Acts 7:43 - Exposition

And for yea, A.V.; the god Rephan for your god Remphan, A.V. and T.R.; the figures for figures, A.V. The god Rephan . Rephan, or Raiphan, or Remphan, as it is variously written, is the LXX . translation of the Hebrew Chiun in Amos 5:26 . The best explanation of this is that Rephan is the Coptic name of the planet Saturn, well-known of course to the LXX ., and that Chiun is the Hebrew and Arabic name of the same star, which they therefore translated by Rephan. With regard to the difficulty which has been felt by many that there is no mention of any such worship of Moloch and Chiun in the wilderness, and that sacrifices were continually offered to the Lord, it seems to arise from an entire misconception of the passage in Amos. What Amos means to say is that because of the treacherous, unfaithful heart of Israel, as shown in the worship of the golden calf and all their rebellions in the wilderness, all their sacrifices were worthless. Just as he had said in Amos 5:22 , "Though ye offer me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them: neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts;" "I hate, I despise your feast days; Take away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols" ( Amos 5:21 , Amos 5:23 ): just as Isaiah also says, "To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? … I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts … Bring no more vain oblations; … it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting" ( Isaiah 1:11-13 , etc.); and again, "He that killeth an ox is as if he slew a man; he that sacrificeth a lamb, as if he cut off a dog's neck; he that offereth an oblation, as if he offered swine's blood" ( Isaiah 66:3 ): so all the sacrifices offered up during forty years in the wilderness were no sacrifices at all, and their hypocrisy was clearly seen when they reached the land of Canaan, and, according to Moses' prophetic declaration, "forsook God which made them … and sacrificed unto devils, not to God; to gods whom they knew not" ( Deuteronomy 32:15-18 ), such as Chiun and Moloch, Baalim and Ashtoreth. This later idolatry was the fruit and the judicial punishment of their first declension and apostasy in the wilderness, and led to the Captivity in Babylon. It was on seeing their unfaithfulness in the wilderness that" God turned and gave them up to serve the host of heaven."