Yea, ye took up the tent of Moloch, and the star of [your] god Remphan, the forms which ye made to do homage to them; and I will transport you beyond Babylon.
Stephen is on trial, accused of speaking against the holy place and the law. His answer quotes Amos and goes back to the desert, where Israel carried hidden idols and set the exile in motion.
Stephen quotes the Greek translation of the Old Testament. That is why the name here is not the one in the Hebrew text of Amos. (Older versions spell the name "Remphan" and say "tabernacle" instead of "tent.")
The name of a god in Acts 7:43, which Israel had worshipped (but some Greek manuscripts read Rephan). Stephen was quoting Amos 5:25-26 from the Septuagint, which has Raephan. In the Hebrew the name of the god is Chiun, but why the translators changed the name is not known.
The charge is not that Israel abandoned the outward system. They kept it up, and carried the forbidden shrines at the same time.
When the Spirit of prophecy announced their coming captivity, He does not go back to the wicked kings of Israel. Nor does He go back to the shameless sons of David who ruled Judah. He goes back to the idolatry in the wilderness. On the outside, at that very time, they honoured the tabernacle of Jehovah and the priesthood of Aaron. But God saw all along how hollow their offerings and sacrifices in His name were. In their hearts, out of sight, they took up the tent of Moloch and the star of the god Raiphan. They had made these forms to worship them.
His accusers rested their case on the holy place and the law. The verse he quotes shows that neither one ever kept Israel from idols.
Worshipping God by the ritual of the law was no security against idolatry. Stephen proved it from the words of Amos the prophet. Amos goes back to the days of Moses in the wilderness. There he finds the sin that carried them off, after long patience, to the lands of captivity. "The holy place and the law" did nothing for God's glory then, and they do nothing now. This was his answer to their boast, and his defence against their accusation.
Verse 43 follows the golden calf, and it marks a step further down. God let them have what they wanted, and their appetite grew.
Man, unbelieving man, is so quick to abandon the living God. He does it despite the daily standing witness of His power and grace. He does it despite the solemn judgments God sends before all eyes from time to time. He is just as quick to take up the idolatry that he had known, only a short time before, to rule the high and mighty, the refined and learned — the world, in short, where he himself had been a slave… The calf, the abomination of Egypt, did not satisfy Israel either. They craved objects higher than the works of their own hands, whatever the charm of those works to man's vain heart. Once they yielded to the snare, Israel had to outdo Egypt. So "God turned away and gave them over to worship the host of heaven."
Stephen names Babylon as the far edge of the exile. The reason for that wording is uncertain; the reason for the exile is not.
The prophet reminds them when and where their idolatry began: in the wilderness… Stephen says beyond Babylon, and so it turned out, perhaps to mark it off from the Babylonian captivity. Such was the result of the old sin in the wilderness. No doubt that sin was worse at the end. The dark stream kept gathering more water as it flowed… Still, God always goes back to the source. At last He declares that the final blow came because of the first departure.
The gap in time changes nothing. Babylon was not an accident.
The failure in the wilderness is connected here with the Babylonian captivity, though a great number of years came in between. The whole thing failed there. Babylon was the necessary result of that failure in the wilderness.
Redemption out of Egypt had happened. The images they carried show what had not happened.
The Israelites had not worshipped Jehovah for forty years in the wilderness; but they had carried symbols of Molech and Chiun (or Remphan) and worshipped them. The root of their idolatrous course was that they had never in heart made a clean break from Egypt.
- Root. The images in this verse expose a heart that never left Egypt, even after God brought the nation out.
- Hidden. The same people who honoured the tabernacle and the priesthood carried Moloch's tent out of sight. Public worship and private idolatry ran side by side.
- No shield. The law and the holy place gave no protection against idols. That was Stephen's reply to men who accused him while boasting in both.
- Downward. A calf made by their own hands did not satisfy them, so God gave them over to the host of heaven. Once they gave in, Israel had to outdo Egypt.
- Sentence. God traces the exile "beyond Babylon" back to the first sin in the desert. Long patience delays the blow. It does not cancel it.
