek here says another of a different kind. Professor Frankfort of the University of Chicago shows how in Egyptian society it was possible for people out of the high class to move up the ladder into administrative positions, there are stories of these men that come from the common class and become great. This could happen during certain stages of Egyptian history, certain Pharaohs’ worked that way, Joseph worked under one such Pharaoh, he wasn’t even an Egyptian but he rose to be over all of Pharaoh’s affairs. Why? Because the man was gifted administratively and the Pharaoh saw that and said, “I want that man on my staff.” Pharaoh got all the credit anyway. But in the time of Moses a king came on the scene that didn’t know about Joseph, we’d say he wasn’t a history buff. The Egyptians were actually very poor historians in the details, they kept records but not like you and I would recognize, they tried to emphasize the permanence of Egyptian culture, the same things being accomplished from one generation to the next and so someone like Joseph could be forgotten. Now this was bad news, not for the Hebrews but for the Egyptians. It was too bad they forgot about Joseph because what this Pharaoh does next is going to result in the demolition of his country. It has always been the result of anti-Semitism, you oppress and try to destroy Israel and your country will be physically demolished. This is the principle of the Abrahamic Covenant, Gen 12:3,” those who curse you will be cursed” and so it has always been throughout history and ever shalt be. Verse 19, It was he who took shrewd advantage of our race and mistreated our fathers so that they would expose their infants and they would not survive. So the new administration instituted a policy of infanticide, a policy of racial destruction. His solution to the Jewish problem was much like the German solution in the 1930s, just eliminate them, except his idea wasn’t taking them to gas chambers; his idea was to eliminate the male children from the system, bribe the midwives and get them to kill the male Jews at birth. And they didn’t follow through with that plan so he commanded the Egyptian people to take any baby boy they saw and toss him in the Nile, drown’em. And in the middle of all of this genocidal policy against the Jews there came the boy Moses. Now is this an accident? That Stephen narrates this? What is the analogy with Christ? Moses was born as a baby boy in the midst of an anti-Semitic genocidal campaign on the part of the Egyptian government. Jesus as a baby boy was also faced an anti-Semitic policy of destruction of Jewish male boys under Herod. So again we have another parallel between Moses and Jesus. 

and he was lovely in the sight of God, and he was nurtured three months in his father’s home. 21“And after he had been set outside, Pharaoh’s daughter took him away and nurtured him as her own son. And we all know the story, Amram and Jochebed, the parents of Moses would not obey the king’s command, they were not going to take part in genocide. They are some of the greatest examples of believers who said, we are not going to bow the knee to the state, we are going to bow our knee to the King of the universe. And there is no way I’m going to take part in genocide, it’s wrong and these Egyptian clowns can do whatever they want with me but I’m not tossing my baby in the Nile river as a sacrifice to the Nile god. I just won’t do it and Heb 11 reports on his parents saying, they did this by faith and were not afraid of the kings command. So they exercised the faith-rest drill day after day after day. But by the end of three months his cries were just too loud and there was a danger here that the Egyptians would discover him. And you have to imagine what this family faced, you’ve got little Miriam and Aaron running around, dad’s out working, she’s been nine months pregnant, now she has the baby, the whole thing had to be kept under wraps, a year of hiding from the civil authorities. Civil rebellion, civil rebellion, day after day after day by these parents. Why? Because they feared God, that’s why. Well finally they had to put him out but the way they did it was not the prescribed way, oh, we’ll put him in the Nile alright but in a little ark, Moses’ ark. And divine providence led him to the Pharaoh’s daughter and the whole story goes that about 3 hours after he was put in that ark he was back home in mommy’s arms. Of course, Pharaoh’s daughter didn’t know it was his mom but she got three years with her son, three years to nurse him and to train him, train him in the Hebrew Scriptures. That 0-3 year old period was the most important training in that child’s life such that when he became a man of 40 what did he turn back too? His people, his heritage. “I’m not an Egyptian, I’m a Hebrew,” and he took some steps here that show you just how powerful his early training was. And we have parents today that just think, “Oh two years old is the goo goo stage and we’ll teach him something when he’s eight” and by that time it’s too late. If Moses’ mommy had done that he’d never have known who he was and he’d never have made his stand against the Egyptians. So she burned the truths of Creation, the Fall, the Flood, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, the Covenant Promises, she burned them on the brain of that little boy so that despite verse 22, all the training he did in that Egyptian palace, the greatest teachers of Egypt, what did he come back to? Egyptian philosophy or the Scriptures? The Scriptures. 

