John Calvin Commentary Acts 7:43

"And ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch, And the star of the god Rephan, The figures which ye made to worship them: And I will carry you away beyond Babylon." — Acts 7:43 (ASV)

Stephen will declare here that the Jews never made an end of sinning, but that they wandered farther in their perverse errors, so that their first fall was to them, as it were, an entrance into a labyrinth. And this he assigns to the just vengeance of God, that after that time their madness grew so, that from one idol, they acquired an infinite number.

This example teaches us to be careful to follow the rule which God has set down; because, as soon as we are turned even a little aside from it, we will inevitably be carried to and fro with various delusions, we will inevitably be entangled in many superstitions, and be utterly drowned in the vast sink of errors. This is a punishment God in justice lays upon men who refuse to obey His word.

Therefore Stephen says that God was turned away; a phrase meaning as much as if he were to say, that God turned His back. For He had fastened His eyes, in a way, upon the people when He showed the singular care He took in governing them; being offended with their falling away, now He turns His face another way.

We may also gather from this that we can only follow the right way when the Lord watches over us to govern us; but as soon as His face is turned away, we immediately run into errors.

The Israelites were forsaken by God even when they made the calf. But Stephen meant to express the greatness of the punishment, as if he had said that they were then completely cast off into a reprobate mind. As Paul also teaches, those who did not give glory to God when He had shown Himself to them were, by the just judgment of God, given up to blindness, blockishness, and shameful lusts (Romans 1:28).

As a result, after religion began to be corrupt, innumerable abominations followed a few superstitions, and gross monsters of idolatry took the place of minor corruptions.

For because men neglected the light which was set before them, they became utterly blockish by the just judgment of God, so that they had no more judgment than brute beasts.

Idolatry surely is very fertile, so that from one reigning god a hundred would soon come, and a thousand superstitions flow from one.

But this great madness of men springs from this: God avenges Himself by delivering them to Satan. For after He has once undertaken to govern us, there is no change on His part, but He is plucked away from us by our rash levity.

Have you offered to Me slain beasts and sacrifices? This passage is taken from the fifth chapter of Amos (Amos 5:25). The speech Stephen uses shows that all the prophecies were gathered into one body. Amos adds (after he had inveighed against the idolatry and various sins of the people) that this is no new evil—that the Jews are rebellious against God because their fathers had fallen away from true godliness even in the wilderness. Furthermore, he denies that they offered slain beasts to Him, not because there were no sacrifices there at all, but because God refused their corrupt worship, just as He reproves and chides the people in Isaiah, because they honored Him with no sacrifice:

“You,” (He says,) “O Jacob, have not called upon Me, neither have you honored Me with your sacrifices, neither have I made you serve in offering or incense. You have not bought calamus for Me, neither have you filled Me with fatness. But you have been burdensome to Me in your sins, and have caused Me to serve in your iniquities” (Isaiah 43:22).

Certainly the Jews did all these things daily, but God does not accept the obedience of the wicked, neither does He approve it. Again, He abhors everything that is polluted with such adulterations as are added. Thus Amos speaks of the fathers who were apostates. What is added immediately may be referred either to them or to their posterity.

You took to yourselves the tabernacle of Moloch. Some take the copulative (connective particle) for an adversative one, as if he were to say, ‘Yes, rather, you worshipped the idol.’ It may also be resolved into a causal conjunction, thus: ‘You did not offer sacrifices to Me, because you erected a tabernacle to Moloch.’

But I expound it somewhat differently, namely, that God first accuses the fathers with greater vehemence; and then afterwards He adds that their posterity increased the superstitions, because they got for themselves new and diverse idols. It is as if the prophet had spoken thus in the person of God: ‘If I am to recount from the beginning, O house of Jacob, how your kindred has behaved towards Me, your fathers began to overthrow and corrupt, even in the wilderness, the worship that I had commanded. But you have far surpassed their ungodliness, for you have brought in an infinite company of gods.’

And this order is more fitting for Stephen’s purpose; for he intends to prove (as we have already said) that after the Israelites fell away into strange and illegitimate rites, they never made an end of sinning. Instead, being stricken with blindness, they polluted themselves again and again with new idolatries, until they had come to the very height of impiety.

Therefore, Stephen aptly confirms this statement with the testimony of the prophet: that the Jews, descended from wicked and rebellious fathers, had never ceased to grow worse and worse. And although the prophet’s words are somewhat unlike these, yet the sense is the same. It is to be supposed that Stephen, who was addressing the Jews, repeated word for word in their language what is in the prophet; Luke, who wrote in Greek, followed the Greek translation.

The prophet says, You honored Succoth your king, and Chiun your image, the star of your gods. The Greek translator made a common noun from a proper noun because of the similarity of the word Succoth, which signifies a tabernacle. Furthermore, I cannot tell from where he gets his ‘Remphan,’ unless it was because that word was more used at that time.

And figures which you made. The word ‘image,’ which is in the prophet, does not of itself signify anything evil. Moreover, the word τύπος is taken among the Greeks in a good sense. For the ceremonies which God appointed are called τύποι; notwithstanding, the prophet expressly condemns the figures (types) which the Jews had made.

Why so? Because God will not be worshipped under a visible and external form. If anyone objects that He speaks in this place of stars, that is true, I confess; but I insist only on this: that although the prophet gives their idols some respectable name, yet he sharply condemns their corrupt worship. By this, the foolish and childish caviling of the Papists is refuted.

Because they deny that those images which they worship are idols, they say that their mad worship is εἰκονοδουλεια (image-service), and not εἰδωλολατρεία (idol-worship). Since they mock God sophistically, there is no one endowed with even common understanding who does not see that they are more than ridiculous even in such trivialities.

For although I raise no question about the word, it is certain that the word τύπος is more honorable than εἰκών. But these same τύποι, or figures, which men make for themselves, are simply condemned in this place—not only πρὸς τὴν λατρείαν (for worship), but πρὸς τὴν προσκύνησιν (that is, that they may give them any reverence at all). Therefore, that filthy distinction falls flat to the ground, in which the Papists think they have a crafty loophole.

Beyond Babylon. The prophet names Damascus; nor does the Greek translation differ from it. Therefore, it may be that the word Babylon crept in here through error, though in the substance of the matter there is no great difference. The Israelites were to be carried away to Babylon; but because they thought that they had a sure and strong fortress in the kingdom of Syria, whose capital was Damascus, therefore the prophet says that Damascus shall not help them, but that God will drive them farther. It is as if he were to say: ‘So long as you have Damascus set against your enemies, you think that you are well fortified; but God will carry you away beyond it, even into Assyria and Chaldea.’