The God of this people Israel chose our fathers, and exalted the people in their sojourn in [the] land of Egypt, and with a high arm brought them out of it,
Paul stands up to preach in a synagogue in Antioch of Pisidia. He opens with no command — only a list of what God did for one nation, so why start there, and where is it going?
Paul's sermon points to what God has done, not to what his hearers feel. One writer sets his preaching beside Peter's:
We have seen how Peter could preach the gospel. We learn here how Paul could preach it. It was objective, not subjective, truth that he chiefly dwelt on. He spoke of God, and of His ways, full and varied as they were. God had chosen their fathers. God had exalted them in Egypt, and had brought them out with a high arm.
God is the subject of every verb in this verse, and the first one is "chose". That one choice carries far beyond Egypt:
First, God's dealings begin with His choice of the fathers, and they run straight on to the exodus of the people from Egypt. Then comes His care of them in the wilderness, until He gave them the land to inherit. It is the first five books of the Bible and the book of Joshua in miniature, centring in Israel, loved for the fathers' sake. The gospel confirms, instead of cancelling, God's love to Israel.
God made them great during their stay in Egypt — the very years of their slavery. The pressure itself was the means:
God took them in hand and allowed them to feel the scorching heat of Egypt's furnace. "The more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad" (Exodus 1:12). In that furnace of affliction they were welded together as a nation. They entered Egypt a feeble and disunited family; they left it a compact and powerful nation.
That the slavery itself was foretold turns the whole episode into something other than an accident:
Even the bondage they came into had already been promised to them. What seemed most against them was really the working out of promise for them. The hand of power works in disguise, yet faith can see straight through it.
The raised arm did more than open a door out of Egypt:
In His sovereignty He has given Israel the chief and central place among the nations. In them divine government has been displayed on the earth, and will be again. With a high arm He brought them out of Egypt to Himself, to be their King and their God.
Paul is not giving a history lesson for its own sake. The list runs forward, and it stops at one man for a reason:
He follows the history until he comes to David, since the aim, of course, was to bring in the Son of David. The apostle, led by the Lord, speaks with the thoughtful skill that love always uses, shaped by the Spirit of God. … It was no question of a great man, or of great deeds, but of God accomplishing His purpose.
Not everyone listening was Jewish, and the message ran to the whole room:
…His promise of a Saviour from David's line. Now the news of the salvation centred in that Saviour was sent to all his hearers. That included "those among you who fear God" — the non-Jews among them who had come over to the Jewish faith.
- Chose. The story starts with God picking the fathers, not with Israel qualifying. That choice is the hinge on which everything after it turns.
- Grew. He made them great in the very place meant to crush them. The oppression that looked fatal was the furnace that welded a family into a nation.
- Brought out. The uplifted arm did not just get them out of Egypt. God brought them out to Himself, to be their King and their God.
- Led on. The same hand carried them through the wilderness and settled them in the land. This short account is the first five books of the Bible and Joshua in miniature.
- Finished. The account runs on to David, and past David to the Son of David. The point was never a great man or great deeds, but God completing His purpose.
and for a time of about forty years he nursed them in the desert.
Paul is preaching in a synagogue in Antioch of Pisidia, retelling Israel's own story on the way to Jesus. One short line covers forty years in the desert: did God put up with Israel or carry them, and why does a gospel sermon need this history?
Paul's sermon is a chain of things God did, and this verse is one link in it.
He spoke of God, and of His ways, full and varied as they were. God had chosen their fathers. God had made them great in Egypt, and had brought them out by His mighty power. God had also put up with their behaviour in the wilderness. He destroyed seven nations in the land of Canaan and divided it among the tribes by lot. Then He appeared as a Giver. He gave them judges and prophets. He gave them too Saul as king. After that He was known as One who raises up: first David, then David's descendant — Jesus, born as a man — and last of all in raising Him up from the dead. He also showed Himself to be One who keeps His promises. A Giver, One who raises up, One who keeps His promises — what an announcement they heard that day! If God is like that, everyone can and should rest on His word.
Commentators differ on the verb here. Some render it as bearing with bad behaviour; others render it as a nurse carrying a child. William Kelly translates Paul's words this way:
and for a time of about forty years bore them nurse-like in the desert
That second sense fills out what the desert years actually looked like day by day.
A mother holds her child in her arms because she loves it and wants to protect it, and she holds its arms when she teaches it to walk. God dealt with His earthly people in the same way. He carried them the way you carry a baby. He held them up with His everlasting arms while He taught them to walk in His ways, leaning on Him completely and trusting Him without wavering. But their steps were unsteady and uncertain. They stumbled all the way — at Marah, in the wilderness of Sin, at Rephidim — and still those mighty arms held them up with a patience that never ran out.
