Moloch

Moloch, or more properly MOLECH, is mentioned in 1 Kings, xi. 7, as the 'abomination of the children of Ammon,' and occurs frequently elsewhere in the Old Testament as the name or title of a divinity occasionally worshipped in the kingdom of Judah with cruel rites. The Hebrew form of the word is invariably Molech, and it always (except perhaps in 1 Kings, xi. 7) has the article ('the Molech'); the occasional variant Moloch in the Authorised Version has come through the Septuagint and Vulgate. The word means 'king,' and is the same (melech) as that which appears in composite form in the names of the divinities Adrammelech and Anammelech (2 Kings, xvii. 31), in the title Melkath (Malk-kart, Melicertes) applied to the Tyrian Baal, and in a large number of compound divine names in Semitic inscriptions; the change from Molech to Molech is due to the later Jews, who gave the word in this connection the vowel-points of Bosheth ('shameful thing'; cf. Mephibaal, Mephibosheth). Of Moloch as a deity of the Ammonites nothing special is recorded, and it is not improbable that in 1 Kings, xi. 7, the only place where he is spoken of as such, the kindred word Milcom or Malecam ought to be read (see the LXX. and compare 1 Kings, xi. 5, 33; 2 Kings, xxiii. 13; Jer. xlix. 1, 3; Zeph. i. 5). In any case the worship of the Ammonite deity in the days of Solomon was essentially distinct from the Moloch worship which at a later date came to be practised in Judah, especially in times of great calamity. The first recorded instance of a worshipper of Jehovah 'making his son to pass through the fire to Moloch' is that of Ahaz (2 Kings, xvi. 3). The same story is told of Manasseh (2 Kings, xxi. 6), and that the practice had become a common one in the course of the 7th century is shown by frequent allusions in Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Book of Leviticus. The victims were slain at the sanctuary (Jer. xix. 4), and afterwards burned as holocausts on a 'tophet' or pyre in the valley of Hinnom (Ge-Hinnom, Gehenna) near Jerusalem (2 Kings, xxiii. 10; Jer. vii. 31, 32; xix. 6, 13, 14); the often quoted description by Rabbinical writers of a calf-headed brazen image of Moloch, in which the children were burned alive, is mere invention. On the general question of the origin of human sacrifice, see SACRIFICE. It is probable that the ritual of Moloch worship was borrowed by the people of Judah from one or other of the surrounding nations; it was practised, we know, by the Moabites (2 Kings, iii. 27). At Jerusalem it has been held that it was intended to propitiate Jehovah, regarded as the national 'Moloch' or 'Baal' or 'King,' though the prophets speaking in Jehovah's name constantly denounced it as un-sanctioned by Him (see Jer. vii. 31; xix. 5). See Baudissin's monograph, Jahve et Moloch (1874).