Acts 7:41

And they made a calf in those days, and offered sacrifice unto the idol, and rejoiced in the works of their own hands.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(41) They made a calf.—The fact is stated in a compound word which is not found in the LXX. version, and which St. Stephen apparently coined for the purpose.

Rejoiced in the works of their own hands.—The verb expresses specially the joy of a feast, as in Luke 15:23-24; Luke 15:29; Luke 16:19; and is therefore specially appropriate for what is related in Exodus 32:5-6. The tense “were rejoicing” expresses the frequency or continuance of the sin.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

7:30-41 Men deceive themselves, if they think God cannot do what he sees to be good any where; he can bring his people into a wilderness, and there speak comfortably to them. He appeared to Moses in a flame of fire, yet the bush was not consumed; which represented the state of Israel in Egypt, where, though they were in the fire of affliction, yet they were not consumed. It may also be looked upon as a type of Christ's taking upon him the nature of man, and the union between the Divine and human nature. The death of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, cannot break the covenant relation between God and them. Our Saviour by this proves the future state, Mt 22:31. Abraham is dead, yet God is still his God, therefore Abraham is still alive. Now, this is that life and immortality which are brought to light by the gospel. Stephen here shows that Moses was an eminent type of Christ, as he was Israel's deliverer. God has compassion for the troubles of his church, and the groans of his persecuted people; and their deliverance takes rise from his pity. And that deliverance was typical of what Christ did, when, for us men, and for our salvation, he came down from heaven. This Jesus, whom they now refused, as their fathers did Moses, even this same has God advanced to be a Prince and Saviour. It does not at all take from the just honour of Moses to say, that he was but an instrument, and that he is infinitely outshone by Jesus. In asserting that Jesus should change the customs of the ceremonial law. Stephen was so far from blaspheming Moses, that really he honoured him, by showing how the prophecy of Moses was come to pass, which was so clear. God who gave them those customs by his servant Moses, might, no doubt, change the custom by his Son Jesus. But Israel thrust Moses from them, and would have returned to their bondage; so men in general will not obey Jesus, because they love this present evil world, and rejoice in their own works and devices.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

And they made a calf - This was made of the ear-rings and ornaments which they had brought from Egypt, Exodus 32:2-4. Stephen introduces this to remind them how prone the nation had been to reject God, and to walk in the ways of sin.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

39. To whom our fathers would not obey, &c.—Here he shows that the deepest dishonor done to Moses came from the nation that now professed the greatest jealousy for his honor.

in their hearts turned back … into Egypt—"In this Stephen would have his hearers read the downward career on which they were themselves entering."

Matthew Poole's Commentary

They made a calf; in imitation of the Egyptians, who worshipped their god Apis in that, or the like form of an ox.

The idol; the calf which they had made, which they could not be so sottish as to terminate their worship in, knowing that they themselves had made it, and it had not made them; yet they are for this charged to have committed idolatry, 1 Corinthians 10:6,7.

Rejoiced; which joy they express by feasting, singing, and dancing, Exodus 32:6.

The works of their own hands; so this idol, and idols generally, are called, Psalm 115:4 135:15 which is enough to speak their emptiness and vanity; vain man can make but vain gods.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And they made a calf in those days,.... Whilst Moses was in the mount; this was done in imitation of the Egyptian idol Apis or Serapis, which was an ox or a bullock; and it was made of the golden earnings of the people, which were melted down, and cast into the form of a calf, and graved by Aaron with a graving tool, Exodus 32:2 And so the Syriac version here reads in the singular number, "and he made them a calf"; this was a most shameful and scandalous piece of idolatry. The Jews themselves are so sensible of the horribleness of it, and of the guilt of it, and of the reproach that lies on them for it, that it is common for them to say (c),

"there is not a generation, or an age, in which there is not an ounce of the sin of the calf.''

Or, as elsewhere (d) expressed,

"no punishment befalls thee, O Israel, in "which there is not an ounce of the sin of the calf".''

And offered sacrifice unto the idol; an altar was built, and proclamation made, that the next day would be the feast of the Lord; and accordingly early in the morning the people rose, and offered both burnt offerings and peace offerings, Exodus 32:5 and rejoiceth in the works of their own hands; for so the calf was; and which rejoicing they showed by eating, and drinking, and singing, and dancing.

(c) T. Hieros. Taaniot, fol. 68. 3.((d) Vid. Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 102. 1.

Geneva Study Bible

And they made a {n} calf in those days, and offered sacrifice unto the idol, and rejoiced in the works of their own hands.

(n) This was the superstition of the Egyptian's idolatry: for they worshipped Apis, a strange and marvellous looking calf, and made beautiful images of cows.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Meyer's NT Commentary

Acts 7:41. Ἐμοσχοποίησαν] they made a bull, Exodus 32:4 : ἐποίησεν αὐτὰ μόσχον χώνευτον. The word does not elsewhere occur, except in the Fathers, and may have belonged to the colloquial language. The idol itself was an imitation of the very ancient and widely-spread bull-worship in Egypt, which had impressed itself in different forms, e.g. in the worship of Apis at Memphis, and of Mnevis at Heliopolis. Hence μόσχος is not a calf, but (comp. Hebrews 9:12-13; Hebrews 9:19; Herod. iii. 28) equivalent to ταῦρος, a young bull already full-grown, but not yet put into the yoke.

