Acts 7:10

Act 7:10. Ἐκ πασῶν, out of all) See 2Ti 3:11, note (Psa 34:17).—κατέστησεν αὐτὸν ἡγούμενον ἐπʼ Αἴγυπτον καὶ ὅλον τὸν οἶκον αὐτοῦ) Psa 105:21 in the LXX., κατέστησεν αὐτὸν κύριον τοῦ οἴκου αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἄρχοντα πάσης τῆς κτήσεως αὐτοῦ.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Act 7:10 . ἧν ὁ Θεὸς μετʼ αὐτοῦ , cf. Gen 39:2 ; Gen 39:21 ; Gen 39:23 ( cf. Luk 1:28 ; Luk 1:66 ). ἐξείλετο … ἐκ : the same construction in Gen 32:11 , Exo 3:8 , and in N.T., Act 12:11 ; Act 26:17 , Gal 1:4 ; so in classical Greek. The middle force of the verb in the sense of causing to be saved is lost. χάρις , cf. Act 2:41 . The word means primarily, as the context shows, favour with man, cf. Gen 39:21 ; but this χάρις was also a divine gift: ἔδωκεν . It is significant also that Pharaoh speaks of Joseph, Gen 41:38 , as a man in whom the spirit of God is, although no doubt the expression refers primarily to Joseph’s skill in foretelling and providing against the famine. σοφίαν : in interpreting the king’s decree, Gen 41:25 ff. ἐναντίον , so in Gen 39:21 . βασ . Αἰγ .: without the article as in Hebrew (Blass), cf. Gen 41:46 ; see also Winer-Schmiedel, p. 185. καὶ κατέστησεν , sc. , Pharaoh, cf. change of subject as in Act 7:4 , in which Weiss also sees the hand of a reviser, but see above. The same word is used in Gen 41:43 , and cf. for ἡγούμενον the same chap., Act 7:41 , where the sense of the title is shown the exact word is used of Joseph in Sir 49:15 ( ἡγούμενος ἀδελφῶν ); in N.T. four times in Luke, see Luk 22:26 , Act 7:10 ; Act 14:12 ; Act 15:22 ; elsewhere only in Hebrews, cf. Heb 13:7 ; Heb 13:17 ; Heb 13:24 .

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Gave him favor in Pharaoh’s sight for his wisdom.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Verse 10. Gave him favour and wisdom in the sight of Pharaoh] God gave him much wisdom, in consequence of which he had favour with the king of Egypt. See the whole of this remarkable history explained at large, Ge 41:1-45:28.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

10. Stephen addeth the means, because God gave him favor in the sight of Pharaoh. God could have delivered him by some other means, but his counsel had respect unto a farther thing, that Joseph, being ruler of the kingdom, might entertain his father and all his family. In these two words, favor and wisdom, there is the figure hypalloge. For the wisdom wherewith Joseph was endued was the cause that he found favor; although I confess that they were two distinct benefits. For, though Joseph were a faithful interpreter of dreams, and did excel in divine wisdom, yet the proud tyrant would never have brought him to so great honor, unless God had bent the mind of Pharaoh unto a certain unwonted love; yet, notwithstanding, we must consider that order whereby God useth to bring him into favor. Wisdom doth not only signify the gift of prophecy in interpreting dreams, but prudence in giving counsel; for Moses putteth in both. That which Stephen reporteth of one man in this place is extended unto all. For what aptness and readiness soever is in men, it ought to be reckoned amongst the gifts of God, and that his special gifts. And it is he that giveth good success as it pleaseth him, that his gifts may be profitable to that end for which it seemed good to him to give them. Therefore, although Joseph be made chief ruler of Egypt by Pharaoh, yet is he lifted up to so great honor properly by the hand of God.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

10. For the history see Genesis 39-41.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And delivered him out of all his afflictions,.... From the evil designs of his mistress, and from all the miseries of a prison:

and gave him favour and wisdom in the sight of Pharaoh king of Egypt; so Justin in the place above cited says, that Joseph was very dear to the king; but not through his knowledge of magic arts, as he suggests, but on account of the wisdom which God gave him; for when he is said to have favour and wisdom in the sight of Pharaoh, the meaning is, that he was highly esteemed of by him, because of the wisdom he saw in him; and both the favour he had with him, and the wisdom he had in himself, were from the Lord; and in a very humble and modest manner does he speak of himself, in Gen 41:16 which Onkelos the Targumist paraphrases thus:

""not from my wisdom", but from the Lord, shall the peace of Pharaoh be answered;''

the name of this Pharaoh was Misphragmuthosis; by the Jews he is called Rian ben Walid (o):

and he made him governor over Egypt: a deputy governor under him; for Pharaoh kept the throne, and in it was greater than Joseph, and had the other ensigns of royalty, and Joseph rode in the second chariot to him:

and all his house; see Gen 41:40 as he had the affairs of the kingdom committed to him, so likewise the domestic affairs of Pharaoh, he was steward of his household.

