Acts 7:2
And he said, Men, brethren, and fathers, hearken; The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Charran, And he said, Men, brethren, and fathers, hearken; The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Charran,
The verse belongs to the testimony of Stephen, the foremost of the seven deacons, a Jew by birth who spoke the Greek language and knew Greek customs and manners, a man of deep piety and broad faith who was very active for Christ and preached the gospel in the synagogues of the Greek Jews. It begins his defense, his final testimony before his judges in the council when questioned on the charge of blasphemy. He answered in a clear, thrilling voice that rang through the council hall and held the assembly spellbound, and the occasion, time, and place of his address are important to its full significance.
The verse recalls that God, the God of glory, appeared to father Abraham in Mesopotamia before Abraham lived in Haran, also called Charran. From Abraham it opens his rehearsal of Israel's history and God's dealings with the people, tracing down from generation to generation through all the national records of Israel to Solomon, taking up the most impressive points and drawing on those records to vindicate his cause. It shows his thorough knowledge of the Jewish economy and the spiritual interpretation of it now made manifest through Christ, for he spoke in the power of the Holy Spirit as a student of the prophecies and one learned in all matters of the law, ably defended the truths he advocated and utterly defeated the learned rabbis and doctors of the law who disputed with him, fulfilling the promise to give a mouth and wisdom which adversaries could not gainsay nor resist, for they were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he spoke.
Through that history he connected Jesus Christ with Israel's history and showed how Christ had been foretold in prophecy. He presented evidence from prophecy that Jesus, though crucified, was the Son of God, the same truth Paul later proclaimed. Through that history he also showed that Israel's confidence in the law had not kept the people from idolatry.
The verse belongs to Old Testament testimony showing that the patriarchs' witness points to Christ, with its setting with Abraham fitting the testimony of the patriarchs and prophets through whom Christ spoke, and the Old Testament revealing his mission and identity as the Messiah. The Old Testament prophecies in that defense identify Jesus as the Messiah and show that he would come in humility, be rejected and slain, and rise and ascend.