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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 7:8 → Genesis 17:9-14

Allusion

Later text

Acts 7:8BSB

Then God gave Abraham the covenant of circumcision, and Abraham became the father of Isaac and circumcised him on the eighth day. And Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob of the twelve patriarchs.

Earlier text

Genesis 17:9-14BSB

God also said to Abraham, "You must keep My covenant—you and your descendants in the generations after you. This is My covenant with you and your descendants after you, which you are to keep: Every male among you must be circumcised. You are to circumcise the flesh of your foreskin, and this will be a sign of the covenant between Me and you. Generation after generation, every male must be circumcised when he is eight days old, including those born in your household and those purchased from a foreigner—even those who are not your offspring. Whether they are born in your household or purchased, they must be circumcised. My covenant in your flesh will be an everlasting covenant. But if any male is not circumcised, he will be cut off from his people; he has broken My covenant."

+ 1 more earlier text

Earlier text

Numbers 25:12BSB

Declare, therefore, that I am granting My covenant of peace.

Walk the Square · this video walks Acts 7:2-8 as a whole, from Acts 7.5 → Genesis 17.815:03

Significance

"Then God gave Abraham the covenant of circumcision" (Acts 7:8; Genesis 17:9-14). Stephen names circumcision precisely as "the covenant" — the sign God gave Abraham to seal the promise and mark the line of the seed. Far from despising the covenant sign, Stephen honors it; his indictment is that Israel kept the outward mark while remaining "uncircumcised in heart and ears" (7:51). The sign in the flesh always pointed to a circumcision of the heart (Deuteronomy 10:16; 30:6), accomplished in Christ, "the circumcision performed without hands... the circumcision of Christ" (Colossians 2:11). The covenant sealed to Abraham finds its substance in the new covenant, where God cuts away not flesh but the heart's rebellion, making a people truly his own.

Found via: Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Reference Type: Allusion
Connection Method(s): Promise-Fulfillment

Linked Mentions 2

Trajectory Tables 2