But you have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which you made to yourselves.
the tabernacle of your Moloch.
Leviticus 18:21 And thou shalt not let any of thy seed pass through the fire to Molech, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I am the LORD.
Leviticus 20:2-5 Again, thou shalt say to the children of Israel, Whosoever he be of the children of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn in Israel, that giveth any of his seed unto Molech; he shall surely be put to death: the people of the land shall stone him with stones…
1 Kings 11:33 Because that they have forsaken me, and have worshipped Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, Chemosh the god of the Moabites, and Milcom the god of the children of Ammon, and have not walked in my ways, to do that which is right in mine eyes, and to keep my statutes and my judgments, as did David his father.
Milcom.
and Kaiwan your star god
Kaiwan, also known as Chiun in some translations, is associated with the worship of celestial bodies, particularly the planet Saturn. This reflects the ancient Near Eastern practice of astrology and star worship, which was prevalent among Israel's neighbors. The Israelites' engagement in such practices was a direct violation of Deuteronomy 4:19, which warns against worshiping the host of heaven. This idolatry signifies a departure from the worship of the Creator to the creation, a theme Paul addresses in Romans 1:25.
the idols you made for yourselves
This phrase highlights the self-made nature of these idols, emphasizing human effort in creating objects of worship. It underscores the futility and absurdity of idolatry, as these gods were crafted by human hands and thus powerless (Isaiah 44:9-20). The act of making idols reflects a deeper spiritual issue: the rejection of God's sovereignty and the pursuit of self-determined spirituality. This is a recurring theme in the Old Testament, where Israel's idolatry leads to judgment and exile, as seen in 2 Kings 17:7-18.
Israel was not merely dabbling in foreign religion; they were carrying it with them, treating idolatry like cherished luggage. “You have taken along” pictures a deliberate, ongoing transport of false worship wherever they went. Deuteronomy 12:30 warns, “Be careful not to be ensnared by their customs after they have been destroyed before you.” Instead, the people packed the very snares God told them to avoid. Stephen echoes this in Acts 7:42-43, reminding his hearers that God “turned away and gave them over to the worship of the host of heaven.” The Lord had delivered His people from Egypt (Exodus 20:2-3), but they preferred to tote Egypt’s gods rather than trust the God who traveled with them in the pillar of cloud and fire.
“Sakkuth” (elsewhere rendered “Sikkuth” or linked to Molech) is called “your king” because the people gave it allegiance that belonged only to Yahweh. Leviticus 18:21 commands, “You must not give any of your children to be sacrificed to Molech.” In 2 Kings 23:10 Josiah desecrates Topheth so “no one could sacrifice his son or daughter to Molech.” Sakkuth was a grim, child-devouring deity; yet Israel set it up as sovereign. By enthroning an idol, they dethroned the true King (1 Samuel 8:7). The covenant people, who were meant to “have no other gods before Me,” (Exodus 20:3) instead bowed to a cruel counterfeit.
While Sakkuth represented a terrestrial idol, Kaiwan pointed upward to celestial worship—“your star god.” Deuteronomy 4:19 cautions, “Do not be enticed into bowing down to the sun or the moon or the stars.” Manasseh later violated this directly, “He built altars for all the host of heaven” (2 Kings 21:3-5). Star worship seduced God’s people because it looked sophisticated and cosmic, yet it was nothing more than idolatry under a telescope. Jeremiah 8:2 exposes the folly: “They will spread them out before the sun, the moon, and all the host of heaven…whom they have loved and served.” Romans 1:23 diagnoses the heart behind it—trading “the glory of the immortal God for images.”
The indictment ends by stressing personal responsibility: “the idols you made for yourselves.” Crafting gods is self-flattery; it allows sinners to shape divinity in their own image. Isaiah 44:13-17 mocks the absurdity of carving a block of wood, burning half for warmth, and bowing to the other half. Psalm 115:4-8 notes that such idols “have mouths, but cannot speak,” and those who make them “will become like them.” From the golden calf (Exodus 32:4) to the hidden household gods Rachel stole (Genesis 31:19), homemade idols always reveal a heart that mistrusts the sufficiency of the Lord. First John 5:21 still rings clear: “Little children, keep yourselves from idols.”
Amos 5:26 exposes a double betrayal: Israel carried idols with them and crowned those idols as king and cosmic lord. Sakkuth (earthly power) and Kaiwan (celestial glamour) stood in for the true Sovereign who had redeemed them. By fashioning gods of their own making, the people showed where their hearts really rested. The verse calls us to abandon every modern Sakkuth and Kaiwan—anything we carry, enthrone, or gaze upon in place of Christ—and to worship the Lord alone, the Maker of heaven and earth.