The number forty carries its own meaning across Scripture.
FORTY = 10 × 4. Complete testing, to bring to light good or evil… The tribes were tested forty years in the wilderness. Acts 13:18.
Israel did not stay neutral through those years. They did not simply fail to answer God's patience — they despised it.
They put God to the test: He bore with them for a long time. They tested Him, and countless times He showed Himself faithful and gracious despite their self-will. For forty years they saw His works of grace and power. But all this, along with His patient endurance, they treated with contempt. So time proved their hearts false and ignorant of God's ways.
The forty years were the result of Israel's own refusal to enter the land. God could have let them wander alone. He did the opposite.
If Israel would not enter Canaan with Jehovah, He would go back into the wilderness with Israel. Nothing can go beyond the grace that shines here. If they had been treated as they deserved, they could at least have been left to wander through the desert alone. But — blessed for ever be His great name — He does not deal with us according to our sins, or pay us back for our wrongdoing… The people were unbelieving, ungrateful, and full of provocation. Their return to the desert was the fruit of their own conduct. Even so, Jehovah, in stooping grace and patient love, turned back with them to be their travelling companion for forty long and dreary years in the wilderness.
This is not only Israel's history. Hard, empty stretches have a purpose in a believer's life too.
So the wilderness gives us our own experience of what God is. It is a school where we learn His patient grace and His full resources. "For about forty years he put up with them in the wilderness" (Acts 13:18). A spiritual mind will always admit that bitter waters are worth having, so that God can sweeten them.
- Tested — Forty is the number of "complete testing, to bring to light good or evil." The desert years showed what was really in Israel.
- Carried — The verb can mean God put up with them, or that He carried them like a nurse. Either way He "held them up with a patience that never ran out."
- Despised — This is the dark side of the verse. They "treated with contempt" both His works and His patient endurance.
- Accompanied — The wandering was their own fault. Yet He "turned back with them to be their travelling companion."
- Preached — Paul tells this story to show who God is: He chose, carried, gave, raised up, and kept His promise. "If God is like that, everyone can and should rest on His word."
And having destroyed seven nations in the land of Canaan, he gave them their land as an inheritance.
Paul is preaching in a synagogue at Antioch in Pisidia, and he has just walked his hearers from God's choice of Israel through the exodus and forty years in the desert. Now he reaches the conquest, and two questions come with it: why were those nations destroyed, and what do the "about 450 years" of the next line measure?
Paul is not giving a history lesson for its own sake. Every event he lists has the same subject: God. One commentator follows the titles God earns as the sermon goes on.
He spoke of God, and of His ways, full and varied as they were. God had chosen their fathers. God had exalted them in Egypt, and had brought them out with great power. God also had put up with their behaviour in the wilderness. He destroyed seven nations in the land of Canaan and divided it among the tribes by lot. Then He appeared as a Giver. He gave them judges and prophets. He gave them Saul as king. After that He was known as a Raiser-up. He raised up David first, then David's seed — Jesus in the incarnation — and last of all He raised Him up in resurrection. He had also proved Himself a Fulfiller of promises. A Giver, a Raiser up, a Fulfiller of His promises — what an announcement they heard that day! If God is like this, all can and should rest on His word.
The destruction was not random. One commentator describes what these nations had become, and why God waited so long.
These nations were sunk in the most awful sexual immorality, and they practised the vilest evils. There are different reasons to believe that Satan had a special hold on them. God had put up with these nations for many centuries. In His mercy He waited before He drew the sword of justice. Now their wickedness had reached its full measure, and the time for judgment had come. The Lord called Israel to carry out that awful judgment.
Paul says God "gave them their land." One commentator explains why it could only ever be a gift.
God had driven out the nations who occupied the land of promise, for Israel certainly did not have the power to do this. It was God who planted Israel in the land. It was God who brought trouble on those who had seized the land He meant to give to Israel. Israel did use their swords in conquering the land, but it was not their swords that won the victory.
Paul covers Abraham to Joshua in a few lines. One commentator names what that short summary holds.
First, God's dealings from His choice of the fathers are tied at once to the exodus of the people from Egypt. Then comes His care of them in the wilderness, until He gave them the land to inherit. It is the Pentateuch and the book of Joshua in miniature, with Israel at the centre, loved for the sake of the fathers. The gospel confirms God's love to Israel; it does not cancel it.
Part of the answer lies in the wording of verses 19 and 20.