Examples of ἀνάγειν (namely, to the altar, 1 Kings 3:15) θυσίαν may be seen in Elsner, p. 393, and from Philo in Loesner, p. 189.

εὐφραίνοντο] they rejoiced in the works of their hands. By the interpretation: “they held sacrificial feasts” (Kuinoel), the well-known history (Exodus 32:6), to which the meaning of the words points, is confounded with that meaning itself.

ἔργοις] plural of the category, which presented itself in the golden calf. On εὐφραίν. ἐν (Sir 14:5; Sir 39:31; Sir 51:29; Xen. Hier. i. 16), to denote that on which the joy is causally based, compare χαίρειν ἐν, Luke 10:20; see on Php 1:18.

Expositor's Greek Testament

Acts 7:41. ἐμοσχοποίησαν: not in LXX or in classical Greek; in Exodus 32:2, ἐποίησαν μόσχον.—ἀνήγαγον θυσίαν, cf. 1 Kings 3:15 (and 2 Samuel 6:17, A.), for similar use of the word, “quia victima in aram tollitur,” Grimm.—εὐφραίνοντο, cf. Exodus 32:6; Exodus 32:18; the word is very frequent in LXX, and several times with ἐν, cf., e.g., 2 Chronicles 6:41, Sir 14:5, 1Ma 3:7; χαίρειν ἐν, Luke 10:20; used only by St. Luke amongst the Evangelists, six times in his Gospel, twice in Acts (but Acts 2:26 is a quotation). Bengel points out that God rejoices in the works of His own hands, and men in the work of God’s hands, but not as here—half irony in the words.

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

41. and rejoiced] It was not the voice of them that shout for the mastery, nor of them that cry for being overcome, but the noise of them that sing which Moses (Exodus 32:18) heard when he came down from the mount.

Bengel's Gnomen

Acts 7:41. Ἐμοσχοποίησαν, they made a calf) A very notorious act of wickedness is signified by an extraordinary and newly-coined word. They imitated the Egyptians, whose God Apis was an OX.—ἀνήγαγον θυσίαν) A rare phrase. But so also in 1 Kings 3:15, ἀνήγαγεν ὁλοκαυτώσεις.—τῷ εἰδώλῳ, unto the idol) They were idolaters, although they made the name of God their pretext.[48]—εὐφραίνοντο, they rejoiced) with great pageant.—ἐν τοῖς ἔργοις τῶν χειρῶν αὐτῶν, in the works of their own hands) It becomes GOD to rejoice in the works of His own hands: and it becomes us to rejoice in the works of His hands. Men are idolaters who rejoice in the works of their own hands.

[48] The calves were probably an imitation of the Cherubim, a recognised symbol of the true God. Hence Aaron says, “These be thy Gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt,” Exodus 32:4. The plural form, Gods, refers to the plural form of the name of God, Elohim.—E. and T.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 41. - Brought a sacrifice for offered sacrifice, A.V. (see Exodus 32:6, with which the A.V. agrees best); hands for own hands, A.V. Acts 7:41

Vincent's Word Studies

They made a calf (ἐμοσχοποίησαν)

Only here in New Testament, and not in Septuagint. Bengel says, "A very notorious crime is denoted by an extraordinary and newly-coined word." This was in imitation of the Egyptian bull-worship. Several of these animals were worshipped at different places in Egypt. Apis was worshipped at Memphis. Herodotus says: "Now this Apis, or Epaphus, is the calf of a cow which is never afterward able to bear young. The Egyptians say that fire comes down from heaven upon the cow, which thereupon conceives Apis. The calf which is so called has the following marks: He is black, with a square spot of white upon his forehead, and on his back the figure of an eagle. The hairs in his tail are double, and there is a beetle upon his tongue" (iii., 28). He was regarded by the Egyptians, not merely as an emblem, but as a god. He was lodged in a magnificent court, ornamented with figures twelve cubits high, which he never quitted except on fixed days, when he was led in procession through the streets. His festival lasted seven days, and all came forward from their houses to welcome him as he passed. He was not allowed to reach the natural term of his life. If a natural death did not remove him earlier, he was drowned when he reached the age of twenty-five, and was then embalmed and entombed in one of the sepulchral chambers of the Serapeum, a temple devoted expressly to the burial of these animals.

Another sacred bull was maintained at Heliopolis, in the great Temple of the Sun, under the name of Mnevis, and was honored with a reverence next to Apis. Wilkinson thinks that it was from this, and not from Apis, that the Israelites borrowed their notions of the golden calf. "The offerings, dancing, and rejoicings practised on the occasion, were doubtless in imitation of a ceremony they had witnessed in honor of Mnevis during their sojourn in Egypt" ("Ancient Egyptians," 2 sen, vol. ii., p. 197). A third sacred bull, called Bacis, was maintained at Hermonthis, near Thebes. It was a huge, black animal, and its hairs were said to grow the wrong way. Other bulls and cows did not hold the rank of gods, but were only sacred.

Offered (ἀνήγαγον)

Lit., led up. See on James 2:21.