7:9,10
Stephen now turns to the recurrent feature of Israel’s leaders rejecting God. It is an interesting use of the term patriarchs. We tend to think of it as referring to exclusively to the likes of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and Moses. However, this use here shows that it had a wider applicability. Joseph was chosen by God for a special purpose, but his brothers were jealous of Joseph. Now it has to be said that Joseph’s interpersonal skills left something to be desired, but God worked in his life, and his brothers sought to work against that purpose. We know, of course, that there working against God’s plans, actually fulfilled them! God rescued Joseph, taught him many things, and gave him favour and wisdom. So Joseph became ruler over Egypt.
7:11-16
There are many parallels between the life of Joseph, and how God worked through his life, and how God’s plans are fulfilled in Christ. Joseph's brothers sought to kill him, eventually settling on just selling him as a slave. Joseph then became ruler in Egypt. Likewise, the Jews rejected Jesus, and the gospel has gone out to the nations, with people from all over the world following Jesus. Joseph sought to save his own people during the famine, even though they were the people who had rejected him. Likewise, Jesus has not forgotten about Israel. The Jews in Stephen’s time needed to recognise who Jesus was, as does modern day Israel.
There are some detail issues in the section. In naming 75 persons Stephen is following the commonly used Greek version of the OT. Stephen refers to the tomb bought by Abraham. Abraham had bought the land (Gen 12:6,7), but Jacob had had to rebuy the land (Gen 33:19). Stephen may have been using “Abraham” in a fairly general way to refer to the early patriarchs.
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