Acts 7:42

Acts 7:42. Then God turned. That is, changed towards them, withdrew from them His favour, laid no check upon their passions and follies (see Acts 14:16); and they, abandoned by their God and left to themselves, sunk into a more degraded form of idolatry still.

The host of heaven. The stars and the sun and moon. This form of idol-worship is called Sabaeism, from צָבָא (tsava), a host (the host of heaven). This idolatry prevailed especially in Chaldea, and also in Phoenicia, as well as in Egypt. The worship of Baal, so often referred to in the history of Israel, probably is what Stephen alludes to Baal-Shemesh. The sun-god was one of the most popular of the Phoenician deities in Tyre, and also in the great Phoenician colony of Carthage.

Book of the prophets. The twelve so-called minor prophets are here referred to. These short prophecies were reckoned by the Jews as one book. The passage quoted here is from Amos 5:25-27.

O ye house of Israel, have ye offered to me slain beasts and sacrifices by the space of forty years in the wilderness? This is a quotation, with very trivial alterations, from the LXX. of Amos 5:25-27. The question, μη ̀ σφα ́ για κτλ, requires a negative answer. Through the prophet, God is understood to be asking the terrible question: ‘Have ye offered to Me slain beasts and sacrifices during the forty years spent in the desert? Surely you do not pretend to say that you have? You have even taken up the Tabernacle of Moloch,' etc. Nor is this accusation of Amos quoted by Stephen any contradiction of the story of the Pentateuch, which speaks of the ordinary daily sacrifice to the Lord during the desert wanderings prescribed by the Mosaic ritual; for what counted in God's eyes the bare, cold, official rites and sacrifices performed by priests and officials under the immediate influence of Moses, compared to the free, spontaneous offerings made, and to the service done by the people to the golden calves or the host of heaven?

The punishment inflicted by Jehovah upon the whole race all being delivered out of Egypt, none, with two solitary exceptions, being permitted to set foot in the Land of Promise tells its own story, and shows that the words of Amos quoted here were no exaggerated rhetorical statement, but that even during those long wanderings in the desert, when the power and the love of the Eternal was being daily shown to every child of Israel while the manna was falling round their tents to feed that great host in those scorched, arid valleys, while the pillar of fire and cloud above their heads was guiding their uncertain steps even then they deserted His worship for that of Moloch and Baal.