Amos 5:25–27
The Star of Your God Remphan
Wording onlyQuoted by the apostles in Acts 7:42–43, in the older Greek wording
Stephen names a star-god your Amos never mentions. Most likely it is the same idol under another name.
Side by Side
The Older Text
Septuagint, translated before Messiah
Have ye offered to me victims and sacrifices, O house of Israel, forty years in the wilderness? Yea, ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch, and the star of your god Raephan, the images of them which ye made for yourselves. And I will carry you away beyond Damascus.
The Later Text
Masoretic, finished about 1,000 years after the cross
Have ye offered unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel? But ye have borne Siccuth your king and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves. Therefore will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus.
Quoted in Acts 7:43
Stephen’s Old Testament
Yea, ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch, and the star of your god Remphan, figures which ye made to worship them: and I will carry you away beyond Babylon.
Your KJV reads: a mix in Amos (“the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images”), then the Greek wording in Acts (“the tabernacle of Moloch, and the star of your god Remphan”).
See what changed and why ↓What Your Bible Says
Then God turned, and gave them up to worship the host of heaven; as it is written in the book of the prophets, O ye house of Israel, have ye offered to me slain beasts and sacrifices by the space of forty years in the wilderness? Yea, ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch, and the star of your god Remphan.
Acts 7:42–43 KJV
Stephen tells the council that Israel worshipped the stars even in the desert, while the tabernacle of Yahuah stood among them.
What the Jewish Bible Says
But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves.
Amos 5:26 KJV
The Hebrew names two idols, Sikkuth and Kiyyun. Your KJV already reads the first like the Greek, “tabernacle of Moloch,” but keeps Chiun for the second.
What Changed
The names. Where the Hebrew has Kiyyun, the Greek has Raephan, and Stephen says Remphan. Most scholars take both as names for the same star-god. The charge is the same in every text: Israel carried star-gods through the wilderness.
Even “tabernacle of Moloch” comes from reading the same Hebrew letters another way. For the first idol, the letters stayed the same and only the reading moved. For the second, the name was likely miscopied or spelled another way.
Purpose of the Change
No motive evident: wording variation only. The pair still matters because Stephen quoted the Greek wording before the council, and Luke recorded it.
The Bottom Line
Stephen quoted the Greek. Chiun or Remphan, it was a star-god, and Yahuah would not share His people with it.
Stephen’s “beyond Babylon” looks ahead to the last word on every false god: “Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils” (Revelation 18:2).
Dig Deeper The evidence, for anyone who wants it
Star-God Names
Kiyyun is most likely Kaiwan, the Babylonian name for the planet Saturn, worshipped as a god. Many scholars think the Greek Raephan, or Rephan, is the same name with a different first letter, perhaps because two Hebrew letters that look alike were confused. Others think Rephan was an Egyptian name for the same star. Moloch comes from the Hebrew letters for “king,” which the Greek read as the idol’s name. Different spellings, one idolatry.
An Honest Note
Stephen does not quote either text exactly. He adds “to worship them,” and he says “beyond Babylon” where both Amos texts say “beyond Damascus.” Babylon lies far beyond Damascus, and Judah’s later exile went there. Stephen summed up the whole history in one line.