And Stephen declared: “Brothers and fathers, listen to me! The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham while he was still in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran,
2. Men, brethren, and fathers. Although Stephen saw that those which sat in the council were, for the most part, the sworn enemies of Christ, yet because the ordinary government of the people did belong to them, and they had the oversight of the Church, which God had not as yet cast off, therefore, he is not afraid, for modesty’s sake, to call them fathers.
The high priest speaks with a show of fairness, yet his tone is haughty and his prejudgment plain: if Stephen has spoken such words, he shall be condemned as a blasphemer. But Stephen's answer proves him a man mighty in Scripture, filled with the Holy Ghost not to reveal new secrets, but to bring the Old Testament writings to remembrance and convict his gainsayers.
AI summary
Commenting on Acts 7:1-16
And he said,.... Stephen replied, in answer to the high priest's question, and addressed himself to the whole sanhedrim, saying: men, brethren, and fathers, hearken; to the following oration and defence; he calls them men, brethren, by an usual Hebraism, that is, "brethren"; and that, because they were of the same nation; for it was common with the Jews to call those of their own...