We can now endeavor to explain the passages in which Chiun and Remphan occur. The Masoretic text of Amos v, 26 reads thus: "But ye bare the tent [or " tabernacle"] of your king and Chiun your images, the
Babylonian Cylinders, with figures of gods and stars.
Kal to dorpov tov SeoTi vpwv 'Vcaipav, tovq tv—ovq avTwv ovg iirou]aaTt tavrolg. The Vulg. agrees with the Masoretic text in the order of the clauses, though omitting Chiun or Remphan. " Et portastis taber- naculum Moloch vestro, et imaginem idolorum vestro- rum, sidus dei vestri, quaj fecistis vobis." The passage is cited in the Acts almost in the words of the Sept.: " Yea. ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch, and the star of your god Remphan, figures which ye made to wor- ship them" (Kal avtXufitrt tt\v gki]v))v tov MoXcjft Kal to aoTpov tov Sitov vfiwv Pt/.t(j)ui', rovg tvttovc, ovq t7rou)rraT£ TrpofTKvvfiv avToTc). A slight change in the Hebrew would enable us to read Moloch (Mal- cam or Milcom) instead of "your king." Beyond this it is extremely difficult to explain the differences. The substitution of Remphan for Chiun cannot be accounted for by verbal criticism. The Hebrew does not seem as distinct in meaning as the Sept.; and if we may con- jecturally emend it from the latter, the last clause would be "your images which ye made for yourselves ;" and if we further transpose Chiun to the place of "your god Remphan," in the Sept., C=b"2 nl3D "X would correspond to ""PS CZ^riSX 33lD rX; but how can we account for such a transposition as would thus be supposed, which, be it remembered, is less likely in the Hebrew than in a translation of a difficult passage? If we compare the Masoretic text and the supposed orig- inal, we perceive that in the former E31>Q^2£ "jTD cor- responds in position to C^ilPN 2^12, and it does not seem an unwarrantable conjecture that "p^S having been by mistake written in the place of 3Z13 by some copyist, WabjJ was also transposed. It appears to be more reasonable to read "images which ye made" than " gods which ye made," as the former word occurs. Supposing these emendations to be probable, we may now examine the meaning of the passage.
The tent or tabernacle of Moloch is supposed by Gesenius (Tkesaur. s. v. MSO 1 to have been an actual tent, and he compares the oKTjvfj 'itpc'i of the Cartha- ginians ( Diod. Sic. xx, 65). But there is some diffi- culty in the idea that the Israelites carried about so large an object for the purpose of idolatry, and it seems more likely that it was a small model of a larger tent
or shrine. The reading Moloch appears preferable to star of your gods [or "your god"], which ye made for "your king;" but the mention of the idol of the Am- yourselves." In the Sept. we find remarkable differ- monites as worshipped in the desert stands quite alone, ences; it reads, Kal dvtXdiitTt ti)v aictjvijv tov M"o\dj£, It is perhaps worthy of note that there is reason for
RENAISSANCE
1038
i n:\AissAXCE
supposing thai Moloch was a name of the planet Sat- urn, and that this planet was evidently Bupposed by the ancient translators to be intended by Chiun and Remphan. The correspondence of Remphan or Rai- phan to Chiun is extremely remarkable, and ran. we think, only be accounted for by the supposition that - ;. tran-latcr <>r translators of the prophet had Egyptian knowledge, and being thus acquainted with the ancient joint worship of Ken and Renpu, substi- tuted the latter for the former, as they may have been unwilling to repeal the name of a foreign Venus. The star -I Remphan, if indeed the passage is to he read so as i" connect these words, would be especially .appro- priate if Remphan were a planetary god; but the evi- dence for this, especially as partly founded upon an Arabic or Persian word Like Chiun, is nqt sufficiently strouj,- to enable us to lay any stress upon the agree- ment. In hieroglyphics the sign for a star is one of the two composing the word Seb, "to adore," and i> undoubtedly then- used in a symbolical as well as a phonetic Bense, indicating that the ancient Egyptian religion was partly derived from a system of star-wor- ship; and there are representations on the monuments of mythical creatures or men adoring stars {Ancient Egyptians, pi. 30 a). We have, however, no positive indication of any figure of a star being used as an idol- atrous object of worship. From the manner in which it is mentioned, we may conjecture that the star of Remphan was of the same character as the tabernacle ofMidocli.au object connected with false worship rather than an image of a false god. According to the Sept. reading of the last clause, it might he thought that these objects were actually images of Moloch and Rem- phan: but it must l>e remembered that we cannot Bup- pose an image to have had the form id' a tent, and that the version of the passage in the Acts, as well as the Masoretic text, if in the latter ease we may change the order of the words, gives a clear sense. As to the m< an- ing of the last clause, it need only he remarked that it does not oblige us to infer that the Israelites made the images of the false gods, though they may have done so. a- in the case of the golden calf; it may mean no more than thai they adopted these gods.