Charles Ellicott Commentary Acts 7:42

"But God turned, and gave them up to serve the host of heaven; as it is written in the book of the prophets, Did ye offer unto me slain beasts and sacrifices Forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel?" — Acts 7:42 (ASV)

The host of heaven.—The word includes the host or army of the firmament, sun, moon, and stars, as in 2 Chronicles 33:3; 2 Chronicles 33:5; Jeremiah 8:2. The sin of Israel was that it worshipped the created host, instead of Jehovah Sabaoth, the “Lord of hosts.”

In the book of the prophets.—The term is used in conformity with the Rabbinic usage which treated the Twelve Minor Prophets as making up a single book.

Have you offered to me...?—Better, did you offer...? The words are, with one exception, from the LXX. of Amos 5:25-26. The narrative of the Pentateuch is inconsistent with the statement that no sacrifices were offered to Jehovah during the forty years’ wandering; but the question emphasizes the thought which Amos desired to press upon the men of his generation, that Jehovah rejected the divided worship offered to them by a people who were all along hankering after, and frequently openly returning to, the worship of Egypt or Chaldea. Moloch, and not the true God of Abraham, had been their chosen deity.