How to read this page

An Intertextuality Pair — one connection between two passages, shown as linked verse cards: the Later text and the Earlier text it quotes, alludes to or echoes. The Significance essay explains why the link matters and where it points in Christ.

Reference Type— how explicit the link is: Quotation, Allusion, or Echo
Connection Method(s)— how it carries meaning: e.g. Typology, Promise-Fulfillment, Analogy, Longitudinal Theme
Found via— where the connection was identified, e.g. the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge or an Anchor-Text Network

Graph View — tap the constellation icon in the top bar to see this page's connections as a web of light: gold points are passages, and the coloured threads are the connection types. Click any type in the graph's own legend to filter it in or out, and use the expand control for the full-screen night sky.

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Intertextuality Pair

Acts 7:40 → Exodus 32:1

Quotation

Later text

Acts 7:40BSB

They said to Aaron, ‘Make us gods who will go before us! As for this Moses who led us out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has happened to him.’

Earlier text

Exodus 32:1BSB

Now when the people saw that Moses was delayed in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, "Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this Moses who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has happened to him!"

Walk the Square · a single-voice walk of this pair around the Clowney square8:37

Significance

Stephen quotes the Israelites' demand at Sinai almost verbatim from the LXX of Exodus 32:1 — "Make us gods who will go before us! As for this Moses who led us out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has happened to him." Stephen recounts this episode of golden calf idolatry within his larger argument that Israel has a persistent pattern of rejecting God's appointed deliverers. The quotation serves Stephen's rhetorical purpose of drawing a parallel between Israel's rejection of Moses and their rejection of Jesus (the "Righteous One," Acts 7:52). The connection method is redemptive-historical progression (locating the golden calf incident within the larger narrative of Israel's unfaithfulness) combined with contrast (the inadequacy of Israel's response to God's deliverers points beyond itself to the ultimate rejection of Christ).

Found via: Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Reference Type: Direct Quotation
Connection Method(s): Redemptive-Historical Progression + Contrast

Linked Mentions 1

Trajectory Tables 1

Golden Calf (Idolatry and Intercession) Trajectory Table