Compiled from earlier discussion.

Ancient Near Eastern Studies 44, 2013, describes the excavation of the Nerkin Naver burial mounds ("Lower Graves"), Armenia, dated to 23rd to 18th century BC, including many individuals, horses, pottery, and weapons including daggers; some hydria jars are pictured in the article with triangular patterns around the edge that form polygrams when viewed from the top, including a 13-point polygram and those of larger order. The blog "Art, Tradition, and Trend of Armenia" claims to show a round dagger handle from this excavation that, similarly, forms a hexagram when viewed from the top, and it holds that this is the earliest occurrence of this symbol. (Saturn's phenomenon is a hexagon, not a hexagram, and other sources are later.) There does not appear to be another easily accessible original source for the dagger claim; but, given the journal's complementary art, there is no reason to doubt that Armenia can boast the oldest known hexagram and that local art preserved this shape for some time within that Bronze Age culture.

It is clear that the hexagram has been rediscovered at multiple times in history as well. Like many other symbols and like many etymologies of words, the proof of connection or disconnection between two historical threads of the same symbol is not always straightforward. The next task is to establish whether Jewish use of hexagrams is connected to the Biblical reference to the "star of Remphan". I'd say no because hexagrams are not associated with Judaism early enough and the Biblical reference is understood as to a heavenly body and its guardian demon rather than to geometric symbology. I'd also say no to the idea that the hexagram is two Paleo-Hebrew (Phoenician) daleths superimposed defectively to spell "David", again due to lack of proof of such early adoption.

However, this is for those interested. To confirmed racists it won't matter.

What is the origin of the star of David's association with the Israelites?

The Israel Review of Arts and Letters, 1998, No. 106 (a quarterly magazine published by the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs) compiles evidence and research from Gershon Scholem beginning with a Galilee synagogue archstone containing a hexagram dating to about 300. The difficulty is that the proven association with "Solomon's seal" (which predated the name "star of David") is largely Islamic and certainly later than this stone. Thus we have two strands that seem to have converged, the symbol itself in Judaism, and the legend of a great king (Solomon) having a magic ring with a geometric signet.

The pentagram however is better-attested further back. Fiscal seals in Jerusalem have been found back to the eighth century BC, and by the third or second century several such seals had adopted pentagrams surrounded by the five letters of "Jerusalem", Biblical Archaeology Review 39:6, 2013. Pythagoreans popularized the pentagram with the five letters of "hygeia" (health) around it, which indicates a good connection to the Jerusalem pentagrams.

Visual Mathematics, an open-access university journal, contains an interesting paper citing Scholem as saying that both pentagram and hexagram were popular in the Second Temple era, and citing the Renaissance under Ezra and Nehemiah as a possible cultural contributor for this overlap with the symbols known to Pythagoras. (It also states that the first Shield of David (Magen David, now interpreted as "star") was actually a representation of the 72 names rather than a star, namely, a formal depiction of the text Ex. 14:19-21. So the "shield" concept also preceded the "star" concept and ties back to this name set as used in kabbalah.)

Thus, since the question actually contains a wealth of questions depending on how it is expanded, this seems to be an accurate tracing of the Jewish connection with polygram stars. First, the Pythagoreans discovered the pentagram and popularized it as a symbol for the 5-letter word "health"; then, through the cultural influence of Babylon upon the 5th-century Judah, it eventually became adopted by the Jews as a symbol for the 5-letter spelling of "Jerusalem"; then, through its continuing use as an ornamental, the hexagram was recognized as a variation of the pentagram and also became used as an enduring symbol in Galilee by the 4th century AD; then it became more and more adopted as a symbol for the Jewish people at large.

Again this excludes the "star of Remphan" text from direct contribution to the chain due to dates, but does provide a very plausible explanation of the eventual association. A very interesting question to me is how it became universally accepted that polygrams and the like represented the undistinguished points of light from the heavenly bodies we know as stars, because this connection is not at all intuitive. Alternate theories of all kinds are of course possible and should be stated.

A little more insight on the Amos reference. First note that in 5:8 God made Kimah and Kcil (the Pleiades and Orion), so Amos's attention to astronomy is in the background. Now here's 5:26 NKJV, and Stephen's paraphrase in Acts 7:43:

You also carried Sikkuth your king and Chiun, your idols, the star of your gods, which you made for yourselves.

You also took up the tabernacle of Moloch, and the star of your god Remphan, images which you made to worship.

Stephen quotes the Septuagint, which revocalizes the first clause, replaces Chiun with Remphan (many variant spellings exist), and swaps second and third clause. My insight this time around is that Amos is so hard to translate, and the grammar is so sketchy, because of the fact that virtually all the words were puns! Most of them can be revocalized either as common words or as names of deities. Thus he is primarily deriding Satan's penchant for naming things ambiguously to confuse people; and yet as his secondary audience we get confused too.

This suggests that the best reading is to preserve the pun by translating everything as common, and then revocalizing everything as idol names. Amos is saying these two things, in free translation:

And you carried the tabernacles of your king, and the pedestal of your semblances, the star of your gods, the which you made for yourselves.

And you carried Sikkuth for your Moloch, and Chiun for your Zelem, Kochba for your Elohim, Asherah you made for yourselves.

