Acts 7:3-8

7:3 and said to him, ‘Go out from your country and from your relatives, and come to the land I will show you.’¹ 7:4 Then he went out from the country of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran. After his father died, God² made him move³ to this country where you now live. 7:5 He⁴ did not give any of it to him for an inheritance,⁵ not even a foot of ground,⁶ yet God⁷ promised to give it to him as his possession, and to his descendants after him,⁸ even though Abraham⁹ as yet had no child. 7:6 But God spoke as follows: ‘Your¹⁰ descendants will be foreigners¹¹ in a foreign country, whose citizens will enslave them and mistreat them for four hundred years.¹² 7:7 But I will punish¹³ the nation they serve as slaves,’ said God, ‘and after these things they will come out of there¹⁴ and worship¹⁵ me in this place.’¹⁶ 7:8 Then God¹⁷ gave Abraham¹⁸ the covenant¹⁹ of circumcision, and so he became the father of Isaac and circumcised him when he was eight days old,²⁰ and Isaac became the father of²¹ Jacob, and Jacob of the twelve patriarchs.²²

¹sn A quotation from Gen 12:1.

²tn Grk “he”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

³tn The translation “made him move” for the verb μετοικίζω (metoikizw) is given by L&N 85.83. The verb has the idea of “resettling” someone (BDAG 643 s.v.); see v. 43, where it reappears.

⁴tn Grk “And he.” Because of the difference between Greek style, which often begins sentences or clauses with “and,” and English style, which generally does not, καί (kai) has not been translated here.

⁵tn Grk “He did not give him an inheritance in it.” This could be understood to mean that God did not give something else to Abraham as an inheritance while he was living there. The point of the text is that God did not give any of the land to him as an inheritance, and the translation makes this clear.

⁶tn Grk “a step of a foot” (cf. Deut 2:5).

⁷tn Grk “he”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁸sn An allusion to Gen 12:7; 13:15; 15:2, 18; 17:8; 24:7; 48:4. On the theological importance of the promise and to his descendants after him, see Rom 4 and Gal 3.

⁹tn Grk “he”; the referent (Abraham) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

¹⁰tn Grk “that his”; the discourse switches from indirect to direct with the following verbs. For consistency the entire quotation is treated as second person direct discourse in the translation.

¹¹tn Or “will be strangers,” that is, one who lives as a noncitizen of a foreign country.

¹²sn A quotation from Gen 15:13. Exod 12:40 specifies the sojourn as 430 years.

¹³tn BDAG 568 s.v. κρίνω 5.b.α states, “Oft. the emphasis is unmistakably laid upon that which follows the Divine Judge’s verdict, upon the condemnation or punishment: condemn, punish …Ac 7:7 (Gen 15:14).”

¹⁴tn The words “of there” are not in the Greek text, but are implied.

sn A quotation from Gen 15:14.

¹⁵tn Or “and serve,” but with religious/cultic overtones (BDAG 587 s.v. λατρεύω).

¹⁶sn An allusion to Exod 3:12.

¹⁷tn Grk “he”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

¹⁸tn Grk “him”; the referent (Abraham) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

¹⁹sn God gave…the covenant. Note how the covenant of promise came before Abraham’s entry into the land and before the building of the temple.

²⁰tn Grk “circumcised him on the eighth day,” but many modern readers will not understand that this procedure was done on the eighth day after birth. The temporal clause “when he was eight days old” conveys this idea more clearly. See Gen 17:11-12.

²¹tn The words “became the father of” are not in the Greek text due to an ellipsis, but must be supplied for the English translation. The ellipsis picks up the verb from the previous clause describing how Abraham fathered Isaac.

²²sn The twelve patriarchs refers to the twelve sons of Jacob, the famous ancestors of the Jewish race (see Gen 35:23-26).