Amos 5:26
But you carried a tabernacle for your Moloch, and the image of your idols, the star of your god, which you made to yourselves.
The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- et portastis tabernaculum Moloch vestro, et imaginem idolorum vestrorum, sidus dei vestri, quæ fecistis vobis.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- καὶ ἀνελάβετε τὴν σκηνὴν τοῦ Μόλοχ καὶ τὸ ἄστρον τοῦ θεοῦ ὑμῶν Ῥαιφάν, τοὺς τύπους αὐτῶν οὓς ἐποιήσατε ἑαυτοῖς·
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וּנְשָׂאתֶ֗ם אֵ֚ת סִכּ֣וּת מַלְכְּכֶ֔ם וְאֵ֖ת כִּיּ֣וּן צַלְמֵיכֶ֑ם כּוֹכַב֙ אֱלֹ֣הֵיכֶ֔ם אֲשֶׁ֥ר עֲשִׂיתֶ֖ם לָכֶֽם
Haydock's commentary
A tabernacle, &c. All this alludes to the idolatry which they committed, when they were drawn away by the daughters of Moab to the worship of their gods, Numbers xxv. (Challoner)
They imitated the superstitions of Egypt, and bore the image of Osiris, adorned with a star and crescent, on a sort of base, under a canopy. Hebrew, "You carried the tents of your king and the base of your statues, the star of your gods, which you have made for yourselves." Septuagint by changing (Calmet) ciun into Rephan, or raiphan, (Haydock) have caused great confusion among commentators. If any change were requisite, (Calmet) cima (Haydock) would be preferable, ver. 8., and Job ix. 9. Yet the Hebrew seems to be correct, and chiun denotes a pedestal rather than an idol. Some read Kevan, the Saturn of the Arabs, &c., and think that Rephan has been mistaken for it. The only difficulty is the authority of St. Stephen, who follows the Septuagint, Acts vii. 43. Yet he probably spoke in Syriac, and might pronounce Chevan; though St. Luke might adopt the Septuagint in a matter of so little consequence. (Calmet, Diss.)
This decision may not probably give satisfaction to those who reflect that both these authors were under the immediate influence of the Holy Ghost, and that if an error had crept into the copy of the Septuagint, he would have corrected it. Truth is always of sufficient consequence. See Kennicott, Diss. ii. p. 344. (Haydock)
Chiun and Rephan are "expressive of the same" god or idol, representing the machine of the heavens. The people of Peru worshipped Choun. (Parkhurst, p. 137.)
Read on
Remvan may be Remmon, (4 Kings v. 18.) or Saturn. (Grotius)
In a Coptic alphabet of the planets it is thus explained: (De Dieu. Collier. Dict. Sept. and Acts) "You have taken the tabernacle of Moloch, and the star of your Rempham, figures," &c. Protestants marginal note, "the Siccuth, your king, and Chiun, your images, the star," &c. (Haydock)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Irenaeus Against Heresies: Book IV, Chapter XV. At first God deemed it
1. They (the Jews) had therefore a law, a course of discipline, and a prophecy of future things. For God at the first, indeed, warning them by means of natural precepts, which from the beginning He had implanted in mankind, that is, by means of the Decalogue (which, if any one does not observe, he has no salvation), did then demand nothing more of them. As Moses says in Deuteronomy, “These are all the words which the Lord spake to the whole assembly of the sons of Israel on the mount, and He added no more; and He wrote them on two tables of stone, and gave them to me.” For this reason [He did so], that they who are willing to follow Him might keep these commandments. …
St Gregory Nazianzen The Oration on Holy Baptism
XLII. Do you fear to speak of Generation lest you should attribute aught of passion to the impassible God? I on the other hand fear to speak of Creation, lest I should destroy God by the insult and the untrue division, either cutting the Son away from the Father, or from the Son the Substance of the Spirit. For this paradox is involved, that not only is a created Life foisted into the Godhead by those who measure Godhead badly; but even this created life is divided against itself. For as these low earthly minds make the Son subject to the Father, so again is the rank of the Spirit made inferior to that of the Son, until both God and created life are insulted by the new Theology. No, my friends, there is nothing servile in the Trinity, nothing created, nothing accidental, as I have heard one of the wise say. …
The Fathers are given as they wrote. Where a passage lays the Passion on the Jewish people, the Church teaches that it cannot be charged against all the Jews then living, nor against the Jews of today, and that all sinners were its authors (CCC 597, 598).