What is the context?
After Moses’s years in Midian, God calls him from the burning bush and sends him back to Egypt. Stephen stresses the reversal: the man rejected as ruler and judge is the man God sends as ruler and redeemer. The earlier rejection does not determine God’s choice.
Moses leads the people out, receives living words to pass on, and promises a prophet whom God will raise up. Stephen speaks respectfully of Moses and of what God gave through him. His criticism is directed at the refusal to obey.
The word translated assembly in verse 38 is ἐκκλησία, ekklēsia (ek-klay-SEE-ah). Thayer’s lexicon lists its use for Israel’s assembly and specifically cites this verse. It is a word for a gathered people; its use here should be understood in the wilderness setting.
The people turn back toward Egypt in their hearts, make the calf, and rejoice in what their hands have made. Stephen closes this section with the prophetic warning about false worship and exile, drawing on Amos 5:25–27. Possessing the law has not guaranteed obedience to the God who gave it.
How is this passage commonly understood?
Christians commonly read the section as defending Moses’s place in God’s work while exposing the people’s resistance. Wesley on verses 35–43 emphasizes that the rejected Moses was sent by God and that the people nevertheless turned toward idols.
The identity of the angel at the bush receives different explanations. Calvin’s discussion of verse 30 and Wesley’s notes on verses 30 and 35 identify the messenger with the Son of God before His human birth.
Augustine, On the Trinity, book II, chapter 13, allows the reading that the Savior is appearing, but also considers a created angel representing God. He does not treat the identity of the divine Person represented as fully settled. These are the interpreters’ own readings; the passage itself speaks of an angel and the voice of the Lord.
Where does this fit in God's plan?
The burning-bush account in Exodus 3:2–12 joins God’s awareness of His people’s suffering with His sending a deliverer. Stephen highlights that the deliverer is someone the people had rejected. The pattern prepares for his accusation concerning the rejection of Jesus at the end of the speech.
Verse 37 also repeats Moses’s promise of a coming prophet, already applied to Jesus in Acts 3:22. Hearing Moses faithfully therefore includes listening to the One he announced. Stephen presents the story as part of God’s continuing purpose, rather than a reason to set Moses against Jesus.
What is our position?
Who is The Angel of the Lord? identifies the messenger in the burning bush with the Son appearing before His human birth. Its discussion of Exodus 3 emphasizes that the messenger appears, the LORD speaks, and the speaker identifies Himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. That is the existing study’s reading of the event Stephen recounts here; Acts 7 does not separately name the angel as Jesus.