REMPIIAN, or REITIAN ('Rep.OciP, a name quoted in Acts vii. 43, from Amos v. 26, where the Septuagint has for the He brew D'Z, Chain. It is clear that, although thus changing the letter n into 1, the Sept. held the original to be a proper name, in which interpreta tion our own and most other versions have con curred. But this is by no means clear ; for, ac cording to the received pointing, it would better read, Ye bore the tabernacle of your king (idol), and the statue (or statues) of your idols, the star of your god, which ye make to yourselves ;' and so the Vulgate, which has Imagmem idolorum yes trorum. According to this reading, the name of the idol so worshipped by the Israelites is in fact not given, although the mention of a star still suggests that some planet is intended. Jerome supposes it may be Lucifer or Venus. But the Syriac renders the Hebrew by 01.= ' Saturn your idol,' who was worshipped by the Semitic nations along with Mars as an evil demon to be propitiated with sacrifices. This now seems
to be the general conclusion, and Winer, indeed, treats the subject under the head Saturn. It has been alleged, but not satisfactorily proved, that Remphan and Rephan were Egyptian names of the planet Saturn. They, indeed, occur as such in the Coptic-Arabic Lexicon of Kircher (Ling. /Egypt. Restit., p. 49 ; edip. dEgypti, i. 386) ; but Jablonsky has long since shown that this and other names of planets in these lexicons are of Greek origin, and drawn from the Coptic versions of Amos and the Acts (Jablonsky, Remphan ./Egyptior., in Opuse., ii. 1, seq.; Schroeder, De Tabernac. Illblocki et Stella Dei Remplz., 1745; Mains, Dissert. de Kiunz et Remphan, 1763 ; Ha renberg, De Idolis Clzium et Remphan, 1723; Wolf, Dissert. de Chinni et Remph.,1741; Gesenius, Thesaurus, pp. 669, 67o).