Charles Ellicott Commentary Acts 7:52

"Which of the prophets did not your fathers persecute? and they killed them that showed before of the coming of the Righteous One; of whom ye have now become betrayers and murderers;" — Acts 7:52 (ASV)

Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted?—St. Stephen echoes, as it were, our Lord’s own words (Matthew 5:12; Luke 13:34). Every witness for the truth had, in his day, had to suffer. The prophet was not only without honour, but was exposed to shame, treated as an enemy, and condemned to death. 1 Thessalonians 2:15, perhaps, reproduces the same fact, but more probably refers to the sufferings of the prophets of the Christian Church who were treated as their predecessors had been.

The coming of the Just One.—The name does not appear to have been one of the received titles of the expected Messiah, but may have been suggested by Isaiah 11:4-5. It seems to have been accepted by the Church of Jerusalem, and in 1 John 2:1, and perhaps in James 5:6, we find examples of its application. The recent use of it by Pilate’s wife (Matthew 27:19) may have helped to give prominence to it. He who had been condemned as a malefactor was emphatically, above all the sons of men, the righteous, the Just One.

The betrayers and murderers.—The two words emphasize, first, the act of the Sanhedrin and the people, and second, the persistence with which they urged Pilate to impose the sentence of death, which made them not merely accessories, but principals in the deed of blood.