In verses 19 and 20 there is a notable difference from the usual wording. The point is not that He gave the land by lot, though that is true in itself, but that He caused them to inherit their land… This connects the date of "about 450 years" with the carrying out of the promised inheritance.
A reference work gives the reading itself, and where the count may start.
In Acts 13:20 the King James Version reads that God gave them judges for about 450 years, until Samuel the prophet. This would not agree with the 480 years of 1 Kings 6:1. But there is a different reading in Acts 13, which editors of the Greek Testament and the Revised Version have adopted, apart from all questions of chronology. It reads, "He divided to them their land by lot, about 450 years; and afterwards he gave them judges." So the 450 years are not applied to the length of the judges. This period may be made up by counting from the birth of Isaac, because the promise was to the seed of Abraham, and Isaac was the child of promise.
- God chose. The account begins with His choice of the fathers. Israel's story never starts with Israel.
- God cleared. He did not sweep the seven nations away on a whim. He waited centuries while their wickedness grew full, then used Israel to carry out the judgment.
- God gave. The land came as an inheritance. Israel used swords, but swords did not win it. They had no power to take the land themselves.
- God kept giving. Judges, prophets, a king, then David — at every stage He is the Giver, the Raiser-up, the Fulfiller of promises.
- God's word holds. The date problem clears up once the better reading ties the 450 years to the inheritance, not to the judges.
And after these things he gave [them] judges till Samuel the prophet, [to the end of] about four hundred and fifty years.
Paul is speaking in a synagogue in Antioch of Pisidia, retelling Israel's story to people who knew it well. This verse covers the years from the settling of Canaan to Samuel, and it raises two questions: what does the 450 years count, and why did God keep giving judges to a failing people?
Paul's summary tells what God did, not what Israel achieved. One commentator lists the names the sermon gives Him.
He spoke of God, and of His ways, full and varied as they were… Then He appeared as a Giver. He gave them judges and prophets. He gave them Saul as king too. After that they knew Him as a Raiser-up. He raised up David first, then David's descendant — Jesus, when He came into the world as a man. Last of all He raised Him up from the dead. He also proved Himself a Fulfiller of promises. A Giver, a Raiser up, a Fulfiller of His promises — what an announcement they heard that day!
The older English reading ties the 450 years to the judges themselves. That clashes with the 480 years of 1 Kings 6:1. Commentators differ on the answer. Some look to the oldest manuscripts:
In the common text of 13:20, Paul marks the period of the Judges as about 450 years… But this cannot be squared with 1 Kings 6:1. That verse fixes the start of the Temple building — in the fourth year of Solomon — at 480 years after the Exodus… Now the earliest Greek manuscripts, along with the Latin and Egyptian versions, read the passage another way: "He divided the land among them by lot about the space of 450 years. And after that He gave them judges." So the years mentioned would come before the time of the Judges.
Others keep the usual wording and explain the number another way. The judges did not all rule one after another, and the figure is a round one.
The "450 years" in Acts 13:20 looks like a round figure. It covers the time from the entry into the wilderness to the end of the reign of Saul… We must also remember that the Judges often ruled over only part of the people. So Ehud and Shamgar worked among the tribes in the south, while Deborah and Barak brought deliverance in the north.
Where the earlier manuscripts are followed, the number then measures something else entirely — the time it took God to make good His word about the land.
If the oldest witnesses are accepted, it was in about 450 years that Israel was made to inherit this land, after the promise to "our fathers," that is, counting from the birth of Isaac as the starting point… It cannot therefore be assumed that Paul assigns a duration of 450 years to the judges, and so invalidates the date in 1 Kings 6:1 of 480 years from the Exodus to the founding of Solomon's temple.
One word, "judges," stands for a whole book of Israel's history. It runs in a cycle: failure, misery, rescue, then failure again.
Their unfaithfulness brought misery on them, and that misery moved the compassion of God. His mighty grace raised up deliverers by His Spirit among the fallen and wretched people… But Israel did not change. "And yet they would not listen to their judges." "When the judge died, they turned back and became more corrupt than their fathers." This is the sad history of the people of God. It is also the history of the grace of God, and of His compassion towards His people.
Paul says God gave them judges. The gift lay in the giving, not in the quality of the men given.
We read, for instance, that God gave the people of Israel judges (Acts 13:20), that is, certain men who became leaders and rulers of the people. But there was nothing in Gideon, Samson, or any of them to magnify the love of God. These servants in themselves had little moral worth. They did not make their office great by their own excellence. Instead, their office made them great.
