Acts 4:7

4:7 After ¹  making Peter and John ²  stand in their midst, they began to inquire, “By what power or by what name ³  did you do this?”

Acts 7:43

7:43 But you took along the tabernacle ⁴  of Moloch ⁵  and the star of the ⁶  god Rephan, ⁷  the images you made to worship, but I will deport ⁸  you beyond Babylon.’ ⁹ 

¹ tn Grk “And after.” Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, καί (kai) has not been translated here. Instead a new sentence is begun in the translation at the beginning of v. 7.

² tn Grk “making them”; the referents (Peter and John) have been specified in the translation for clarity.

³ sn By what name. The issue of the “name” comes up again here. This question, meaning “by whose authority,” surfaces an old dispute (see Luke 20:1-8). Who speaks for God about the ancient faith?

⁴ tn Or “tent.”

⁵ sn Moloch was a Canaanite deity who was believed to be the god of the sky and the sun.

⁶ tc ‡ Most mss, including several important ones (Ì⁷⁴ א A C E Ψ 33 1739 Ï h p vg sy^h mae bo Cyr), have ὑμῶν (Jumwn, “your”) here, in conformity with the LXX of Amos 5:26. But other significant and diverse witnesses lack the pronoun: The lack of ὑμῶν in B D 36 453 gig sy^p sa Ir^lat Or is difficult to explain if it is not the original wording here. NA²⁷ has the word in brackets, indicating some doubt as to its authenticity.

⁷ sn Rephan (῾Ραιφάν, RJaifan) was a pagan deity. The term was a name for Saturn. It was variously spelled in the mss (BDAG 903 s.v. has Rompha as an alternate spelling). The references cover a range of deities and a history of unfaithfulness.

⁸ tn Or “I will make you move.”

⁹ sn A quotation from Amos 5:25-27. This constituted a prediction of the exile.