Charles Ellicott Commentary Acts 7:22

"And Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians; and he was mighty in his words and works." — Acts 7:22 (ASV)

Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.—It is better to understand this as meaning he was trained, or instructed. There is no direct statement to this effect in the history of the Pentateuch, but it was implied by Moses being brought up as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, and was in harmony with later paraphrases and expansions of the earlier history.

The narrative of Josephus (as mentioned above), the New Testament references to Jannes and Jambres as the magicians who withstood Moses (2 Timothy 3:8), and the reference to the dispute between Michael and Satan over his body (Jude 1:9), all indicate the wide acceptance of some such half-legendary history.

The passage is instructive for several reasons:

1. It serves as an indirect plea on Stephen's part, similar to those later made by Clement of Alexandria (Stromata 1.5.28 and 6.5.42) and Justin Martyr (Dialogue with Trypho, chapters 1-4), for the recognition of heathen wisdom as an element in God's education of humankind.
2. It contributed to focusing the attention of the more cultivated and scholarly early Christian critics—such as those named, along with Origen, Jerome, and Augustine—on the teachings of Greek poets and philosophers, and furnished them with an approval for such studies.

Mighty in words and in deeds.—Josephus (Antiquities 2.10), still following the same traditional history, relates that Moses commanded the Egyptian forces in a campaign against the Ethiopians and protected them against the serpents that infested the country by transporting large numbers of the ibis, a bird that feeds on serpents.

The story was completed by the marriage of Moses to the daughter of the Ethiopian king, who had fallen passionately in love with him. This was possibly a development of the brief statement in Numbers 12:1.

The language of Moses himself (Exodus 4:10), where he speaks of himself as not eloquent and slow of speech, seems at first inconsistent with being mighty in words. However, this can be fairly regarded as simply the utterance of a true humility, shrinking from the burden of a mighty task.