Acts 7:41 → Exodus 32:6

"At that time they made a calf and offered a sacrifice to the idol, rejoicing in the works of their hands" (Acts 7:41). Stephen does not quote Exodus here; he retells in his own words the scene of Exodus 32:4-6, where the people "offered burnt offerings, and presented peace offerings" and "sat down to eat and drink, and got up to indulge in revelry" (Exodus 32:6). At the very mountain where God gave the living words, Israel exchanged the glory of God for an image and reveled in what their own hands had made. Stephen sets the golden calf at the center of his indictment: the people who rejected their deliverer turned at once to idolatry, and "God turned away from them" (7:42). The phrase "the works of their hands" quietly anticipates his climax — the God who "does not dwell in houses made by human hands" (7:48) will not be captured by anything human hands construct, whether calf or temple. The cure for the idolatrous heart is not a better object of Israel's making but the God who gives himself in Christ, turning worshippers from the works of their hands to the beholding of his glory.