So what did he learn in Egypt. Philo comes to tell us Moses was the best educated man in all Egypt, he mentions six areas in Moses’ learning; arithmetic, geometry, poetry, music, philosophy and astrology. This man was in class every day and he became a brilliant mind, such that he was a man of power in words and deeds. Now this causes a problem with the text of Scripture because Exodus tells us Moses was poor in speech, Moses was a man who stuttered, he didn’t want to go before Pharaoh uh, uh, oh, eeh, but that little situation set up the need to communicate in some other form. We have testimony from Eupolemus, an early Hellenistic Jew that says Moses was the author of alphabetic writing, not the Phoenicians. And of course, to get the chronology correct there has to be a radical restructuring of ancient history. And a Jew by the name of Velikovsky has done just that his 1950’s volume Ages in Chaos, and if Velikovsky is right as Dr Robert Pfeiffer of Harvard University says, then his “volume is the greatest contribution to the investigation of ancient times ever written.” So it makes sense of the grand statements we find about Moses, statements like those of Artabanus who said that Moses was the founder of Egyptian civilization. Otherwise these statements make no sense. Who was this Moses who changed the world? So at the time in Egypt they had the Hieroglyphic method of writing and this was a pictorial language, you had thousands and thousands of pictures, if you wanted to say “ox” you had to draw an “ox,” and you had to memorize thousands of pictures so only the scholars wrote, took you 30 minutes to write a sentence. So what Moses did was invent an alphabet, he made 25 or 30 symbols and then you could just string the letters together different ways and so what Stephen is saying here about Moses is almost an understatement is it not. The man was the inventor of alphabetic writing. And if you think that’s amazing he was also powerful in deeds, now we know what these deeds were, these are not the miracles that happened in the plagues, we’re not to that part of his life, this is in Moses’ first 40 years. These powerful deeds relate to his training in military science. He studied strategy, tactics and battlefield warfare. Apparently he was a man of some stature, a man’s kind of man and in v 23 when he was approaching the age of forty, it entered his mind to visit his brethren, the sons of Israel. 24“And when he saw one of them being treated unjustly, he defended him and took vengeance for the oppressed by striking down the Egyptian. Don’t just read by that, what this means was Moses went out and in a single strike he killed an Egyptian, there’s a way of doing this and a part of his training was this technique. So he just knocked his block off. This is just one instance of his great military might. Josephus records he led a great military campaign against the Ethiopians and drove them all the way back to the city of the Ethiopian king, Cambyses and this city was a triangle, surrounded on two sides by great rivers and the other side by a great wall and Moses was outside the wall fighting and they couldn’t break through but then the daughter of the Ethiopian king had been watching Moses and she fell in love with him and sent word, “Marry me, take me as your wife.” So Moses made a deal with her, “Yeah, you make a way for my men and I to take this city and I’ll marry you,” and thus Num 12:1 reports that Moses had an Ethiopian wife. So he knew arithmetic, philosophy, geometry, poetry, he invented the alphabet, he led the Egyptian army to great battles. He was a powerful man. Now, what’s the parallel with Jesus Christ? Was he not a man powerful in words and deeds? Did He not shut everyone up with His knowledge of the Scriptures? Did He not do great miracles, signs and wonders that no one could duplicate? Alright then, another parallel between Moses and Jesus. Before we move to v 25, step back to v 23, anyone see a parallel there with the Lord Jesus Christ? This is the first time Moses went to visit his brethren, he was 40 years old, what did Jesus do in the first century? Came to visit His brethren the first time. We saw the same thing with Joseph, two visits, his brothers came and didn’t recognize him the first time but the second time they did. 

Verse 24, lets’ read down through the story, “And when he saw one of them being treated unjustly, he defended him and took vengeance for the oppressed by striking down the Egyptian. 25“And he supposed that his brethren understood that God was granting them deliverance through him, but they did not understand. 26“On the following day he appeared to them as they were fighting together, and he tried to reconcile them in peace, saying, ‘Men, you are brethren, why do you injure one another?’ 27“But the one who was injuring his neighbor pushed him away, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and judge over us? 28‘You do not mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday, do you?’ 29“At this remark, Moses fled and became an alien in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons.

