Acts 7:57

Acts 7:57

Then they cried out with a loud voice
These were not the sanhedrim, but the common people; the Ethiopic version reads, "the Jews cried out"; which, they did, in a very clamorous way, either through rage and madness, or in a show of zeal against blasphemy; and cried out, either to God to avenge the blasphemy, or rather to the sanhedrim to pass a sentence on him, or, it may be, to excite one another to rise up at once, and kill him, as they did:

and stopped their ears;
with their fingers, pretending they could not bear the blasphemy that was uttered. This was their usual method; hence they say, ^F15

``if a man hears anything that is indecent, (or not fit to be heard,) let him put his fingers in his ears hence the whole ear is hard, and the tip of it soft, that when he hears anything that is not becoming, he may bend the tip of the ear within it.''

By either of these ways these men might stop their ears; either by putting in their fingers, or by turning the tip of the ear inward.

And ran upon him with one accord;
without any leave of the sanhedrim, or waiting for their determination, in the manner the zealots did; (See Gill on Matthew 10:4) (See Gill on John 16:2).

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FOOTNOTES:

F15 T. Bab. Cetubot, fol. 5. 1. 2.