{8} When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their teeth.

(8) The more Satan is pressed, the more he breaks out into an open rage.

People's New Testament

7:54 They were cut to the heart. Convulsed with rage. Stephen's speech was now violently interrupted. Their rage is shown by their gnashing teeth.

Scofield Reference Notes

Margin When they heard

They had brought false witnesses against Stephen; he bears true witness against them, quoting the testimony of writers they owned to be inspired. He speaks of the persistent rejection of God and His servants by the nation til at last it is brought home to themselves, and arouses the maddened enmity of their hearts. It was the final trial of the nation.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

54-56. When they heard these things they were cut to the heart, &c.-If they could have answered him, how different would have been their temper of mind!

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

7:54-60 Nothing is so comfortable to dying saints, or so encouraging to suffering saints, as to see Jesus at the right hand of God: blessed be God, by faith we may see him there. Stephen offered up two short prayers in his dying moments. Our Lord Jesus is God, to whom we are to seek, and in whom we are to trust and comfort ourselves, living and dying. And if this has been our care while we live, it will be our comfort when we die. Here is a prayer for his persecutors. Though the sin was very great, yet if they would lay it to their hearts, God would not lay it to their charge. Stephen died as much in a hurry as ever any man did, yet, when he died, the words used are, he fell asleep; he applied himself to his dying work with as much composure as if he had been going to sleep. He shall awake again in the morning of the resurrection, to be received into the presence of the Lord, where is fulness of joy, and to share the pleasures that are at his right hand, for evermore.