Now let’s back up to verse 25, see what Stephen is doing. “And he supposed that his brethren understood that God was granting them deliverance and that’s the word for salvation. He supposed they got the picture, “Hey look I’m your savior,” but they did not understand. Parallel with the Lord Jesus Christ? He came the first time and “Here I am, don’t you recognize me? I’m your Savior?” But they did not understand. 26“On the following day he appeared to them as they were fighting together, and he tried to reconcile them in peace, saying, ‘Men, you are brethren, why do you injure one another?’ Notice that generation of Israel, they were at odds with one another, they were not united, it was chaos. What was the state of Israel in the first century when Jesus came? Did He find unity? No, you had the Pharisees fighting the Sadducees, the Zealots fighting the Herodians, they weren’t united at all, everybody disagreeing, everybody fighting one another. And so verse 27, “But the one who was injuring his neighbor pushed him away, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and judge over us?’ 28‘You do not mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday, do you?’ ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge over us?’ Alright, this is the rejection. When Moses first stood up as their deliverer they did not submit to his authority. He had authority, He had come, in a sense, to his messianic consciousness, that he was God’s savior for the nation Israel but the people didn’t submit to his authority, they reject him. So in verse 29, Moses fled and became an alien in the land of Midian, parallel with the life of Christ? The nation rejected His authority and He departed alright, Acts 1: the ascension of Jesus Christ, He left the Jews and went back to His Father in heaven. So Moses fled and became an alien in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons. One of whose names attests to his event; Gershom which means “sojourner in a foreign land.” So he names his son after this. To give you perspective, if this is Egypt on a map, 

Moses travelled here into the Sinai and heads east, crosses just north of the Gulf of Aqaba, that’s the Arabic name, or what the Jews call Gulf of Eilat, Midian is over here on the east side of that Gulf in what is modern day Saudi Arabia. And he became a shepherd for his father-in-law and he walked these wilderness regions in search of food and water. And he did this according to verse 30 for forty years, and during those forty years he had plenty of time to think about the word of God, it was just him and the sheep; “What went wrong back in Egypt? Why didn’t the people understand? Here I was raised in Pharaoh’s palace, I got all the degrees, I led great military campaigns, why didn’t my people recognize me as their deliverer?” And now it’s been 40 years and he’s an 80 years old shepherd and he’s out with the sheep, verse 30, 30“After forty years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in the flame of a burning thorn bush. 31“When Moses saw it, he marveled at the sight; and as he approached to look more closely, there came the voice of the Lord: 32‘I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.’ Moses shook with fear and would not venture to look. 33“But the Lord said to him, ‘Take off the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground. 34‘I have certainly seen the oppression of My people in Egypt and have heard their groans, and I have come down to rescue them; come now, and I will send you to Egypt.’

Now, this is the section where Moses gets his official commission, it’s out here in the Sinai wilderness. So the strange event begins, an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in the flame of a burning thorn bush. 31“When Moses saw it, he marveled at the sight; Now why’s he marveling? It wasn’t strange to see a bush on fire in this wilderness, no surprise at all, the wood was dry and it was hot, so these bushes would just catch ablaze, that was no new thing for Moses, what was new was this one was burning but it wasn’t being consumed and Moses marveled at this and in verse 31, as he approached to look more closely, there came the voice of the Lord: So this is no normal fire, this is no normal angel, what this is is the Shekinah Glory, this brilliant flame. Now according to the Jews where did the Shekinah Glory dwell? In the Temple, He was the brilliant flame above the ark of the covenant in the most holy place. But where is the Shekinah here? You can debate the exact location all you want, one thing is certain, it is not in the land of Israel, that’s Stephen’s point, it is not in the Tabernacle, it is not in the Temple, it’s down here in Gentile territory. Why is Stephen pointing this out? Because the Sanhedrin were overemphasizing Jerusalem and the Temple. They had blown it all out of proportion. God doesn’t just show up in the Temple, here He is down here in the Sinai, so don’t get all wrapped around the axel of Jerusalem. I’m trying to take the word out of Jerusalem, you’re trying to stop me. Why? Look at where God showed up to Moses, in the Sinai, look at where God showed up to Abraham, in Iraq. Why are you trying to limit the word of God to Jerusalem? 

And what are the words in v 32 that come out of God’s mouth? ‘I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.’ Moses shook with fear and would not venture to look. 33“But the Lord said to him, ‘Take off the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground. 34‘I have certainly seen the oppression of My people in Egypt and have heard their groans, and I have come down to rescue them; come now, and I will send you to Egypt.’ Why does he start that way in v 32? Isn’t that the formula for the Abrahamic Covenant? Why is he going back to that? Because that’s the foundation for the existence of the nation Israel. God called out Abraham from the nations and made promises to him. Not because Abraham was better than other people. Not because Jewish people are better than non-Jewish people. It is due to the fact that this is the way God has chosen to write history. And so when God appears to Moses He says “I am the God of that covenant, I am the God of the source document, I am the God of the contract that guarantees your existence and I’m am going to carry out My sovereign decree in history.” And notice the last phrase of verse 33, holy ground and ask yourself, where are they? See, Stephen has come to see how provincial these Jews in Jerusalem were and their narrowness led them to reject that the Creator God is Lord of all. He’s not limited to one land or one people, He decides what ground is holy and if it be the Sinai, so be it. 

