Attributed commentary excerpt
John Gill's Exposition on Acts 7:4
A historical reference excerpt for this verse. Read it alongside the biblical text and other available sources.
Exposition of the Old and New Testament
John Gill (1697–1771) · 18th-century historical commentary
Source: BibleWord.ai's local reference edition of this named work.
Then came he out of the land of the Chaldeans, etc.] The same with Mesopotamia; so Pliny says f265, that “because of Babylon the head of the Chaldean nation — -the other part of Mesopotamia and Assyria is called Babylonia.” And he places Babylon in Mesopotamia; it was out of Ur, in the land of the Chaldeans particularly, that Abraham came, upon his first call: and dwelt in Charan: according to the Jewish writers f266, he dwelt here five years: and from thence, when his father was dead; who died in Haran, as is said in (<011132>Genesis 11:32) and that it was after the death of Terah his father, that Abraham went from thence, is manifest from (<011131>Genesis 11:31,32) (<011204>Genesis 12:4,5) and yet a Jew f267 has the impudence to charge Stephen with a mistake, and to affirm, that Abraham went from Haran, whilst his father was yet living; proceeding upon a false hypothesis, that Terah begat Abraham when he was seventy years of age: but Philo the Jew is expressly with Stephen in this circumstance; he says f268, “I think no man versed in the laws can be ignorant, that Abraham, when he first went out of the land of Chaldea, dwelt in Charan; teleuthsantov te autw tou patrov ekenyi “but his father dying there”, he removed from thence:” and so says Stephen: he removed him into this land, wherein ye now dwell; the land of Canaan; (see <011205>Genesis 12:5) or “he removed himself”, as the Ethiopic version renders it; or rather “God removed him”, as the Syriac version reads, and so one copy in the Bodleian library; for it was by the order and assistance, and under the direction and protection of God, that he came into that land: after the words wherein ye now dwell, Beza’s ancient copy adds, “and our fathers that were before us”.
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