(o) Juchasin, fol. 135. 2.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

And delivered him ... - That is, restored him to liberty from his servitude and humiliation, and raised him up to high honors and offices in Egypt.

Favour and wisdom - The favor was the result of his wisdom. His wisdom was particularly evinced in interpreting the dreams of Pharaoh, Gen. 41.

And he made him governor ... - Gen 41:40.

All his house - All the family, or all the court and government of the nation.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Gave him favour and wisdom in the sight of Pharao. Some understand divine graces, and gifts of prophecy, and the like: others, that he made him find favour in the sight of king Pharao, who appointed him to be governor of Egypt. (Witham)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

And delivered him out of all his afflictions; the effect of God’s presence with him, which to his people is always in an especial manner, not only as he is with all other creatures, but as the soul is with the body, most effectually, so is God with them.

And gave him favour and wisdom in the sight of Pharaoh: thus God brought Daniel into favour, Dan 1:9, and hath all hearts in his hands.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

10. Favour and wisdom—Favour with God, and wisdom toward man.

Governor over Egypt—And so Christ is ruler even over the Gentiles, to fit them for their place in his Church.

10. From the least to the greatest—Both old and young, pauper and magistrate, freely credited the super-naturalism of Simon. It was not the low and ignorant alone, but ladies of high rank, philosophers, generals, and emperors, that listened to magicians, fortune-tellers, and necromancers. Pompey, Crassus, and Cesar consulted Oriental astrologers; Brutus beheld an apparition summoning him to the fatal Philippi; and Cesar was warned by the soothsayers to “beware the ides of March.” Tiberius, at Capreae, “had a flock of Chaldeans around him.” Tacitus styles them “a class of men faithless to the powerful, fallacious to those hoping from them; which will ever be legally prohibited in the State, yet always retained.” In an age when old religions are dying out, the empty hearts of men are hungry for something beyond dead nature. Vacate men’s spirits of a true religion, and they will hanker after the vilest superstitions. There are at the present day so-called philosophers, who tell us that the age of faith is passing away, and the higher age of reason, the glorious millennium of Atheism, is coming on, when men will be far too wise to believe in God. But such an age would be rife with demon-worship and base paganism. We see in the sorceries of Simon something identical with the sorcery of the Old Testament, (and with the execrable pseudo-spiritualism of the present day,) something rather basely below nature: sub-natural rather than super-natural; where the depths of vice may perhaps be so fathomed as to reach clown to the infernal.

The great power—The true reading is, This man is the power of God, which is called great. It refers, doubtless, to the masculine or greater power of nature in distinction from the feminine, of which Simon professed to be the incarnation.

It, of course, became the ascended Head of the Church, (see note on Act_1:1,) the Lord Jesus, to overcome these spurious miracles by the genuine, and the false doctrines by the divinely true.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Before for in the sight of, A.V. And delivered him, etc. And even so had he delivered his servant Jesus from the grave, and raised him to eternal life.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

See notes on verse 9

J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

10. For the history, see Genesis 39-41.

ἡγούμενον. This same word is employed about Joseph in Sir 49:15 οὐδὲ ὡς Ἰωσὴφ ἡγούμενος ἀδελφῶν, στήριγμα λαοῦ.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

10.] Observe (Mey.) the simple coupling of the clauses by καί, as characteristic or this speech.

χάριν κ. σοφ.] No Hendiadys: favour, so that he was acceptable to Pharaoh (see reff.): and wisdom, so that Ph. consulted him and followed his suggestion, especially in the important case recorded Gen 41:38.

κατέστησεν] viz. Pharaoh: a change of subject: see reff. Gen.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Afflictions [θλιψεων] See on Mt 13:21.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.