Acts 7:42 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Acts 7:42
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?
figuratively · noun — nominative singular masculine, a title
turned
ἔστρεψενestrepsen
G4762
to twist · verb — second aorist active indicative, 3rd person singular
and
καὶkai
G2532
and · conjunction
gave
παρέδωκενparedōken
G3860
to surrender · verb — aorist active indicative, 3rd person singular
them
αὐτοὺςautous
G846
the reflexive pronoun self · personal pronoun — accusative plural masculine
up
παραδίδωμιparadídōmi
G3860
to surrender
worship
λατρεύεινlatreuein
G3000
to minister (to God) · verb — present active infinitive
host
στρατιᾷstratia
G4756
from the base of G4766 (στρώννυμι) · noun — dative singular feminine
heaven
οὐρανοῦ,ouranou
G3772
the sky · noun — genitive singular masculine
as
καθὼςkathōs
G2531
just (or inasmuch) as · conjunction
written
γέγραπταιgegraptai
G1125
to "grave" · verb — perfect passive indicative, 3rd person singular
in
ἐνen
G1722
"in · preposition
book
βίβλῳbiblō
G976
book · noun — dative singular feminine
prophets
προφητῶν·prophētōn
G4396
a foreteller ("prophet") · noun — genitive plural masculine
house
οἶκοςoikos
G3624
a dwelling (more or less extensive · noun — vocative singular masculine
Israel
Ἰσραήλ;Israēl
G2474
Israel (i.e. Jisrael) · noun — genitive singular masculine, a place
offered
προσηνέγκατέprosēnegkate
G4374
to bear towards · verb — aorist active indicative, 2nd person plural
me
μοίmoí
G3427
to me
beasts
σφάγιαsphagia
G4968
a victim (in sacrifice) · noun — accusative plural neuter
and
καὶkai
G2532
and · conjunction
sacrifices
θυσίαςthusias
G2378
sacrifice (the act or the victim · noun — accusative plural feminine
forty
τεσσεράκονταtesserakonta
G5062
forty · adjective — numeral, indeclinable
years
ἔτηetē
G2094
a year · noun — accusative plural neuter
in
ἐνen
G1722
"in · preposition
wilderness
ἐρήμῳ,erēmō
G2048
desert · adjective — dative singular feminine
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Amos 5:25-26 Have ye offered unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel?
Ezekiel 20:39 As for you, O house of Israel, thus saith the Lord GOD; Go ye, serve ye every one his idols, and hereafter also, if ye will not hearken unto…
Jeremiah 19:13 And the houses of Jerusalem, and the houses of the kings of Judah, shall be defiled as the place of Tophet, because of all the houses upon w…
Psalms 81:11-12 But my people would not hearken to my voice; and Israel would none of me.
Deuteronomy 4:19 And lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shoulde…
Job 31:26-28 If I beheld the sun when it shined, or the moon walking in brightness;
Isaiah 63:10 But they rebelled, and vexed his holy Spirit: therefore he was turned to be their enemy, and he fought against them.
Romans 1:24-28 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Acts 7:42-50
Two things we have in these verses: -
I. Stephen upbraids them with the idolatry of their fathers, which God gave them up to, as a punishment for their early forsaking him in worshipping the golden calf; and this was the saddest punishment of all for that sin, as it was of the idolatry of the Gentile world that God gave them up to a reprobate mind. When Israel was joined to idols, joined to the golden calf, and not long after to Baal-peor, God said, Let them alone; let them go on (Act 7:42): Then God turned, and gave them up to worship the host of heaven. He particularly cautioned them not to do it, at their peril, and gave them reasons why they should not; but, when they were bent upon it,…
gave them up--judicially.
as . . . written in the book of the prophets--the twelve minor prophets, reckoned as one: the passage is from Amo 5:25.
have ye offered to me . . . sacrifices?--The answer is, Yes, but as if ye did it not; for "neither did ye offer to Me only, nor always, nor with a perfect and willing heart" [BENGEL].
Adam Clarke on Acts 7:42
Then God turned, and gave them up, etc. - He left them to themselves, and then they deified and worshipped the sun, moon, planets, and principal stars.
In the book of the prophets - As this quotation is found in Amos, Amo 5:25, by the book of the prophets is meant the twelve minor prophets, which, in the ancient Jewish division of the sacred writings, formed only one book.