Our fathers had the tent of the testimony in the wilderness, as he that spoke to Moses commanded to make it according to the model which he had seen;
Stephen's accusers say he speaks against "the holy place." Here he begins his answer. He does not attack the sanctuary. He traces its story back to a tent in the desert, built just as God told Moses to build it. Two questions follow, and his accusers had never faced either. What was that tent a witness to? What was the "pattern" it copied?
Stephen is answering charges, not retelling history for its own sake. He has dealt with the charge about Moses. The sanctuary comes next.
Stephen has well answered their accusations against him concerning Moses. Now in verse 44 he addresses their charge concerning the holy place. This began with the tabernacle that God ordered Moses to make precisely according to His plain directions. The tabernacle remained as God's dwelling place among His people when Joshua led them into the land, and until the days of Solomon.
The verse just before names the tent of Molech, an idol Israel carried in the wilderness. Now the same word returns, this time for God's tent. The contrast is the point.
How much more guilty were those who knew far better! They stood in a national relationship with God as His own special and favoured people. They even had the tent of the testimony itself — a witness for Him and against their ways. They carried it through the wilderness from father to son, and then into the good land, where God used Joshua to drive out the old pagan peoples so that Israel could have it. In this way they added open hypocrisy to their greedy idolatry. No corruption is worse than the corruption of God's own people, and so His discipline matches it: "You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities" (Amos 3:2).
That double life had a root, and it lay further back than the desert.
The expression "the tabernacle of your Molech," Amos 5:26, is quoted in Acts 7:43-44. The Israelites had not worshipped Jehovah for forty years in the wilderness; but they had carried symbols of Molech and Chiun (or Remphan) and worshipped them. The root of their idolatrous course was that they had never in heart made a clean break from Egypt.
This tent had more than one name. It was the appointed meeting place, and every detail came from God, not from Moses.
It goes by several names: the "tabernacle of testimony, or of witness," the "tabernacle of the congregation," or "tent of meeting." It was the place Jehovah recognised. There He lived among His people and met them. There, away from the world outside, He made His will known. Moses had to make it after the pattern God showed him on the mountain. When it was finished, Moses testified that it had been built just as the Lord commanded. Notice this: God left none of its details to Moses' own cleverness. Moses only had to carry out his instructions.
Stephen says the tent copied something Moses had already seen. What Moses saw on the mountain was more than a blueprint.
God kept the pattern of the tabernacle on high, in heavenly glory. Moses went up the mountain and spent forty days with God. The people thought he was going to get the law. Not that alone. He had gone to get God's mind and to see lovely pictures of Christ. He received the tablets of stone. But far better than that, he saw many shadows of Christ… Do we want to learn anything about God's dwelling place? We are asking here about the Church, and men are great church-makers. Then we must be sure our eyes are on the heavenly pattern.
The letter to the Hebrews later builds on that same instruction to Moses. If there is a model, there must be a real sanctuary above.
The writer has now affirmed that the true tabernacle exists in heaven. How did he know that? He tells his readers, quoting from Exodus 25:40: "See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain" (Hebrews 8:5). This statement had very likely been overlooked… and Stephen, in his speech (Acts 7:44), points to the same scripture.
Stephen honours the tent. But he also shows where the story leads, and it does not end in a building.
Stephen does not deny this at all. He insists that the tent of the testimony was made just as God appointed, by His word through Moses, and according to the model Moses had seen above… But he insists just as strongly on what the Jews were blind to, as the prophet Isaiah said. The Most High does not live in places made by human hands, except in a figurative sense… So when they misused and twisted the outward form, He handed it over to the Chaldeans, as He would later hand it to the Romans.
- Pattern. Moses invented nothing. Every detail came from what he had seen. The tent copied something already real in heaven.
- Witness. The name means testimony. The tent spoke for God among His people, and against the idols they carried at the same time.
- Hypocrisy. Correct worship on the outside is no protection. Israel's deepest failure was that they never broke with Egypt in heart.
- Journey. The tent travelled with them through the desert and into the land. God went with a people; He was not tied to one place.
- Limit. Tent gave way to temple, and temple to ruin — because the Most High has never lived in anything hands can build.