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Acts 7:11–16
“Now there came a famine throughout all Egypt and Canaan, and great affliction, and our fathers could find no food. But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent out our fathers on their first visit” (vv. 11–12).
Joseph certainly ranks among the most important figures in the history of old covenant Israel. As we see in Genesis 37–50, the Lord used Joseph to feed His people in a time of famine and to place them in Egypt so that He could save them from slavery and constitute them as a nation. Stephen gave an overview of Joseph’s story in his speech to the Sanhedrin, and Acts 7:9–10 records the portion of Stephen’s speech wherein he described how Joseph was betrayed by his brothers and became a leader in Egypt. Today’s passage records the remainder of Stephen’s remarks about Joseph, covering Joseph’s reunion with his brothers to his death.
As noted, God used Joseph to save his brothers during a time of famine. Summarizing Genesis 42–50, Stephen notes that in that time of hunger, when there was no food in Canaan, Jacob sent Joseph’s brothers to Egypt to find grain. Joseph did not reveal himself to his brothers on their first visit, but he did so the second time they came, leading to Joseph’s bringing his family to the Land of the Nile. The patriarchs then died in Egypt but were buried in Canaan.
We should note that Stephen mentions that Jacob’s family numbered “seventy-five persons in all,” which differs from Genesis 46:27 and Exodus 1:5, which both mention seventy individuals. This is because Stephen is relying on the Greek Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Old Testament, which gives seventy-five people. Interestingly, both the Septuagint and the Hebrew text of Deuteronomy 10:22 say that Jacob’s family numbered seventy persons. The reasons that the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew text are not clear. It could be that both texts are giving an approximation or that a scribe inadvertently wrote the wrong number when copying the text. Either way, this should not shake our confidence in the inerrancy of the original text of Scripture. The point is that God was so gracious that He would finally create a large nation from just a small number of people.
God’s grace to stubborn, resistant people shines forth in today’s passage. Although the other children of Jacob—that is, Israel—rejected God’s servant Joseph and sent him to Egypt, God did not abandon the children of Israel to starvation but used the one they rejected to feed them. In Stephen’s day, Israel’s rejection of God and His servants—Jesus and Stephen—continued. The members of the Sanhedrin thought that they were doing God’s will, but they were continuing in the sins of their ancestors.
Coram Deo Living before the face of God
Because of the remaining presence of sin in our lives, we are apt to reject God. Yet the Lord is so gracious that He continues to show us mercy even when we have been disobedient. Let us thank Him for this grace, and may we endeavor to see it as fuel for faithfulness to Him and not something that we can take for granted by disobeying Him.
For further study
- Psalm 105:1–24
- Hosea 2
- Matthew 23:37–39
- Romans 6:1–2
The bible in a year
- Deuteronomy 20–22
- Mark 14:32–52