thus:--

"Ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch and the star of your god
Remphan, figures which ye made to worship them."

This was the version which St. Stephen quoted in his defence before the
High Priest. It is quite clear that it was star worship to which he was
referring, for he prefaces his quotation by saying, "God turned and gave
them up to serve the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the
prophets."

The difference between the names "Chiun" and "Remphan" is explained by a
probable misreading on the part of the Septuagint translators into the
Greek, who seemed to have transcribed the initial of the word as "resh,"
where it should have been "caph"--"R" instead of "K,"--thus the real
word should be transliterated "_Kaivan_," which was the name of the
planet Saturn both amongst the ancient Arabs and Syrians, and also
amongst the Assyrians, whilst "_Kevan_" is the name of that planet in
the sacred books of the Parsees. On the other hand, there seems to be
some difficulty in supposing that a deity is intended of which there is
no other mention in Scripture, seeing that the reference, both by Amos
and St. Stephen, would imply that the particular object of idolatry
denounced was one exceedingly familiar to them. Gesenius, therefore,
after having previously accepted the view that we have here a reference
to the worship of Saturn, finally adopted the rendering of the Latin
Vulgate, that the word "Chiun" should be translated "statue" or "image."
The passage would then become--

"Ye have borne the booth of your Moloch and the image of your
idols, the star of your god which ye made for yourselves."

If we accept the view that the worship of the planet Saturn is indeed
referred to, it does not necessarily follow that the prophet Amos was
stating that the Israelites in the wilderness actually observed and
worshipped him as such. The prophet may mean no more than that the
Israelites, whilst outwardly conforming to the worship of Jehovah, were
in their secret desires hankering after Sabaeism--the worship of the
heavenly host. And it may well be that he chooses Moloch and Saturn as
representing the cruellest and most debased forms of heathenism.

The planet Saturn gives its name to the seventh day of our week,
"Saturn's day," the sabbath of the week of the Jews, and the coincidence
of the two has called forth not a few ingenious theories. Why do the
days of our week bear their present names, a