Acts 7:42Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

And see what he says: "O house of Israel! Did you offer Me slain beasts and sacrifices for forty years in the wilderness? You took up the tabernacle of Moloch and the star of your god Remphan, the images which you made to worship them."

He spoke by way of accusation. His words mean this: you cannot say that you began to offer sacrifices to idols just as you offered them to Me. And this happened in the wilderness, when God was especially guiding them.

His will is the same as the law: "You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve" (Lk 4:8). But those who persisted in impiety He permitted to remain in it. He does not want people to serve Him by compulsion, lest He constrain what has free will.

Some think the expression "the host of heaven" is equivalent to "angels": "For if the word spoken through angels" (Heb 2:2). But Luke is not speaking of angels, but of the stars, to which the Jews paid honor.

These included the calf, which took the place of the morning star, and the moon as the queen of heaven. This expression is used almost everywhere when the luminaries and stars are meant.

"Did you offer Me slain beasts and sacrifices for forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel?" Notice that he first mentions that they offered sacrifices to Him Himself, and only afterward sacrifices to idols.

This is because before this the term "sacrifice" is nowhere found, but only commandments and living words. Moreover, he cites this testimony not without reason, but to show that there was no need for sacrifices.

He says, "Did you offer Me slain beasts and sacrifices?" This is as if to say: you cannot say that you offer sacrifices to idols because you first offered them to God. On the contrary, you first offered sacrifices to them, and this in the wilderness, where I especially protected you.

Therefore, if I said that this temple would be destroyed and that the rites and sacrifices would be changed, I said nothing new. For Moses, of whom you seem to have a high opinion, offered no sacrifice for forty years and erected no temple.

Nor did David do this, though you already possessed this land, divided by lot. The prophets also speak of these things as unnecessary.

But how can you appeal to Moses in your defense, when both your fathers and you rejected him? (Acts 7:35, 39).

"The Lord accepts not what is offered in sacrifice, but the will of those who offer. In general, wherever the occasion presented itself, they always turned their heart back to Egypt." Jerome of Stridon, Commentarii in Amos prophetam 2.5.25-27 (CCSL 76:296-97).

Then the person of Moses is fully honored in his dignity and significance. This appears when Stephen describes his call by God to the work of Israel's deliverance (vv. 30-35), and the deliverance itself. It also appears in his leading Israel toward the promised land with many signs and wonders (v. 36).

To express still more fully the dignity of Moses, Stephen shows him as a type of the Messiah, as one who conversed with angels, and as mediator between God and Israel (vv. 37-38). By this alone Stephen's whole reverence for the Mosaic law is fully expressed. Yet it is expressed still more when he calls this law "living words" (v. 38).

At the same time, however, this speech is accusatory. In reading it, one cannot fail to notice that Stephen tries, wherever possible, to contrast the benefactions of the saving God with the ingratitude and unbelief of the Israelites.

Thus, even in the life of the patriarchs, he points to Joseph's suffering from the envy of his brothers, the forefathers of the Israelite people (v. 9). In Egypt, the descendants of these sons of Jacob reject the saving hand of Moses (vv. 25-28, 35). In the wilderness they reject Moses and God (vv. 39-43).

"To serve" means to render divine honor and worship, to deify. "The host of heaven" means the heavenly luminaries: the sun, moon, and stars (Gen 2:1).

The worship of the heavenly luminaries was a very widespread form of idolatry in antiquity, called Sabeanism or astrolatry. It was especially widespread in Egypt, Chaldea, and Phoenicia.

As proof that the Jews truly practiced idolatry during their wandering in the wilderness, Stephen refers to a saying of the prophet Amos about this (Amos 5:25-27).

"In the book of the prophets": this is the name given to the collection of the prophetic books of the twelve minor prophets. From ancient times it was known as one book.

In the indicated place in Amos, which belongs to this collection, God reproaches the Jews for idolatry. In the form of a question, He indicates that even during their wandering in the wilderness after leaving Egypt, the Hebrews did not offer Him sacrifices.