That means the statement is logically accurate as it refers to appurtenances of idolatry as well as to names of idols and their relationships. Therefore when you get to Acts, Remphan/Chiun is not intended to be the only god in the passage just because he's the one with "god" next to him; it's a laundry list of puns worthy of Rush Limbaugh. Chiun (like Moloch) is still significantly easier to track than others: he seems to be Kaiwanu, an Assyrian name for Saturn; and Remphan seems to be someone the Septuagint editors would find more accessible to their audience, for which the Rephaim (giants, Titans, etymologically from Saturn) have been suggested. In Amos and in the Septuagint, idols/images is plural and so it's natural to read "Remphan, images" as "the Titans the idols".

But we hold that the comma in Acts after Remphan is also inspired, which adjusts the poetic enjambment of the clause, so not only are the Titans connected with images, they are also connected (both by the comma and by the inversion) with being gods behind a star.

In short, for the star portion, the literal meaning supplied by Amos and Acts is: (1) they carried a star of idol gods, meaning some appurtenance of idolatry; (2) this was also punned on by naming idols Kochba and (false) Elohim; (3) the Titans, being Rephaim, were some of the gods associated with use of a star in worship. It's not necessary for the pedestal and star to remain singular either.

Since this is mid-8th century and there is no evidence of Jewish pentagrams and hexagrams at this time, and since it refers to contemporary idols, it does not appear that this is looking forward to future use of polygrams, but to some other item that would be used in idolatry like tabernacles and pedestals, that can be called a star, and that would be associated with Rephaim or Titans, the few giants left in the land after David's time, as well as with false Elohim in general. (I'd held that there was little idolatry of giants among the Israelites, but this may speak against that.) Also, the usage was widespread enough that Kochba (star) had become an idol name in its own right, not just a title, like Asherah. The association with the planet Saturn is present and upheld by the Septuagint, but it is not as a central genius but more as a member of a pantheon of whatever idolatries the devil can inflict on the covenant people. What type of physical star might meet all these criteria in the 8th century .... Because of the comma in Acts (not in the Septuagint), it's proper to call it the star of Remphan, or even the star of the Titans or of Saturn, but it is neither the hexagram, nor the hexagon on Saturn's north pole; it is some physical artifact of idolatry more fitting to that time.

I looked for what artifact would have the features described, connoting a star but without our modern polygram symbolism. Tracking the word "kochav" through Scripture (probably a reduplication for roundedness, rolling, like "Gilgal" meaning rolling and Mehri "kubkob" meaning star) was instructive, because the stars are conceived of as an order of entities that we could broadly class among angels. They sing for joy at God's creation, they fight over men's battles, some of them can fall or become dark in a spiritual sense, etc. Was there any class of star entity that was idolized in Israel at this time?

Yes, there was, the bronze serpent Nehushtan, which was later destroyed as a provocation by Hezekiah under the guidance of Isaiah, who so often echoes and follows Amos. This symbol of one snake on a pole was built by Moses at God's command as a means of grace to bring physical healing, and then it became an object of idolatry. The "serpent" involved was probably more than a garden snake; rather, a "seraph", the being that guards the throne of God, that is fiery and winged and often manifold in form. So we know Israelites were literally worshipping this bronze serpent on a pole at the time Amos speaks of a "star" (point of light) that contextually means a manufactured idol representing the angel Satan (as Khiun, Saturn). Just as the Asherah pole is the most natural object described as the pedestal, the serpent is the most natural object to be described as the star-prince worshipped alongside the pedestal.

The poled snake also fits the history necessary for the gravity of Amos's and Stephen's charge. Nehushtan is attested as the first evidenced artifact in history of the single snake-pole motif, ordained by God, and pointing back to the Garden (snake in tree) and forward to the cross (sin-bearer upon tree); so Satan's interest in seizing and twisting this symbol is natural. In time it became the rod of Asclepius, associated with pharmaceutical healing, the typical counterfeit of God's healing.

Further, the allied sign of two snakes on a pole has its own separate history and, like pentagram and hexagram, is distinct but confusable. The two-snake caduceus, often with wings, is an older artifact than Moses, being found about 2100 BC as a symbol of Ningishzida from Sumer. (His vase depicts two snakes on a pole as well as two dragons each holding poles.) This is taken as the symbol of "messengers" (angels) in general, specifically Hermes, and often by confusion misapplied to medicine as well. This fits naturally with Satan's desire to corrupt the story of the tree and the serpent.

Accordingly, this suggests the actual symbol Amos associates with this star-prince is the single poled snake. The most common modern equivalent of this star upon the rod of Asclepius is in fact the dollar sign ($), not the asterisk (*). (In part the dollar sign incorporates iconography of the letters "US", but its origin is diverse and testifies to input from the staff of healing.) I submit that the Star of Remphan is now the Almighty Dollar, and that it thereby refers to Satan's merchandising of all kinds of humans, a conclusion that will probably sit well with some readers.

Rephaim also can mean "Healers", to further build the chain.

So let me translate Amos with hyphens to try to accommodate his puns with words that can most indicate his intent in modern speech. I'm leaning toward the relevant clauses being "the Satyr-pole of your Shade-images, and the Serpent-lightpoint of your Baal-gods, the Asherim-things you made to worship". Then Stephen says it in authoritative reinterpretation, "the lightpoint of your gods the Titan-healers, the images, the things you made to worship". The "point of light" is not an asterism but a shining entity. (I don't know enough about Sikkuth to finish the translation.)

Continued.