Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Acts 7:45

"Which also our fathers, in their turn, brought in with Joshua when they entered on the possession of the nations, that God thrust out before the face of our fathers, unto the days of David;" — Acts 7:45 (ASV)

Stephen’s assessment of Israel’s worship experience lays all the emphasis on the tabernacle, which he eulogistically calls “the tabernacle of Testimony.” It was with our forefathers, he says, during that period in the desert, which so many consider exemplary. It was made according to the exact pattern God gave Moses and was central in the life of the nation during the conquest of Canaan under the leadership of Joshua. And it was the focus of national worship through the time of David, who found favor in God’s sight. So significant was it in Israel’s experience, in fact, that David asked to be allowed to provide a permanent type of “dwelling place” for God in Jerusalem. (Here Ps 132:5 is quoted and 2 Samuel 6:17; 1 Chronicles 15:1 are alluded to.) Like the writer to the Hebrews (cf. Hebrews 8:2, 5; 9:1–5, 11, 24), and probably like many other nonconformist Jews of his time, Stephen seems to have viewed the epitome of Jewish worship in terms of the tabernacle, not the temple. This was likely because he felt the mobility of the tabernacle was a restraint on the status quo mentality that had grown up around the temple. Furthermore, also like the writer to the Hebrews, Stephen attempts to lift his compatriots’ vision to something far superior to even the wilderness tabernacle—namely, to the dwelling of God with humans in Jesus of Nazareth and as expressed through the new covenant.