<p>7:33 <i>And the Lord said to him, <em>Take off the shoes from your feet</em></i>- Stephen says that this request came <em>after</em> God had introduced Himself as the God of Abraham etc. (:32). But the order is apparently different in Ex. 3:5,6: &quot;Take your sandals off from your feet, for the place you are standing on is holy ground.<br />Moreover he said, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob&quot;. It could be that the &quot;he said&quot; is to be understood as 'He <em>had </em>said'. But another alternative is that Stephen was inspired to understand that God introduced Himself twice to Moses; and the first time Moses didn't comprehend it. This would fit with Stephen's point that Joseph was made known to his brethren the <em>second </em>time; and Moses likewise was accepted by Israel the second time he came to them. And now Stephen would be saying that Moses himself only grasped the manifestation of God in the Angel at the second time. All this of course was prodding the Jewish conscience about their rejection of their Messiah the first time; but at His second appearing, the 'second time'... they will accept Him.</p><p><em>For the place upon which you stand is holy ground</em>- Literally, in the Greek, 'the holy land', the phrase beloved of Jews to describe Israel. Stephen was speaking in the context of arguing that the temple was no longer required for worship, house meetings were just as valid; and so he makes the point that a spot of scrubland in the Sinai desert was just as much the holy land as the territory of Palestine and the temple mount itself.</p>