Intertextuality Pair

Acts 7:59 → 1 Kings 2:10

Echo

Later text

Acts 7:59BSB

While they were stoning him, Stephen appealed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”

Earlier text

1 Kings 2:10BSB

Then David rested with his fathers and was buried in the City of David.
+ 2 more earlier texts

Earlier text

1 Kings 2:10BSB

Then David rested with his fathers and was buried in the City of David.

Earlier text

Psalms 31:5BSB

Into Your hands I commit my spirit; You have redeemed me, O LORD, God of truth.

Significance

"While they were stoning him, Stephen appealed, 'Lord Jesus, receive my spirit'" (Acts 7:59), and then "he fell asleep" (7:60) — the same gentle idiom Scripture uses for David, who "rested with his fathers" (1 Kings 2:10). Stephen's dying committal echoes the psalmist's "Into Your hand I commit my spirit" (Psalm 31:5), the very words Jesus spoke from the cross (Luke 23:46) — but where Jesus addressed the Father, Stephen addresses the risen Jesus, praying to Christ as to God. The violent death of the martyr is spoken of as falling asleep, robbed of its terror because the One who receives his spirit is the Lord who has himself conquered death. For those in Christ, dying is a committal into faithful hands and a sleep from which the Deliverer will wake them — the martyr's peace resting wholly on the exalted Christ he beholds.

Found via
Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Reference Type
Echo
Connection Method(s)
Analogy

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