Acts 7:25

25 And he thought his brothers would understand that God was granting deliverance to them by his hand, but they did not understand.

Acts 7:25 Meaning and Commentary

Acts 7:25

For he supposed his brethren would have understood him,
&c.] From his being an Hebrew in such high life; from his wonderful birth, and miraculous preservation in his infancy, and education in Pharaoh's court; and from the promise of God that he would visit them and save them:

how that God by his hand would deliver them:
wherefore he was the more emboldened to kill the Egyptian, believing that his brethren would make no advantage of it against him; but look upon it as a beginning and pledge of their deliverance by him:

but they understood not;
or "him not", as the Ethiopic version reads; they did not understand that he was to be their deliverer, or that this action of his was a token of it.

Acts 7:25 In-Context

23 "But when {he was forty years old}, it entered in his heart to visit his brothers, the sons of Israel.

24 And [when he] saw one of them being unjustly harmed, he defended [him] and {avenged} the one who had been oppressed [by] striking down the Egyptian.

25 And he thought his brothers would understand that God was granting deliverance to them by his hand, but they did not understand.

26 And on the following day, he made an appearance to them [while they] were fighting and was attempting to reconcile them in peace, saying, 'Men [and] brothers, why are you doing wrong to one another?'

27 But the one who was doing wrong to [his] neighbor pushed him aside, saying, 'Who appointed you a ruler and a judge over us?

Footnotes

• [a]. *Literally "the"; the Greek article is used here as a possessive pronoun