Coming down to verse 35, here Stephen picks up the pace, he’s already given the narrative, now he’s coming back and he’s saying, “Look guys, who do you think Moses was looking forward too? And so in verse 35 you see the phrase “This Moses…is the one” and in verse 36 “This man,” and in verse 37, “This is the Moses” and in verse 38 “This is the one” so it’s a point-by-point comparison of Jesus with Moses. Moses’ life looked forward to Jesus’ life. And with this Stephen’s indicting the national leadership, he’s supposed to be the one on trial but now he’s putting them on trial, you’re fathers rejected Moses and by rejecting Jesus you’re doing just as your fathers. 

So let’s watch, “This Moses whom they disowned, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge?’ flashback to verse 27, is the one whom God sent to be both a ruler and a deliverer, God had done that, with the help of the angel who appeared to him in the thorn bush. 36“This man led them out, performing wonders and signs in the land of Egypt and in the Red Sea and in the wilderness for forty years. The ten plagues, the dividing of the Red Sea, the manna, the quail, all the miracles. How did Israel respond to these? Did they go positive volition or negative? They went negative. They wanted to go back to Egypt. So what’s the parallel? In the Book of Acts Israel is getting their second chance and what do you see? Signs and wonders, signs and wonders, all done in whose name? The name of Jesus. And what’s the national leadership’s response to these miracles? “Oh, their bonafide miracles alright but we forbid you to use that name.” Is that generation any different than Moses’ generation? No, they both rejected God’s deliverer, they both rejected the miracles. 

Verse 37, watch this one, “This is the Moses who said to the sons of Israel, ‘God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brethren.’ This is the one who was in the congregation in the wilderness together with the angel who was speaking to him on Mount Sinai, and who was with our fathers; and he received living oracles to pass on to you. What’s his source for v 37? Deut 18:15 and this is the verse that shows you definitively that what he’s doing all along is typology. This is the verse that set Stephen off to start seeing these parallels. Stephen got to thinking “Hey, you know it says this future Messiah is going to be like Moses, now all we have to do is think of what Moses is like and then by analogy we can see what Christ is like.” How was Moses born? He was born amidst a genocide policy. How was Jesus born? Amidst a genocide policy. How was Moses received the first time? He wasn’t received, he was rejected. How was Jesus received the first visit? He wasn’t received, he was rejected and so forth. See, this is how the early Christians identified Jesus as the correct Messiah and got away from this problem “Well, if Jesus was the Messiah then the nation surely would have accepted Him. Not at all. What the early Christians argued was that the Jewish nation never accepted their savior the first time around; it always took them at least twice to get it right. And so it’s going to take them twice with Jesus. 

So now in the closing verses we move into the idolatry, and the principle here is that when the truth is rejected people don’t suddenly become neutral, people don’t become non-religious, all people worship, all people are religious, it’s just a matter of who or what they worship, but no one is neutral, no one is unbiased, rejection of one set of beliefs is ipso facto acceptance of another. And so the nation Israel rejects the authority of God’s deliverer Moses: Result: embracing of an idolatrous system. Just as night follows day. We’re going to move very quickly here through Israel’s history, starting at Mt Sinai and ending with the Exile into Babylon, from 1447-586BC.

Verse 39, stay with me, “Our fathers were unwilling to be obedient to him, but repudiated him and in their hearts turned back to Egypt, 40saying to Aaron, ‘Make for us gods who will go before us; for this Moses who led us out of the land of Egypt—we do not know what happened to him.’ 41“At that time they made a calf and brought a sacrifice to the idol, and were rejoicing in the works of their hands. 42“But God turned away and delivered them up to serve the host of heaven; as it is written in the book of the prophets, ‘It was not to Me that you offered victims and sacrifices forty years in the wilderness, was it, O house of Israel? 43‘You also took along the tabernacle of Moloch and the star of the god Rompha, the images which you made to worship. I also will remove you beyond Babylon.’