Have ye offered to me slain beasts - It is certain that the Israelites did offer various sacrifices to God, while in the wilderness; and it is as certain that they scarcely ever did it with an upright heart. They were idolatrous, either in heart or act, in almost all their religious services; these were therefore so very i…
Then God turned,.... Away from them, withdrew his presence, and his favours from them:
and gave them up to worship the host of heaven; not angels, but the sun, moon, and stars; for since they liked not to retain the knowledge and worship of the true God, who made the heavens, and the earth, God in righteous judgment, in a judicial way, gave them up to a reprobate mind, to commit all the idolatry of the Gentiles, as a punishment of their former sin in making and worshipping the calf:
as it is written in the book of the prophets; of the twelve lesser prophets, which were all in one book; and which, as the Jews say (e), were put together, that a book of them might not be lost through the smal…
The Church Fathers
"As it is written in the Book of the Prophets"-and observe, he does not cite the text without a purpose, but shows by it that there is no need of sacrifices; saying: "Did ye offer slain beasts and sacrifice to Me?"-He lays an emphasis on this word (to Me?). "Ye cannot say that it was from sacrificing to Me, that ye proceeded to sacrifice to them:-"by the space of forty years:" and this too, "in the wilderness," where He had most signally shown Himself their Protector.
"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?" The expression, "gave them up," means, He suffered. Even when there was a Tabernacle, yet there were no sacrifices. "Did ye offer unto Me slain beasts and sacrifices?" There was "the tabernacle of witness," and yet it profited them nothing, but they were consumed. But neither before, nor afterwards, did the miracles profit them aught.
Did you offer to me victims and sacrifices for forty years in the desert? Although they offered libations to the Lord out of necessity, they are said to have truly served idols with their hearts turned away, from the time when they transformed gold into the head of a calf. For afterwards, we read that they offered certain things to the Lord, not out of will, but as we learn from this place, out of the fear of punishments and the destruction of those who fell because of idols. However, the Lord regards not what is offered, but the will of the one offering. Therefore, wherever there was an occasion, they always turned back to Egypt in their hearts.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Amos — Borne; a burden, one of the twelve minor prophets. He was a native of Tekota, the modern Tekua, a town about 12 miles south-east of Bethlehem. He was a man of humble birth, neither a “prophet nor a…
Beast — This word is used of flocks or herds of grazing animals (Ex. 22:5; Num. 20:4, 8, 11; Ps. 78:48); of beasts of burden (Gen. 45:17); of eatable beasts (Prov. 9:2); and of swift beasts or dromedaries…
Host of heaven — The sun, moon, and stars are so designated (Gen. 2:1). When the Jews fell into idolatry they worshipped these (Deut. 4:19; 2 Kings 17:16; 21:3, 5; 23:5; Jer. 19:13; Zeph. 1:5; Acts 7:42).
Stephen — One of the seven deacons, who became a preacher of the gospel. He was the first Christian martyr. His personal character and history are recorded in Acts 6. “He fell asleep” with a prayer for his…
Apostasy · UNCLASSIFIED SCRIPTURES RELATING TO — UNCLASSIFIED SCRIPTURES RELATING TO
Court · ACCUSED SPOKE IN HIS OWN — ACCUSED SPOKE IN HIS OWN
Idolatry · Objects of: The heavenly bodies — Objects of: The heavenly bodies
Stars · Worshiped — Worshiped
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Acts 7:42-43
42. And God turned himself, and gave them up to worship the host of heaven: as it is written in the book of the prophets, Have ye offered unto me slain beasts and sacrifices by the space of forty years in the wilderness, O ye house of Israel? 43. And ye took to you the tabernacle of Moloch, and the star of your god Remphan, and figures which ye made to worship them; therefore I will carry you away beyond Babylon.
Stephen will here declare that the Jews did never make an end of sinning, but that they wandered farther in their froward errors; so that that first fall of theirs was unto them as it were an entrance into a labyrinth. And this doth he assign unto the just vengeance o…
This passage quotes Amos 5:25-27 (Greek version) to illustrate how the people of Israel rebelled against Moses (Acts 7:39-41). Molech was a Canaanite god to whom human sacrifices were offered (Lev 18:21; 20:2-5; 1 Kgs 11:7; 2 Kgs 23:10; Jer 32:35). Rephan, a star god identified with the planet Saturn, was worshiped by the Israelites during their wilderness wanderings.
