Acts 7:42,43 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Then God turned Upon this, God, being most righteously provoked, turned away from them in anger, and, as in many other instances, punished one sin by letting them fall into another; and at length gave them up, in succeeding ages, to the most abandoned, public, and general idolatry, even to worship all the host of heaven The stars and other heavenly bodies, and that with as little reserve, and as little shame, as the most stupid of the heathen nations. As it is written in the book of the prophets Namely, of the twelve minor prophets, which the Jews always connected together in one book. What is here quoted is taken from the Prophet Amos 5:25; where see the note. The passage consists of two parts; of which the former confirms Acts 7:41, concerning the sin of the people; the latter, the beginning of Acts 7:42, respecting their punishment: O house of Israel, have ye offered to me To me alone; slain beasts, &c., forty years in the wilderness? You know that even then you began to revolt, and provoke me to jealousy with your abominations. They had offered many sacrifices, but did not offer them to God alone, but sacrificed to idols also; and God did not accept even those that they offered to him, because they did not offer them with an upright heart. And in succeeding ages you were continually renewing and aggravating your rebellions and treasons against me. Yea, ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch Instead of confining yourselves to my tabernacle; and the star of your god Remphan Or Chium, as it is called in Amos. Moloch probably meant the sun, and Remphan, or Chium, the moon; or some other star. Aben Ezra thinks Saturn; figures which ye made Images, or emblematical representations, of these supposed deities; to worship them Both the images, and the supposed deities which they were intended to represent. See note on Amos 5:26. I will carry you away beyond Babylon Into countries more distant. So Dr. Prideaux reconciles Stephen's quotation with the original passages in Amos, where we read, beyond Damascus. This was fulfilled by the king of Assyria, 2 Kings 17:6.