Have ye offered unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel?
Have ye offered unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel? But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch. Yes; ye have offered unto me sacrifices, etc. "But (all the time with strange inconsistency) ye have borne (aloft in solemn pomp) the tabernacle (i:e., the portable shrine, or model tabernacle: small enough not to be detected by Moses) of your Moloch" (that idol is 'your' god; I am not, though ye go through the form of presenting offerings to me). Similarly Acts 19:24 mentions "silver shrines for Diana made by Demetrius, a silversmith, for her worshippers. The question, "Have ye," better, 'Did ye offer unto me sacrifices?' is not denial (for they did offer in the wilderness to Yahweh sacrifices of the cattle which they took with them in their nomad life there, Exodus 24:4-5; Numbers 7:1 and Numbers 9:1, etc.), but a strong affirmation (cf. 1 Samuel 2:27-28; Jeremiah 31:20, "Is Ephraim my dear son?" implying strongly that he is; Ezekiel 20:4). The sin of Israel in Amos' time is the very sin of their forefathers, mocking God with worship, while at the same time worshipping idols (cf. Ezekiel 20:39). It was clandestine in Moses' time, else he would have put it down; he was aware generally of their unfaithfulness, though not knowing the particulars (Deuteronomy 31:21; Deuteronomy 31:27).
Moloch and Chiun. Moloch means king, answering to Mars (Bengel); or answering to the Sun (Jablonski); or answering to Saturn, the same as "Chiun" (Maurer). The Septuagint translates "Chiun" into Remphan, as Stephen quotes it (Acts 7:42-43). The same god had often different names. Moloch is the Ammonite name; Chiun the Arabic and Persian name, written also Chevan. In an Arabic lexicon, Chiun means austere; so astrologers represented Saturn as a planet baleful in his influence. Hence, the Phoenicians offered human sacrifices to him, children especially: so idolatrous Israel also. Rimmon was the Syrian name (2 Kings 5:18); pronounced as Remvan, or 'Remphan,' just as Chiun was also Chevan. Moloch had the form of a king; Chevan or Chiun, of a star (Grotius). Remphan was the Egyptian name for Saturn: hence, the Septuagint translator of Amos gave the Egyptian name Raiphan for the Hebrew, being an Egyptian [anelabete teen skeeneen tou Moloch kai to astron tou Theou humoon Raifan, tous tupous autoon hous epoieesate heautois] (Hodius II. 'Bibl.,' 4:115). The same as the Nile, of which the Egyptians made the star Saturn the representative (Harenberg). Bengel considers Remphan or Rephan akin to Teraphim, and Remphis, the name of a king of Egypt. The Hebrews became infected with Sabeanism, the oldest form of idolatry, the worship of the tsaabaa' (H6633), starry hosts, in their stay in the Arabian desert, where Job notices its prevalence (Job 31:26): in opposition to such Sabeanism, in Amos 5:27, Yahweh declares Himself "the God of hosts." Your images, the star of your god. R. Isaac Caro say all the astrologers represented Saturn as the star of Israel. Probably there was a figure of a star on the head of the image of the idol, to represent the planet Saturn; hence, "images" correspond to "star" in the parallel clause. A star in hieroglyphics represents God (Numbers 24:17, "There shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a sceptre shall rise out of Israel"). Images are either a Hebraism for image, or refer to the many images made to represent Chiun. Pusey suggests that Chiun [comes from kuwn (H3559), to set firmly, and] means the pedestal. 'Ye did bear the (portable) shrine of your idol-king, and the pedestal of your images.'