Then they cried out - That is, probably, "the people," not the members of the council It is evident he was put to death in a popular tumult. They had charged him with blasphemy; and they regarded what he had now said as full proof of it.

And stopped their ears - That they might hear no more blasphemy.

With one accord - In a tumult; unitedly.

They - stopped their ears - As a proof that he had uttered blasphemy, because he said, He saw Jesus standing at the right hand of God. This was a fearful proof against them; for if Jesus was at the right hand of God, then they had murdered an innocent person; and they must infer that God's justice must speedily avenge his death. They were determined not to suffer a man to live any longer who could say he saw the heavens opened and Jesus Christ standing at the right hand of God.

Then they cried out with a loud voice,.... These were not the sanhedrim, but the common people; the Ethiopic version reads, "the Jews cried out"; which, they did, in a very clamorous way, either through rage and madness, or in a show of zeal against blasphemy; and cried out, either to God to avenge the blasphemy, or rather to the sanhedrim to pass a sentence on him, or, it may be, to excite one another to rise up at once, and kill him, as they did:

and stopped their ears; with their fingers, pretending they could not bear the blasphemy that was uttered. This was their usual method; hence they say, (o).

"if a man hears anything that is indecent, (or not fit to be heard,) let him put his fingers in his ears hence the whole ear is hard, and the tip of it soft, that when he hears anything that is not becoming, he may bend the tip of the ear within it.''

By either of these ways these men might stop their ears; either by putting in their fingers, or by turning the tip of the ear inward.

And ran upon him with one accord; without any leave of the sanhedrim, or waiting for their determination, in the manner the zealots did; See Gill on Matthew 10:4, John 16:2.

(o) T. Bab. Cetubot, fol. 5. 1. 2.

Stopped (συνέσχον)

Lit., held together.

{10} Then they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and {a} ran upon him with one accord,

(10) The zeal of hypocrites and superstitious people eventually breaks out into a most open madness.

(a) This was done in a rage and fury, for at that time the Jews could put no man to death by law, as they confessed before Pilate saying that it was no lawful for them to put any man to death, and therefore it is reported by Josephus that Ananus, a Sadducee, slew James the brother of the Lord, and for so doing was accused before Albinus, the president of the country; lib. 20.

7:57 Cried out with a loud voice. They cried, closed their ears to what they called blasphemy, then, in a tumult, without a vote on his guilt or innocence, rushed upon him to slay him, though yet uncondemned legally.

7:57 They rushed upon him - Before any sentence passed.

57, 58. Then they cried out . and ran upon him with one accord-To men of their mould and in their temper, Stephen's last seraphic words could but bring matters to extremities, though that only revealed the diabolical spirit which they breathed.

7:54-60 Nothing is so comfortable to dying saints, or so encouraging to suffering saints, as to see Jesus at the right hand of God: blessed be God, by faith we may see him there. Stephen offered up two short prayers in his dying moments. Our Lord Jesus is God, to whom we are to seek, and in whom we are to trust and comfort ourselves, living and dying. And if this has been our care while we live, it will be our comfort when we die. Here is a prayer for his persecutors. Though the sin was very great, yet if they would lay it to their hearts, God would not lay it to their charge. Stephen died as much in a hurry as ever any man did, yet, when he died, the words used are, he fell asleep; he applied himself to his dying work with as much composure as if he had been going to sleep. He shall awake again in the morning of the resurrection, to be received into the presence of the Lord, where is fulness of joy, and to share the pleasures that are at his right hand, for evermore.