Bible Strands
Acts 7:23
When Moses was forty years old, he decided to visit his brothers, the children of Israel.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Stephen addresses the Jewish council, recounting Israel’s history to explain their rejection of God’s appointed deliverers. He marks Moses’s life at the precise moment he reaches adulthood and turns toward his ethnic kin.
The words — The Greek phrase ἐπληροῦτο αὐτῷ τεσσερακονταετὴς χρόνος uses ἐπληροῦτο (eplērouto), meaning "was fulfilled," and τεσσερακονταετὴς (tesserakontaetēs), meaning "of forty years," to denote a completed life stage rather than a mere chronological count.
The thread — This moment parallels Exodus 2:11, where Moses grows up and goes out to his people, and reflects the broader biblical pattern that human plans operate under sovereign direction as noted in Proverbs 21:1.
Why it lands — The text records a deliberate human decision to seek out oppressed kin before detailing the violent action that follows in Acts 7:24. It asks the reader to recognize that biblical narratives track human initiative as the immediate stage for divine purposes, not as a self-sufficient moral blueprint.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Greek words
King James Version
And when he was full forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren the children of Israel.
Cross-references
- Exodus 2:11 One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to his own people and observed their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people.
- Proverbs 21:1 The king’s heart is a waterway in the hand of the LORD; He directs it where He pleases.
- Philippians 2:12 Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence, but now even more in my absence, continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling.
- Hebrews 11:24 By faith Moses, when he was grown, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter.
- Ezra 7:27 Blessed be the LORD, the God of our fathers, who has put into the heart of the king to so honor the house of the LORD in Jerusalem,
- James 1:17 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, with whom there is no change or shifting shadow.
- Revelation 17:17 For God has put it into their hearts to carry out His purpose by uniting to give their kingdom to the beast, until the words of God are fulfilled.
- Exodus 4:18 Then Moses went back to his father-in-law Jethro and said to him, “Please let me return to my brothers in Egypt to see if they are still alive.” “Go in peace,” Jethro replied.
- Exodus 35:21 And everyone whose heart stirred him and whose spirit prompted him came and brought an offering to the LORD for the work on the Tent of Meeting, for all its services, and for the holy garments.
- Exodus 35:29 So all the men and women of the Israelites whose hearts prompted them brought a freewill offering to the LORD for all the work that the LORD through Moses had commanded them to do.