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The Gods of the Bible

Every named divine being in Scripture, what the text calls it, and what the ancient world thought it was.

Sikkuth and Kiyyun / Rephan

Star gods carried in procession, where the Greek Bible and the Hebrew give different names.

ExplicitGods of the nationsBoth
Amos 5:26

Amos 5:26, in every translation this tool compares.

First, in plain English

Star gods carried along in procession. Stephen quotes the Greek Old Testament and says Rephan where the Hebrew says Kiyyun, which is a short clean case of a New Testament speaker quoting a translation rather than the Hebrew.

What the text says

Astral deities carried in procession. Stephen quotes the Septuagint's Rephan where the Hebrew has Kiyyun, a clean, short case of the Greek Old Testament standing behind a New Testament quotation. Kiyyun is convincingly a form of Kajjamanu, the Babylonian name for Saturn ("the Steady One"), also behind the Syriac Keywan, and the LXX's Greek already shows a scribe confusing Hebrew k for r, which is how Kiyyun became Rephan, or Rompha, by the time Stephen quotes it. Sakkuth is more obscure. DDD's best match is the little-known Babylonian god Sakkud, "cupbearer of the gods," tied to the city of Der on the Elamite border, though the ancient versions (the LXX, and the Damascus Document from Qumran) read the word as "tent" or "tabernacle," "the tent of your king," and not as a divine name at all.

The word

H5522, H3594, 1 occ each; G4481, 1 occ

Where it appears
  • Amos 5:26
  • Acts 7:43
Sources
  1. DDD s.v. "Sakkuth," 722
  2. DDD s.v. "Kaiwan," 478

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