(42) 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 ye offered to me . . .?--Better, did ye 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 emphasises 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 Chaldaea. Moloch, and not the true God of Abraham, had been their chosen deity.
Verse 42.- But for then, A.V.; to serve for to worship, A.V.; did ye offer unto me slain beasts and sacrifices forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? for O ye house of Israel, have ye offered, etc., by the space of forty years in the wilderness? A.V. The passage which follows is nearly verbatim et literatim the LXX. of Amos 5:25, 27, except the well-known substitution of "Babylon" for "Damascus" in Amos. This, according to Lightfoot, with whom most commentators agree, was in accordance with a very common practice of readers in the schools and pulpits of the Jews, to adapt and accommodate a text to their own immediate purpose, keeping, however, to historical truth. Here Stephen points to the Babylonish Captivity as the punishment of the sins of their fathers, thus warning them of more terrible judgments to follow their rejection of Christ.
7:42-50 Stephen upbraids the Jews with the idolatry of their fathers, to which God gave them up as a punishment for their early forsaking him. It was no dishonour, but an honour to God, that the tabernacle gave way to the temple; so it is now, that the earthly temple gives way to the spiritual one; and so it will be when, at last, the spiritual shall give way to the eternal one. The whole world is God's temple, in which he is every where present, and fills it with his glory; what occasion has he then for a temple to manifest himself in? And these things show his eternal power and Godhead. But as heaven is his throne, and the earth his footstool, so none of our services can profit Him who made all things. Next to the human nature of Christ, the broken and spiritual heart is his most valued temple.
Then God turned,.... Away from them, withdrew his presence, and his favours from them:
and gave them up to worship the host of heaven; not angels, but the sun, moon, and stars; for since they liked not to retain the knowledge and worship of the true God, who made the heavens, and the earth, God in righteous judgment, in a judicial way, gave them up to a reprobate mind, to commit all the idolatry of the Gentiles, as a punishment of their former sin in making and worshipping the calf:
as it is written in the book of the prophets; of the twelve lesser prophets, which were all in one book; and which, as the Jews say (e), were put together, that a book of them might not be lost through the smallness of it; among which Amos stands, a passage in whose prophecy is here referred to; namely, in Amos 5:25 "O ye house of Israel, have ye offered to me slain beasts and sacrifices by the space of forty years in the wilderness"; no; they offered to devils, and not to God, Deuteronomy 32:17 and though there were some few sacrifices offered up; yet since they were not frequently offered, nor freely, and with all the heart, and with faith, and without hypocrisy, they were looked upon by God as if they were not offered at all.
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 ye offered to me . . .?--Better, did ye 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 emphasises 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 Chaldaea. Moloch, and not the true God of Abraham, had been their chosen deity.
and gave them up to worship the host of heaven; not angels, but the sun, moon, and stars; for since they liked not to retain the knowledge and worship of the true God, who made the heavens, and the earth, God in righteous judgment, in a judicial way, gave them up to a reprobate mind, to commit all the idolatry of the Gentiles, as a punishment of their former sin in making and worshipping the calf:
as it is written in the book of the prophets; of the twelve lesser prophets, which were all in one book; and which, as the Jews say (e), were put together, that a book of them might not be lost through the smallness of it; among which Amos stands, a passage in whose prophecy is here referred to; namely, in Amos 5:25 "O ye house of Israel, have ye offered to me slain beasts and sacrifices by the space of forty years in the wilderness"; no; they offered to devils, and not to God, Deuteronomy 32:17 and though there were some few sacrifices offered up; yet since they were not frequently offered, nor freely, and with all the heart, and with faith, and without hypocrisy, they were looked upon by God as if they were not offered at all.
(e) Kimchi praefat. ad Hoseam.