Chiun

Acts vii. 4. 3. Amos v. 26.CHIUN, or Chevan. We meet with this word in the Hebrew of the Prophet Amos, cited in the Acts of the Apostles. S. Luke reads the passage thus: Ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch, and the star of your god Remphan, figures which ye made to worship them. The import of the Hebrew is as follows, Ye have born the Tabernacle of your kings, and the pedestal (the Chiun) of your images, the star of your gods, which ye made to yourselves. The Septuagint in all probability read Repham or Revan, instead of Chiun or Chevan, and took the pedestal for a God. Others are of opinion, that three false Deities are to be distinguished here, Moloch, Chiun and Remphan. Others again affirm, that the three mean only one God, adored under so many different names; and that this God was Saturn, and his planet. Salmasius and Kircher assert, that Kiion is Saturn, and that his Star is called Keiran among the Persians and Arabians, and that Remphan or Rephan signified the same thing among the Egyptians. They add, that the Septuagint, who made their Translation in Egypt, changed the word Chiun into that of Remphan, because they had the same signification. See the Article Remphan and our Dissertation upon the Idolatry of the Hebrews in the Wilderness, prefixed to the twelve Prophets. M. Basnage in his Book intitled, Jewish Antiquities, after having discoursed a good deal upon Chion or Remphan, concludes, that Moloch was the Sun, and Chion, or Chiun, or Rephan, the Moon. t. 2. p. 576--- 581, 611, 614, 617.

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