the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
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Bible Dictionaries
Remphan
Fausset's Bible Dictionary
or CHIUN. Amos 5:26-27, "ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god which ye made to yourselves." Acts 7:42-43 from the Septuagint of Amos, "ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch, and the star of your god Remphan, figures which ye made to worship them." Instead of "Chiun your images" Pusey, deriving Chiun from chun "to fix firmly," translated Amos, "ye did bear the (portable) shrine of your idol king, and the pedestal of your images," etc. Israel secretly carried on idolatry in the wilderness, with a small shrine escaping Moses' observation (Ezekiel 20:7-8; Ezekiel 20:39; Ezekiel 23:3; Joshua 24:14).
Ken and Rempu were foreign gods worshipped jointly in Egypt; they became seemingly interchangeable names, so that Chiun in Amos answers to Remphan in Acts; and this god in turn is but another phase of Moloch or Saturn, the "star god". A star was put on the head of the images of the idol representing Saturn; hence "images" answer to "star" in parallelism. The Egyptians represented Rempu as an Asiatic with full board and face of the type given on the monuments to nations E. of Egypt. Ken was represented naked, holding grain in both hands, and standing on a lion; answering to the Syrian goddess or Venus, called also Ketesh (Hebrew qideeshaah "consecrated".) Ken is related to Khem, the Egyptian god of productiveness, Remphan and Chiun answer to the Phoenician Baal and Astarte or Ashtoreth (Mylitta of Babylon).
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Fausset, Andrew R. Entry for 'Remphan'. Fausset's Bible Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/fbd/r/remphan.html. 1949.