That is, they did not serve Him, but served other gods. At first sight, this prophetic saying spoken in God's name and cited by Stephen does not agree with the testimony of the Pentateuch.

There it speaks of sacrifices offered to God by the Hebrews in the wilderness (Ex 24:4ff.; Num 7; Num 9:1ff.; and others). But in the prophet, the speech is plainly absolute instead of relative.

Such a form of speech is often used in strong denunciations and in rhetorical turns of expression. God is so angered against His people for their apostasy and stiff-neckedness during their wandering in the wilderness, and for their inclination toward idolatry, that He, as it were, does not accept the sacrifices offered to Him at all.

He does not accept them as sacrifices, as though they did not exist at all, although such sacrifices did exist. The inclination of the Jews toward idolatry in the eyes of Jehovah God, as it were, completely deprived the sacrifices offered to Him of their force.

The nothingness of the Jews' service to Him in the wilderness, in God's eyes, is vividly presented through the indication of their service at that time to Moloch and Remphan.

The cited reference to the book of the prophet Amos must be understood as it stands, that is, as a question. For although the Jews did take some part in sacrifices to the true God (see Ex 24:4; Num 7:1), one could ask whether they participated in this with their soul.

The prophetic and accusatory answer is evident: no. Their heart inclined more toward serving idols and offering sacrifices to them. Therefore before the Lord, sacrifices without participation and without heart had no meaning.

"What to Me is the multitude of your sacrifices?" "Iniquity," the Lord said through another prophet, "My soul hates" (see Is 1:11-13).

According to the explanation of blessed Theophylact, "God permitted those who persisted in impiety to remain in it, because He does not want people to serve Him by compulsion, lest He constrain the one who has free will."

Were there, speaking generally, such sacrifices in the wilderness when the Hebrews wandered through it? No, we shall say, there were not. For the inclination toward idol-worship brought out of Egypt was alive in the hearts of the Hebrew people throughout the whole period of wandering.

God Himself assures us of this through the holy prophet Ezekiel. The Lord says that despite His exhortations, while living in Egypt the Hebrews "did not forsake the idols of Egypt."

Even after leaving Egypt, "their hearts were attached to their idols." For this they were condemned to die without seeing the promised land.

The Lord addressed the children of these who perished with the same exhortation. But the children, says the Lord, "turned their eyes to the idols of their fathers." Thus, after all His exhortations, He "permitted them to be defiled by offerings to idols."

This continued until the very occupation of the land of Palestine, and afterward as well (Ezek 20:8, 16, 24, 26, 28).

It is also known that in the wilderness the Hebrews worshiped the golden calf and served the abominable Baal of Peor (Num 23:28; Num 25:1ff.).

Saint Stephen says that after the casting of the golden calf, God turned away from the Hebrews and left them to serve the host of heaven, that is, the heavenly luminaries.

In the next verse of the chapter under consideration, Saint Amos says that at that same time the Hebrews served Moloch, honored Remphan, and carried idols.

If one adds to this the constant rebellions and murmuring of the stiff-necked people in the wilderness, together with their open regrets over having left Egypt (Num 14:3ff.), their various vices, superstitions, ignorance. Failure to understand the spirit of true service, and ingratitude before God, then one may confidently say that, speaking generally, the Hebrews did not offer true sacrifices to God as they passed through the wilderness. Their sacrifices were defiled by a pagan spirit and by vices.

Strictly speaking, even the lawful Old Testament sacrifices cannot be called true sacrifices to God, satisfying Him and pleasing to Him (Heb 10:1-18). There is only one such sacrifice in the whole world and for all ages: the sacrifice offered by the Savior of the world on the Cross.

Whatever is not in it, according to it, and in its meaning, power, and spirit, in short, whatever is outside it, cannot be a sacrifice to God. But how far the Hebrews in the wilderness were from understanding such a sacrifice.

"Slaughters," σφαγια, means an animal appointed to be slain in sacrifice, from σφαγιαζω, "I slaughter." "Offerings," θυσιας, means sacrifice.