Charles Ellicott Commentary Acts 7:38

"This is he that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel that spake to him in the Mount Sinai, and with our fathers: who received living oracles to give unto us:" — Acts 7:38 (ASV)

That was in the church in the wilderness.—The word ecclesia is used, as it had been in the Septuagint (Deuteronomy 18:16; Deuteronomy 23:1; Psalms 26:12), for the “congregation” of Israel. In the earlier versions, Tyndale, Cranmer, and the Geneva Bible had rendered it “congregation.” Even the Rheims New Testament contented itself with “assembly.” The translators of 1611 (the King James Version), acting on the instructions that were drawn up for their guidance, saw no reason to make this an exception to the rule, and so rendered it “church.”

Assuming that ecclesia was translated this way elsewhere, it was, admittedly, correct as a matter of consistency to use it here. This usage presents the thought, emphasized in Stephen’s speech, that the society of believers in Christ was similar, in character and in its relation to God, to that of Israel. The new ecclesia was the development of the old. (See Note on Matthew 16:18.)

The lively oracles.—The noun was used by the Greeks for the solemn utterances of the Pythian oracles. It was therefore used by the Septuagint in connection with the Urim and Thummim of the high priest (Exodus 28:30), and thus for any answer from God (Numbers 24:4). In the New Testament, it appears again in Romans 3:2, Hebrews 5:12, and 1 Peter 4:11.