7:51 uncircumcised. The Jews placed great stress on the physical ritual of circumcision, forgetting that it was meant to be symbolic of their complete dedication to the will and purposes of God. Thus their hearts were still cold toward God and their ears inattentive to His Word, so that God could not reach them.

7:51 as your fathers did. Although their fathers had persecuted the prophets, the current generation of Jews professed to honor them. They claimed that if they had been living in the days of the prophets, they would not have slain them as their fathers had done (Matthew 23:30), but Jesus had called them the true “children of them which killed the prophets” (Matthew 23:31), and Stephen repeated the charge. This they had proved when they murdered Jesus (Acts 7:52) and now were planning the same for Stephen, whose messages had contained the same rebukes their fathers had heard for similar rebellion against the true God and His Word.