“And when forty years were expired, there appeared to him in the wilderness of mount Sina an angel of the Lord in a flame of fire in a bush.”
'You have taken up the tabernacle of Moloch and the star of your god Rephan, the idols you made to worship. And so I will send you into exile beyond Babylon - Stephen continues quoting Amos 5:26-27, moving from the golden calf to the later worship of false gods (Moloch, Rephan). The 'exile beyond Babylon' (hyperan Babulōnos) predicts the deportation of Israel as divine punishment for idolatry. The implication: Israel's pattern of rejecting God's true way leads to exile, and this pattern continues in Stephen's time.
Church Fathers on Acts 7:30
And when forty years were expired, there appeared to him in the wilderness of mount Sinai an angel of the Lord in a flame of fire in a bush. Acts 7:30 Do you mark that it is not hindered by lapse of time? For when he was an exile, when a stranger, when he had now passed much time in a foreign land, so as to have two sons, when he no longer expected to return, then does the Angel appear to him. The Son of God he calls an Angel, as also he calls Him man. (Appears) in the…
Nicene & Post-Nicene / Ante-Nicene Fathers translations · public domain
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