Later text
Acts 7:54BSB
On hearing this, the members of the Sanhedrin were enraged, and they gnashed their teeth at him.
Intertextuality Pair
Echo
Later text
Acts 7:54BSB
On hearing this, the members of the Sanhedrin were enraged, and they gnashed their teeth at him.
Earlier text
Job 16:9BSB
His anger has torn me and opposed me; He gnashes His teeth at me. My adversary pierces me with His eyes.
Earlier text
All your enemies open their mouths against you. They hiss and gnash their teeth, saying, “We have swallowed her up. This is the day for which we have waited. We have lived to see it!”
Earlier text
Psalms 35:16BSB
Like godless jesters at a feast, they gnashed their teeth at me.
Luke sets the Sanhedrin in the exact posture of the Old Testament righteous sufferer's adversaries: "they gnashed their teeth at him" (Acts 7:54) answers the enemies who "gnashed their teeth" at the psalmist (Psalm 35:16), at Job (Job 16:9), and at fallen Zion (Lamentations 2:16). As the wicked once raged against David, Job, and Zion, so now against Stephen — whose whole death scene Luke patterns on his Lord's (7:59-60; cf. Psalm 31:5; Luke 23:34, 46). The recurring image of the gnashing wicked frames the first martyr as the righteous witness standing where Christ stood, entering by analogy into the fellowship of his Lord's sufferings. To be hated as the Righteous One was hated is to be counted with him; and the same Christ whose glory Stephen beholds (7:55) turns even the rage of enemies into the seal of his servants' likeness to him.