Acts 7:42-43

7:42 But God turned away from them and gave them over ¹  to worship the host ²  of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets: ‘It was not to me that you offered slain animals and sacrifices ³  forty years in the wilderness, was it, ⁴  house of Israel? 7:43 But you took along the tabernacle ⁵  of Moloch ⁶  and the star of the ⁷  god Rephan, ⁸  the images you made to worship, but I will deport ⁹  you beyond Babylon.’ ¹⁰ 

¹ sn The expression and gave them over suggests similarities to the judgment on the nations described by Paul in Rom 1:18-32.

² tn Or “stars.”

³ tn The two terms for sacrifices “semantically reinforce one another and are here combined essentially for emphasis” (L&N 53.20).

⁴ tn The Greek construction anticipates a negative reply which is indicated in the translation by the ‘tag’ question, “was it?”

⁵ tn Or “tent.”

⁶ sn Moloch was a Canaanite deity who was believed to be the god of the sky and the sun.

⁷ 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.

⁸ 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.

⁹ tn Or “I will make you move.”

¹⁰ sn A quotation from Amos 5:25-27. This constituted a prediction of the exile.