Stephen had been tracing a pattern through Israel's history. Joseph's brothers sold him (Acts 7:9). Israel refused Moses, saying, "Who made thee a ruler and a judge?" (Acts 7:35). Now Stephen names the pattern outright. Barnes explains, "The interrogative form here is a strong mode of saying that they had persecuted all the prophets." It was, he says, "the characteristic of the nation." The question has only one honest answer: none. Then Stephen brings it to the present. The prophets they killed had foretold "the coming of the Just One," and this council had become His "betrayers and murderers" (Acts 7:52). Matthew Henry suggests that Stephen was about to show that the temple service must give way to spiritual worship, but perceived "they would not bear it." So "he broke off, and by the Spirit of wisdom, courage, and power, sharply rebuked his persecutors."

The council gave no answer in words. "When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their teeth" (Acts 7:54). Stephen, "full of the Holy Ghost," looked up and said, "I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God" (Acts 7:55-56). Then they "stopped their ears, and ran upon him with one accord," cast him out of the city, and stoned him (Acts 7:57-58). Stephen's last words were a prayer for them: "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge" (Acts 7:60). By their actions they did to Stephen what their fathers had done to the prophets.

"The Just One" translates the Greek dikaios, righteous. Barnes identifies Him simply as "The Messiah," pointing to Acts 3:14, where Peter told the people they "denied the Holy One and the Just." Gill says Stephen gives Jesus this title partly because of "the holiness of his nature, and the innocence and harmlessness of his life." "Shewed before" is prokatangello, to announce beforehand. "Betrayers" (prodotai) and "murderers" (phoneis) are strong words. The council did not crucify Jesus with their own hands, but Barnes applies the principle, "He who does anything by another, is held to have done it himself." Gill says the fathers persecuted the prophets "either by reviling and speaking all manner of evil of them" or "by killing them."

Stephen's question echoes Jesus' own words to the scribes and Pharisees: "ye are the children of them which killed the prophets" and "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets" (Matthew 23:31, 37). Behind the long line of rejected messengers stands a patient God who kept sending them. Jesus said, "how often would I have gathered thy children together... and ye would not!" (Matthew 23:37).

The rejection came to its height with the Just One, and Stephen now joins the line of persecuted messengers. Matthew Henry notes the tragedy of the council's choice: "Their guilt stung them to the heart, and they sought relief in murdering their reprover, instead of sorrow and supplication for mercy." Yet grace was still at work. Stephen prayed for his killers (Acts 7:60), and a young man named Saul, who stood watching, would later confess his part in Stephen's death as a follower of Jesus (Acts 7:58; Acts 22:20).