Now, what he’s doing here is a bit cryptic unless you go back to the OT verses and work this out. Stephen is telescoping events here to get the point across. Remember, telescoping means he’s not too concerned with historical details, he just wants to get across the flow of Israel’s history so he compresses it, he mashes it all together. What he’s doing is asking the question, “How did the nation go into Exile? What was the series of events which led to this?” It started all the way back at Sinai didn’t it, the place we got the Law, the Law of Moses that you’re so concerned about, the law you say I’m blaspheming, hey look, all the way from the time we got our law at Sinai to the time we went into Exile in Babylon we rejected the law. We didn’t want to hear the word of God, it was just one case of rejection after another, rejection, rejection, rejection. Negative volition to the word of God, that’s the story of our history Sanhedrin. We wanted to go back to Egypt, we wanted to go back to the comforts of human view point. Deep down we never left Egypt. We didn’t want God’s deliverance, we didn’t want God’s deliverer. We wanted Pharaoh. Result, verse 40, they said to Aaron, ‘Make for us gods who will go before us; for this Moses who led us out of the land of Egypt—we do not know what happened to him.’ 41“At that time they made a calf and brought a sacrifice to the idol, and were rejoicing in the works of their hands. So they turned to idolatry, what they made, it says a calf, the golden calf, but we know from archaeology it was the Apis bull, don’t think a little baby calf, that’s the wrong image. This was a bull, it was used as an idol in Egypt, See, that’s what it says in at the end of verse 39, their hearts turned back to Egypt; not their bodies, not a physical return, a spiritual return. They were accustomed to the Egyptian mentality and so they began to build the golden calf. Years later two sanctuaries were set up in the northern kingdom with this golden calf, one at Bethel and one at Dan. So it all started out with this one act of idolatry.

And verse 42 gives us a principle, how did God respond to idolatry? He hated it and he turned them over to worship the stars. There are consequences to negative volition to the word of God. And so these people became interested in the same things the surrounding pagan nations were interested in, astrology, the Zodiac, finding your sign, getting your daily horoscope and so forth, modern man is no different, he turns to the stars for his destiny, it’s all ancient pagan religion, it’s a God-substitute, it’s idolatry. Studying the stars for insight is not seeking God, it’s rejecting God as the source of revelation. Such that verse 42 reads, ‘It was not to Me that you offered victims and sacrifices forty years in the wilderness, was it, O house of Israel? Obviously it was not, it was idolatry. The victims here were there own children, they offered them in the fire to Moloch, mothers would put their babies in the fire and listen to them scream as they sizzled in the flames. It was terrible but that’s what happens when a people go negative, negative, negative to the word of God. 43‘You also took along the tabernacle of Moloch and the star of the god Rompha, the images which you made to worship. I also will remove you beyond Babylon.’ More idolatry. This is all the outworking of that Mosaic Law at Sinai. Lev 26 and Deut 28 outline the blessings and the cursings of the Mosaic Law. And the cursings come in five stages or degrees. Exile was the last one, it happened to the Northern Kingdom in 722BC, they went into captivity to Assyria and that’s what the Amos passage quoted here is discussing. Then you had the Southern Kingdom in 586 to Babylon. In that year of 586 BC as the Babylonian armies gathered around the city of Jerusalem they began to starve the people out. That was standard procedure and the Jews refused to surrender. And as things got worse and worse in the city, according to prophecy as all laid out in Lev 26 they began to eat the rats, dogs, cats, anything they could find in the city; driven mad by hunger because they’re being slowly starved into submission. And finally when they ran out of dogs and cats and mice they began to eat the dead bodies of the soldiers that were killed by the arrows going across the wall. And finally they ran out of bodies and they began to eat their own children, Jewish mothers who would eat their own baby, so they’d kill, and they’d eat and finally it got so bad that Josephus says that there would be hordes of gangs going down the street and they’d see some mother who had just killed her baby and she was munching on his flesh, they would grab her hair, open her mouth, stick their hand in and pull out the food so they could eat it. That was how far the Jewish people were reduced in their last defiant stand against God’s discipline.

And Stephen is saying, ever since that day we got the law on Sinai our history has been one big idolatrous movement. Can’t you see that the horrible results of our rejection of God’s deliverer Moses? Now are you really going to do that again by rejecting God’s deliverer Jesus Christ? If our countrymen went into Exile for their negative volition to the word of God what do you think is going to happen to you? And of course, in AD70 they did go into Exile. And once again, mothers ate their own babies.

So that ties together Moses and Jesus and now maybe you see why they get so upset about this. Next week he’ll start to deal with the tabernacle and so forth and things will come to a head.