Acts 7:1

1 Then the High Priest asked him, "Are these statements true?"

Acts 7:1 Meaning and Commentary

Acts 7:1

Then said the high priest
The Ethiopic version adds, "to him"; that is, to Stephen; for to him he addressed himself: or he "asked him", as the Syriac version renders it; he put the following question to him:

are these things so?
is it true what they say, that thou hast spoken blasphemous words against the temple, and the law, and hast said that Jesus of Nazareth will destroy the one, and change the other? what hast thou to say for thyself, and in thine own defence? this high priest was either Annas, or rather Caiaphas; (See Gill on Acts 4:6).

Acts 7:1 In-Context

1 Then the High Priest asked him, "Are these statements true?"

2 The reply of Stephen was, "Sirs--brethren and fathers--listen to me. God Most Glorious appeared to our forefather Abraham when he was living in Mesopotamia, before he settled in Haran,

3 and said to him, "`Leave your country and your relatives, and go into whatever land I point out to you.'

4 "Thereupon he left Chaldaea and settled in Haran till after the death of his father, when God caused him to remove into this country where you now live.

5 But he gave him no inheritance in it, no, not a single square yard of ground. And yet He promised to bestow the land as a permanent possession on him and his posterity after him--and promised this at a time when Abraham was childless.