Charles Ellicott Commentary Acts 7:11-14

"Now there came a famine over all Egypt and Canaan, and great affliction: and our fathers found no sustenance. But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent forth our fathers the first time. And at the second time Joseph was made known to his brethren; and Joseph`s race became manifest unto Pharaoh. And Joseph sent, and called to him Jacob his father, and all his kindred, threescore and fifteen souls." — Acts 7:11-14 (ASV)

Now there came a famine . . .—As far as we can trace the sequence of thought, the suggested inference appears to be that just as those who, in the history of Joseph, had persecuted him, later came to be dependent on his bounty, so it might prove to be in the final parallel which the history of Israel presented. In the coming famine—not of bread, but of sustenance for their spiritual life—they would have to turn to Him, whose betrayers and murderers they had been, in purpose and in act.

Seventy-five souls . . .—Seventy is given as the number, including Jacob, Joseph, and his sons, in Genesis 46:27; Exodus 1:5; Deuteronomy 10:22. Here, however, Stephen had the authority of the LXX of Genesis 46:27, which gives the number as seventy-five and makes it up by inserting the son and grandson of Manasseh, two sons and a grandson of Ephraim. In the LXX, this was probably an editorial correction based on Numbers 26:26-37. Stephen, as a Hellenistic Jew, naturally accepted, without caring to investigate, the number which he found in the Greek version.