Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

Acts 7:30

Acts 7:30. In the wilderness of Mount Sinai. In Exodus 3:1, the flaming fire in the bush appeared to Moses at Horeb. In the Pentateuch, the names of Sinai and Horeb appear to be used indiscriminately. In the New Testament and in Josephus, the name Sinai only occurs. Horeb appears really to be the general name for the whole mountain range; Sinai, the name of the particular mountain from which the law was given.

An angel. ‘Here, as continually in the Old Testament, the angel bears the authority and presence of God Himself; which angel, since God giveth not His glory to another, must have been the great Angel of the Covenant, of whom Isaiah writes, “In all their affliction He was afflicted, and the Angel of His presence saved them” (Isaiah 63:9), the Son of God;' so Alford, correctly. The Angel of the bush here appropriates, as He does in many other places, the titles of the Supreme Eternal One; for, speaking out of the bush which burned and yet was never consumed, He says, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.... I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt... and I am come down to deliver them' (Exodus 3:6-8).

In a flame of fire. The radiant light which belonged to the visible glory of God. We hear of it in the pillar of fire seen so many years in the desert wanderings, in the glory which ever and anon appeared between the cherubim over the mercy-seat of the ark, in the luminous cloud which filled the Temple on the occasion of the solemn dedication by King Solomon. The Rabbis termed it the Shekinah.

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