Verse 26. - This verse has occasioned great perplexity to commentators. The connection with the context, the meaning of some of the terms, and whether the reference is to past, present, or future, are questions which have roused much controversy. We need not here recapitulate the various opinions which have been held. It will be sufficient to state what seems to be the simplest and most probable explanation of the passage. But we must not omit to mention first the explanation adopted by Ewald, Schrader, Farrar, Konig, and others, viz. that this verse refers to the punitive deportation which was to be the people's lot, when they should take their shrines and images with them into captivity. "So shall ye take (into exile) Sakkuth your king," etc. But the punishment is foretold in ver. 27; and this verse contrasts their idol worship with the neglected worship of Jehovah (ver. 25). But ye have borne; and ye bare; καὶ ἀνελάβετε (Septuagint); et portastis (Vulgate). Ye offered me no pure worship in the wilderness, seeing that ye took false gods with you, and joined their worship with, or substuted it for, mine. The tabernacle of your Moloch; τὴν σκηνὴν τοῦ Μολόχ (Septuagint); tabernaculum Moloch vestro (Vulgate). The Hebrew word rendered "tabernacle" (sikkuth). which is found nowhere else, has been variously explained. Aquila gives συσκιασμούς: Theodotion, "vision," reading the whole sentence thus: Καὶ ἤρατε τὴν ὅρασιν τοῦ Θεοῦ ὑμῶν ὑμῶν ἄστρον τοῦ Θεοῦ ὑμῶν. Many moderns render, "stake," "column," or "shrine." Others suppose it to be equivalent to Sakkuth, an Assyrian name for Molech (or Adar); but this is very uncertain (see 'Studien und Kritiken.' 1874, p. 887), sad the parallelism requires the word to be an appellative and not a proper name. It most probably means "shrine," a portable shrine, like those spoken of in Acts 19:24 in connection with the worship of Diana. The Syriac and Arabic versions call it "tent," and thus the reproach stands forth emphatically that, instead of, or in conjunction with, the true tabernacle, they bore aloft, as if proud of their apostasy, the tabernacle of a false god. Such shrines were used by the Egyptians, according to Herodotus (2:63, where see Rawlinson's note) and Diod. Sic. (1:97). Many such may be seen in the Egyptian room of the British Museum. Keil quotes Drumann, 'On the Rosetta Inscription,' p. 211, "These were small chapels, generally gilded and ornamented with flowers and in other ways, intended to hold a small idol when processions were made, and to be carried or driven about with it." Hence we must look to Egypt as the source of this idolatry. Moloch, though sanctioned by the LXX. and St. Stephen (Acts 7:43), is a mistranslation. De Rossi, indeed, mentions that one Hebrew manuscript gives Moloch, but the received reading is Melkekem, which is confirmed by Symmachus and Theodotion, who have τοῦ βασιλέως ὑμῶν, and by the Syriac. The translation, therefore, should run, "Ye took up the shrine of your king," i.e. of him whom ye made your king in the place of Jehovah, meaning some stellar divinity. And Chiun your images; καὶ τὸ ἄστρον τοῦ θεοῦ ὑμῶν Ῥαμφάν, "and the star of your god Raephan "(Septuagint); et imaginem idolorum vestrorum; literally, the kiyyun of your images. The parallelism again requires us to take this unknown word as an appellative; and according to its probable derivation, its meaning is "pedestal," or "framework," that on which the image stood. The Greek rendering is, as Keil thinks, owing to a false reading of the unpointed text, in old Hebrew kaph and resh being easily confounded, and vau and pe. Theodotion considered the word a common noun, translating it by ἀμαύρωσιν. It is probably a mere coincidence that in some Assyrian inscriptions the name Kairan occurs as that of a deity, who is identified with Saturn; that the Egyptians (from whom the Israelites must have derived the notion) ever acknowledged such a deity is quite unproved. St. Stephen merely quotes the Textus Receptus of his day, which was close enough to the original for his argument. The star of your god. These words are in loose apposition with the preceding, and are equivalent to "your star god," or the star whom ye worship as god. Whether some particular star is meant, or whether the sun is the deity signified, cannot be determined, although the universal prevalence of the worship of sun gods in Egypt makes the latter supposition very probable. St. Stephen puts the sin in a general form: "God gave them up to serve the host of heaven" (Acts 7:42; comp. Deuteronomy 4:19; Deuteronomy 17:3). Which ye made to yourselves. This was the crime, self-will, desertion of the appointed way for devices of their own invention.