7:45 Which also our fathers that came after {s} brought in with Jesus into the {t} possession of the Gentiles, whom God drave out {u} before the face of our fathers, unto the days of David;
(s) Delivered from hand to hand.
(t) This is said using the figure of speech metonymy, and refers to the countries which the Gentiles possessed.
(u) God drove them out that they should yield up the possession of those countries to our fathers when they entered into the land.
7:45 Which also our fathers... brought in with Jesus. With Joshua (Revised Version). Joshua, the Hebrew form for Jesus. He and the later generations of Jews brought this tabernacle into Canaan when they conquered it.
7:45 Which our fathers having received - From their ancestors; brought into the possession of the Gentiles - Into the land which the Gentiles possessed before. So that God's favour is not a necessary consequence of inhabiting this land. All along St. Stephen intimates two things:
1. That God always loved good men in every land:
2. That he never loved bad men even in this. Josh 3:14.
7:42-50 Stephen upbraids the Jews with the idolatry of their fathers, to which God gave them up as a punishment for their early forsaking him. It was no dishonour, but an honour to God, that the tabernacle gave way to the temple; so it is now, that the earthly temple gives way to the spiritual one; and so it will be when, at last, the spiritual shall give way to the eternal one. The whole world is God's temple, in which he is every where present, and fills it with his glory; what occasion has he then for a temple to manifest himself in? And these things show his eternal power and Godhead. But as heaven is his throne, and the earth his footstool, so none of our services can profit Him who made all things. Next to the human nature of Christ, the broken and spiritual heart is his most valued temple.
