This is the simple version of the place, unless we should translate �kklm twko ta �tasnw venasatem eth Siccuth malkekem, ye took SIKUTH your king, (instead of ye took up the tabernacle of your MOLEK,) as some have done. The place is indeed very obscure, and the two texts do not tend to cast light on each other. The rabbins say siccuth, which we translate tabernacle, is the name of an idol. Molech is generally understood to mean the sun; and several persons of good judgment think that by Remphan or Raiphan is meant the planet Saturn, which the Copts call rhfan, Rephan.

It will be seen above that instead of Remphan, or, as some of the best MSS. have it, Rephan, the Hebrew text has wyk Chiun, which might possibly be a corruption of pyr Reiphan, as it would be very easy to mistake the k caph for r resh, and the vau shurek w for p pe. This emendation would bring the Hebrew, Septuagint, and the text of Luke, nearer together; but there is no authority either from MSS. or versions for this correction: however, as Chiun is mentioned in no other place, though Molech often occurs, it is the more likely that there might have been some very early mistake in the text, and that the Septuagint has preserved the true reading.

It was customary for the idolaters of all nations to carry images of their gods about them in their journeys, military expeditions, &c.; and these, being very small, were enclosed in little boxes, perhaps some of them in the shape of temples, called tabernacles; or, as we have it, chap. xix. 24, shrines. These little gods were the penates and lares among the Romans, and the tselems or talismans among the ancient eastern idolaters. The Hebrew text seems to refer to these when it says, the tabernacle of your Molech, and Chiun, your images, �kymlx tsalmeycem, your tselems, touv tupouv, the types or simulachres of your gods. See the note on Gen. xxxi. 19. Many of those small portable images are now in my own collection, all of copper or brass; some of them the identical penates of the ancient Romans, and others the offspring of the Hindoo idolatry; they are from an ounce weight to half a pound. Such images as these I suppose the idolatrous Israelites, in imitation of their neighbours, the Moabites, Ammonites, &c., to have carried about with them; and to such the prophet appears to me unquestionably to allude.

I will carry you away beyond Babylon.] You have carried your idolatrous images about; and I will carry you into captivity, and see if the gods in whom ye have trusted can deliver you from my hands. Instead of beyond Babylon, Amos, from whom the quotation is made, says, I will carry you beyond Damascus. Where they were carried was into Assyria and Media, see 2 Kings xvii. 6: now, this was not only beyond Damascus, but beyond Babylon itself; and, as Stephen knew this to be the fact, he states it here, and thus more precisely fixes the place of their captivity.

The Holy Spirit, in his farther revelations, has undoubted right to extend or illustrate those which he had given before. This case frequently occurs when a former prophecy is quoted in later times.

John Gill's Bible Commentary

Others give a milder account of this matter, and say, that the service was after this manner f368 ; that �the father delivered his son to the priests, who made two large fires, and caused the son to pass on his feet between the two fires,� so that it was only a sort of a lustration or purification by fire; but the former account, which makes the child to be sacrificed, and put to death, seems best to agree with the scriptural one. Now this idol was included in chancels or chapels, as in the account given, or in shrines, in tabernacles, or portable temples, which might be taken up and carried; and such an one is here mentioned: by which is meant, not the tabernacle of the Lord made by Bezaleel; as if the sense was, that the idolatrous Israelites, though not openly, yet secretly, and in their hearts worshipped Moloch, as if he was included in the tabernacle; so that to take it up means no other, than in the heart to worship, and to consider him as if he had been shut up and carried in that tabernacle; nor is it to be thought that they publicly took up, and carried a tabernacle, in which was the image of Moloch, during their forty years� travels in the wilderness; for whatever they might do the few days they worshipped the golden calf, which is possible, it cannot be received, that Moses, who was so severe against idolatry, would ever have connived at such a practice: this therefore must have reference to after times, when they sacrificed their children to him, and took up and carried his image in little shrines and tabernacles. And the star of your god Remphan . The Alexandrian copy reads �Raiphan�; some copies read �Raphan�; and so the Arabic version; others �Rephan�; the Syriac version reads �Rephon�; and the Ethiopic version �Rephom�. Giants, with the Hebrews, were called �Rephaim�; and so Moloch, who is here meant, is called �Rephan�, and with an epenthesis �Remphan�, because of his gigantic form; which some have concluded from the massy crown on his head, which, with the precious stones, weighed a talent of gold, which David took from thence, ( 2 Samuel 12:30) for not the then reigning king of the Ammonites, but Molech, or Milchom, their idol, is meant: this is generally thought to be the same with Chiun in Amos; but it does not stand in a place to answer to that; besides, that should not be left untranslated, it not being a proper name of an idol, but signifies a type or form; and the whole may be rendered thus, �but ye have borne the tabernacle of your king, and the type, or form of your images, the star of your god�; which version agrees with Stephens�s, who, from the Septuagint, adds the name of this their king, and their god Rephan, or Remphan. Drusius conjectures, that this is a fault of the Scribes writing Rephan for Cephan, or that the Septuagint interpreters mistook the letter k for r , and instead of Cevan read Revan; and Chiun is indeed, by Kimchi and Aben Ezra f369 , said to be the same with Chevan, which, in the Ishmaelitish and Persian languages, signifies Saturn; and so does Rephan in the Egyptian language: and it is further to be observed, that the Egyptians had a king called Remphis, the same with Apis; and this may be the reason why the Septuagint interpreters, who interpreted for Ptolomy, king of Egypt, put Rephan, which Stephen calls Remphan, instead of Chiun, which they were better acquainted with, since they both signify the same deity, and the same star; and which also was the star of the Israelites, called by them yatb� , because supposed to have the government of the sabbath day, and therefore fitly called the �star of your god�. Upon the whole, Moloch, Chiun, Rephan, or Remphan, and Remphis, all are the same with the Serapis of the Egyptians, and the calf of the Israelites; and which idolatry was introduced on account of Joseph, who interpreted the dream of Pharaoh�s kine, and provided for the Egyptians in the years of plenty against the years of famine, and was worshipped under the ox with a bushel on his head; figures which ye made to worship them ; in Amos it is said, �which you made for yourselves�: meaning both the image and the tabernacle in which it was, which they made for their own use, to worship their deity in and by: and I will carry you beyond Babylon ; in Amos it is beyond Damascus, and so some copies read here, which was in Babylon; and explains the sense of the prophet more fully, that they should not only be carried for their idolatry beyond Damascus, and into the furthermost parts of Babylon, but beyond it, even into the cities of the Medea, Halah, and Habor, by the river Gozan; and here is no contradiction: how far beyond Damascus, the prophet does not say; and if they were carried beyond Babylon, they must be carried beyond Damascus, and so the words of the prophet were fulfilled; and Stephen living after the fulfilment of the prophecy, by which it appeared that they were carried into Media, could say how far they were carried; wherefore the Jew has no reason to cavil at Stephen, as if he misrepresented the words of the prophet, and related things otherwise than they were; and so Kimchi interprets it, far beyond Damascus; and particularly mentions Halah and Habor, cities in Media, where the ten tribes were carried.

Matthew Henry Commentary

Greek Textus Receptus