<p>7:26 <i>And the following day he appeared to two of them</i> <em>- </em>God sent Moses to be their saviour, pointing forward to His sending of the Lord Jesus to redeem us. Moses came to Israel and &quot;shewed (Greek <em>'optomai</em>') himself&quot; to them (Acts 7:26). Yet <em>'optomai' </em>really means to gaze at, to watch a spectacle. He came to his people, and gazed at them as they fought among themselves, spiritually and emotionally destroyed by the oppression of Egypt. He invited them to likewise gaze upon him as their saviour. This surely prefigures our Lord's consideration of our sinful state. As he grew up in Nazareth he would have thought on this a lot. The same word for &ldquo;appeared&rdquo; is used of the Lord's appearances after His resurrection, specifically to the 'two' on the road to Emmaus. Luke has used the word in Acts 1:3 of how the Lord 'appeared' after His resurrection for 40 days. And it is the same word used of how the risen Lord appeared to Saul soon afterwards (Acts 9:17; 26:16; 1 Cor. 15:8). Surely Saul made the connection.</p><p><em>As they were fighting</em>- 'Striving'. The same word is used of how the Jews strove amongst themselves over the issue of Jesus as Messiah (Jn. 6:52). The same striving was going on within the consciences of men like Saul and Gamaliel who were listening to Stephen.</p><p><em>And tried to reconcile them</em>- Paul grasped the point, for in his later letters he writes much of how the Lord's work and the outcome of His death was fundamentally the ministry of reconciliation between persons. To glorify, create and perpetuate division between brethren is to miss the point of the Lord's work.</p><p><em>Saying, Gentlemen, you are brothers</em>- Literally, 'men'. They were not to be mere men in their relationship with each other, they were to remember that they were brothers and act accordingly. See on :28. Several times Stephen has appealed to the fact that he and the Jews were brothers, with common ancestry; see on 7:2 <em>Our father Abraham</em>. But just as the point was lost on Israel at the time of Moses, so it was in Stephen's day; for they stoned him all the same.</p><p><em>Why do you injure each other?</em>- The same word has just been used of how the Egyptian injured the Israelite (s.w. &quot;suffer wrong&quot;). By oppressing and injuring our brethren, we are acting as Egypt. This was a finely reasoned appeal to Stephen's brethren not to treat him likewise. And given the kind of minds listening to him, continually accustomed to such a way of reasoning from Biblical words and precedents, the appeal would have struck home. Especially with Saul.</p>