The verse ends with a name. Samuel judged Israel and was also the first prophet, and with his sons the era of the judges ran out.
Samuel, the first prophet (Acts 3:24; Acts 13:20), was also a judge over Israel (1 Samuel 7:6). He thought he could set up his sons as judges after him (1 Samuel 8:1), but their unfaithfulness ended that arrangement. The period of the judges was also short-lived by nature. The judges gave only brief relief to the misery of a guilty people. Israel had let the enemies of the Lord live instead of destroying them.
- Gave. One verb carries Paul's whole story. God gave judges, gave Saul as king, raised up David, and then raised up David's descendant, Jesus.
- Grace. The judges came out of Israel's collapse. Their history records the people's failure and God's compassion together.
- Gideon. No judge earned his place. The office lifted the man, not the man the office, so the credit stays with the Giver.
- Chronology. The 450 years fits either an older reading that ties it to gaining the land, or judgeships that overlapped. Either way, it does not overturn 1 Kings 6:1.
- Samuel. He is the hinge. After him the brief relief of the judges gave way to kings — and through David's line, to Jesus.
And then they asked for a king, and God gave to them Saul, son of Kis, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, during forty years.
Paul is preaching in a synagogue in Antioch, and he walks his hearers through their own national story. He reaches the day Israel asked for a king. Why did God answer a request that Scripture treats as a sad day for the nation?
The demand did not start in Paul's sermon. It started in Samuel's day, and what the people complained about was not their real problem.
What a sad day had dawned in Israel when they came to the prophet Samuel with this request. On the surface they complained about the misrule of Samuel's sons. But the prophet took this request to God in sorrow, and God showed Samuel where the real trouble lay — it was in their hearts. They found God's rule a burden. As He said to Samuel, "they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them." If they had only asked for a king like Moses ("and he was king in Jeshurun"), that would surely have pleased God. But no — what they wanted was a king "like all the nations." Long afterwards we read, "I gave you a king in My anger, and took him away in My wrath," Hosea 13:11.
That God "gave them" Saul is not a sign that the request pleased Him. Granting a prayer and approving it are two different things.
Until then God had kept the government in His own hands. But the people were restless and dissatisfied, always ready to complain about the ways of divine goodness. They ask for a king, so that they may be like the nations around them. Yet the Lord, who always answers faith, is pleased at times to answer unbelief as well, as He did when the people demanded quail. So here He gives them their desire. He sets over them Saul, the son of Kish, the man they wanted, the man who would so soon show the actual state of their hearts.
Paul does not just name the king. He also gives the length of his reign, and that number carries weight.
Scripture numbers are instructive. Forty is the number of full trial (Psalm 95:10; Matthew 4:2). For forty years Saul reigned. This is how the trial ended. The arrogant enemy nailed the dead bodies of the king and his sons to the wall of Bethshan. The people were scattered like sheep without a shepherd (1 Samuel 31). What confidence dare we place in flesh?
The verse is one step in an argument, not a stray piece of history. Paul is retelling Israel's past for a reason.
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The apostle begins by reminding them how God had brought Israel out of Egypt and planted them in the land. After that, their sins made the period a disastrous one. Yet He raised up judges for them, for about 450 years, until Samuel — another memorable deliverance. Then came more disaster, for the people insisted on a king. But here too, after forty years of trial, God rose above their failure. He gave them a man after His own heart, and with him the promise of a Saviour in his line.
The man preaching this sermon had once carried the king's name, and he came from the king's tribe.
Like his former namesake Saul the son of Kish (1 Samuel 9:1-2), who hunted David, the anointed of God, and meant to destroy him, Saul of Tarsus was just as set on wiping out the Name of Jesus — David's greater Lord. These two men of the tribe of Benjamin were true to type, for both were "ravening wolves" (Genesis 49:27). We understand that Saul means "asked" — likely a reference to the people asking for Saul the son of Kish: "Make us a king to judge us like all the nations" (1 Samuel 8:5). We are also told that Paul means "little."
Both men were given in answer to asking. But the asking came from opposite sources.
Like his namesake of old, he too had been "granted by request" — but in a very different sense! Jehovah gave the first Saul "in His wrath" to be king over His people. They had asked for him stubbornly, because they preferred a government like that of the nations to Jehovah's government. But the "Saul" of the New Testament came out of the prayer of the first Christian martyr: "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge." Saul had agreed to that man's death, and had watched it as an active witness.
- Asked — The demand for a king came from hearts that found God's rule a burden. The complaint about Samuel's sons was not the real one.
