Acts 7:32

32 'I [am] the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob!' So Moses began trembling [and] did not dare to look at [it].

Acts 7:32 Meaning and Commentary

Acts 7:32

Saying, I am the God of thy fathers
Who made a covenant with them, promised the land of Canaan to them, and to their posterity, and to bring the children of Israel out of their servitude and bondage, and into the possession of the promised land:

the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob;
words which our Lord makes use of to prove the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, since God is not the God of the dead, but of the living, (See Gill on Matthew 22:32)

Then Moses trembled;
this Stephen had by tradition; in which way also the author of the epistle to the Hebrews had the account of his trembling and quaking at the same mount, when the law was given, ( Hebrews 12:21 )

and durst not behold;
either "the sight" of the burning bush, and curiously consider and inquire into that, as the Syriac version reads; or him, as the Ethiopic version; that is, God, and which is expressed in ( Exodus 3:6 )

Acts 7:32 In-Context

30 "And [when] forty years had been completed, an angel appeared to him in the desert of Mount Sinai in the flame of a burning bush.

31 And [when] Moses saw [it], he was astonished at the sight, and [when] he approached to look at [it], the voice of the Lord came:

32 'I [am] the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob!' So Moses began trembling [and] did not dare to look at [it].

33 And the Lord said to him, 'Untie the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.

34 {I have certainly seen} the mistreatment of my people [who are] in Egypt and have heard their groaning, and I have come down to deliver them. And now come, I will send you to Egypt.'

Footnotes

• [a]. A quotation from Exod 3:6
• [b]. *Here "[and]" is supplied because the previous participle ("began") has been translated as a finite verb
• [c]. *Here the direct object is supplied from context in the English translation