42 But God was turned from them and let them give worship to the stars of heaven, as it says in the book of the prophets, Did you make offerings to me of sheep and oxen for forty years in the waste land, O house of Israel? 43 And you took up the tent of Moloch and the star of the god Rephan, images which you made to give worship to them: and I will take you away, farther than Babylon. 44 Our fathers had the Tent of witness in the waste land, as God gave orders to Moses to make it after the design which he had seen. 45 Which our fathers, in their turn, took with them when, with Joshua, they came into the heritage of the nations whom God was driving out before the face of our fathers, till the time of David, 46 Who was pleasing to God; and he had a desire to make a holy tent for the God of Jacob. 47 But Solomon was the builder of his house. 48 But still, the Most High has not his resting-place in houses made with hands, as the prophet says, 49 Heaven is the seat of my power, and earth is a resting-place for my feet: what sort of house will you make for me, says the Lord, or what is my place of rest? 50 Did not my hand make all these things?
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Acts 7:42-50
Commentary on Acts 7:42-50
(Read Acts 7:42-50)
Stephen upbraids the Jews with the idolatry of their fathers, to which God gave them up as a punishment for their early forsaking him. It was no dishonour, but an honour to God, that the tabernacle gave way to the temple; so it is now, that the earthly temple gives way to the spiritual one; and so it will be when, at last, the spiritual shall give way to the eternal one. The whole world is God's temple, in which he is every where present, and fills it with his glory; what occasion has he then for a temple to manifest himself in? And these things show his eternal power and Godhead. But as heaven is his throne, and the earth his footstool, so none of our services can profit Him who made all things. Next to the human nature of Christ, the broken and spiritual heart is his most valued temple.