Charles Ellicott Commentary Acts 7:51

"Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Spirit: as your fathers did, so do ye." — Acts 7:51 (ASV)

Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised . . .—The sudden change of tone from calm argument to vehement indignation cannot be thought of as spontaneous. The excitement of the Sanhedrin, perhaps of the listening crowd also, at this point, would seem to have become uncontrollable. The accused seemed to them to be repeating his offence with defiant boldness, and loud clamours took the place of whispered murmurs.

Both the adjectives had been applied to the sins of the older Israel: “stiffnecked” in Exodus 33:3, 5, and Exodus 34:9; and “uncircumcised” in Jeremiah 6:10. The actual phrase uncircumcised in heart had been used by Ezekiel (Ezekiel 44:7) of “strangers.” It was now applied to those who boasted of their exclusive privileges as Israelites, and it is scarcely possible for us to estimate the sharp incisiveness with which it, or its Aramaic equivalent, must have fallen on the ears of the Sanhedrin. It was to them all, and more than all, what the terms “heretic” and “infidel” have meant in the controversies of Christians. Here again, in St. Paul’s circumcision of the heart (Romans 2:29), we have another echo from St. Stephen’s speech.