- Given — God answers unbelief as well as faith. He handed them the man they wanted, who would soon display exactly what their hearts were like.
- Tried — Forty is the span of full testing. Saul's forty years closed with his body nailed to the wall of Bethshan and his people scattered.
- Replaced — God rose above the failure of their choice. He gave a king after His own heart, and in that line the promise of a Saviour.
- Renamed — Paul was once called Saul, from the same tribe as the king. He too was "granted by request" — not by a nation's stubborn demand, but through a martyr's prayer for his killers.
And having removed him he raised up to them David for king, of whom also bearing witness he said, I have found David, the son of Jesse, a man after my heart, who shall do all my will.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
Of this man's seed according to promise has God brought to Israel a Saviour, Jesus;
Paul is speaking in a synagogue in Antioch of Pisidia, after walking his hearers through Israel's history from Egypt to King David. At this verse the promise made to David lands on a person with a name: Jesus.
Everything before this verse leads here. One writer follows Paul from David to David's promised descendant, and ends with four questions about Him.
Paul then quickly sketches God's deep and constant interest in His people, up to the time He gave them a king. He stops with David, the well-known picture of the Messiah, as David's own psalms clearly show. From David he moves easily to David's promised descendant. God, he says, "brought" that descendant to Israel as a Saviour, Jesus (v. 23). Was this not like God? Was it not promised in the law and the prophets as well as the psalms? Were the Jews not looking for Him? Did they not desperately need Him?
The wording here can mislead. Later in the same chapter Paul speaks of God raising Jesus from the dead, but that is not what this verse says. Commentators use different words: some say "brought," others "raised up." Neither means resurrection here.
Paul briefly tells the history of Israel up to the time of David. Then he sets out the two basic parts of the gospel. First, God kept His promises. Second, God stepped in with power and raised Christ from the dead, showing Him to be the Son of God... The subjects are repentance and forgiveness of sins. For Israel, John the Baptist had prepared the way. Then God, according to His promise, raised up (not raised from among the dead) a Saviour.
The words "as he promised" carry the weight of the verse. One writer sets God's promise to David beside an earlier promise He had already kept.
Then he jumped over the centuries in between. He announced that God had kept His promise to David: from David's descendants He had raised up a Saviour for Israel, Jesus... God had been faithful to His word in the past. He kept His promise to Abraham when He brought Israel out of Egypt and into the land of Canaan (Gen. 15:13-16). And He was faithful to His promise to David when He raised up one of his descendants (2 Sam. 7:12), in the person of Jesus.
Israel waited for salvation when their Messiah came in power. The same writer shows what Paul told them instead.
The rulers of the synagogue had looked for a word of encouragement. Everyone heard a word of salvation. It was present salvation, full and free, for all who would receive it. Israel expected salvation in the future, and rightly so, but only when their Messiah appeared in person and in power... Was salvation entirely future? Paul would tell them it was not. There was then, and there is now, a present salvation, the salvation of the soul.
Israel killed the Saviour God brought to them. That is where the promise seemed to collapse, and where God acted again.
He begins with a brief history of the people of Israel. He quickly comes to this point: God kept His promise to His people Israel by giving them Christ, who came as a man (vv. 32-33). But Israel rejected and killed their Messiah. Humanly speaking, at this point, all was lost. But what did God do? He "raised him from the dead, no more to return to corruption"... God had promised that David would have a descendant to sit on his throne (2 Sam. 7:16). This promise is certain, sure and unchangeable. To keep it, God raised up Christ from among the dead.
Paul spoke to Jews, but the offer did not stop there. Non-Jews sat in that synagogue too, and the announcement included them.
He then presented Jesus as the promised descendant, the one John the Baptist had testified about. The news of the salvation centred in that Saviour went out to all his hearers. That included "those among you who fear God" — the non-Jews among them who worshipped the God of Israel.
One writer sums up what this Saviour brings to those who believe.
He showed that although the nation rejected and killed Him, God had raised Him from the dead. He showed that there is now forgiveness, and justification too, for all who believe.
- Promise — God's word to David (2 Sam. 7:12) waited centuries, and then God kept it: a Saviour from David's own line.
- Brought — here "raised up" means God brought Jesus into the world. The resurrection comes later in Paul's sermon.
- Saviour — His hearers were looking for a Messiah, and Paul calls Him Saviour. They needed one, and the salvation He brings is present, not only future.
- Secured — Israel rejected and killed Him, and all seemed lost. God raised Him from the dead, so the promise could not fail.
- Offered — the message went to everyone in that room, Jew and non-Jew alike. It brings forgiveness and justification to all who believe.