Moloch

MOLOCH

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Moloch or Molech or Molekh representing Hebrew מלך mlk is either the name of a god or the name of a particular kind of sacrifice associated historically with Phoenician and related cultures in north Africa and the Levant.

Forms and grammar

The Hebrew letters מלך (mlk) usually stands for melek 'king' (Proto-Northwest Semitic malku) but when vocalized as mōlek in Masoretic Hebrew text, they have been traditionally understood as a proper name Μολοχ (molokh) (Proto-Northwest Semitic Mulku) in the corresponding Greek renderings in the Septuagint translation, in Aquila, and in the Greek Targum. The form usually appears in the compound lmlk. The Hebrew preposition l- means 'to', but it can often mean 'for' or 'as a(n)'. Accordingly one can translate lmlk as "to Moloch" or "for Moloch" or "as a Moloch", or "to the Moloch" or "for the Moloch" or "as the Moloch", whatever a "Moloch" or "the Moloch" might be. We also once find hmlk 'the Moloch' standing by itself.

Because there is no difference between mlk 'king' and mlk 'moloch' in unpointed text, interpreters sometimes suggest molek should be understood in certain places where the Masoretic text is vocalized as melek, and vice versa.

Moloch has been traditionally interpreted as the name of a god, possibly a god titled the king, but purposely misvocalized as Molek instead of Melek using the vowels of Hebrew bosheth 'shame'.

Moloch appears in the Hebrew of 1 Kings 11.7 (on Solomon's religious failings):

Then did Solomon build a high place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, in the hill that is before Jerusalem, and lmlk, the abomination of the Sons of Ammon.

But in other passages the god of the Ammonites is named Milcom, not Moloch (see 1 Kings 11.33; Zephaniah 1.5). The Septuagint reads Milcom in 1 Kings 11.7 instead of Moloch which suggests a scribal error in the Hebrew. Many English translations accordingly follow the non-Hebrew versions at this point and render Milcom.

(The form mlkm can also mean 'their king' as well as Milcom and therefore one cannot always be sure in some other passages whether the King of Ammon is intended or the god Milcom.) It has also been suggested that the Ba‘al of Tyre, Melqart 'king of the city' (who was probably the Ba‘al whose worship was furthered by Ahab and his house) was this supposed god Moloch and that Melqart/Moloch was also Milcom the god of the Ammonites and identical with other gods whose names contain mlk. But nothing particularly suggests these identifications other than mlk in the various names.

Amos 5.27 reads in close translation:

But you shall carry Sikkut your king,

and Kiyyun, your images, the star-symbol of your god
which you made for yourself.

The Septuagint renders 'your king' as Moloch, perhaps from a scribal error, whence the verse appears in Acts 7.43:

You have lifted up the shrine of Molech

and the star of your god Rephan,
the idols you made to worship.

Accordingly this association of Moloch with these other gods is probably spurious.

All other references to Moloch use mlk only in the context of "passing children through fire lmlk", whatever is meant by lmlk, whether it means "to Moloch" or means something else. It has traditionally been understood to mean burning children alive to the god Moloch. But some have suggested a rite of purification by fire instead, though perhaps a dangerous one. References to passing through fire without mentioning mlk appear in Deuteronomy 12.31, 18.10–13; 2 Kings 21.6; Ezekiel 20.26,31; 23.37. So the existence of this practice is well documented. For a comparable practice of rendering infants immortal by passing them through the fire, indirectly attested in early Greek myth, see the entries for Thetis and also the myth of Demeter as the nurse of Demophon.

Traditional accounts and theories

The 12th century rabbi Rashi, commenting on Jeremiah 7.31 stated:

Tophet is Moloch, which was made of brass; and they heated him from his lower parts; and his hands being stretched out, and made hot, they put the child between his hands, and it was burnt; when it vehemently cried out; but the priests beat a drum, that the father might not hear the voice of his son, and his heart might not be moved.

A different rabbinical tradition says that the idol was hollow and was divided into seven compartments, in one of which they put flour, in the second turtle-doves, in the third a ewe, in the fourth a ram, in the fifth a calf, in the sixth an ox, and in the seventh a child, which were all burnt together by heating the statue inside.

Later commentators have compared these accounts with similar ones from Greek and Latin sources speaking of the offering of children by fire as sacrifices in the Punic city of Carthage, which was a Phoenician colony. Cleitarchus, Diodorus Siculus and Plutarch all mention burning of children as an offering to Cronus or Saturn, that is to Ba‘al Hammon, the chief god of Carthage.

Paul G. Mosca in his thesis (described below) translates Cleitarchus' paraphrase of a scholia to Plato's Republic as:

There stands in their midst a bronze statue of Kronos, its hands extended over a bronze brazier, the flames of which engulf the child. When the flames fall upon the body, the limbs contract and the open mouth seems almost to be laughing until the contracted body slips quietly into the brazier. Thus it is that the 'grin' is known as 'sardonic laughter,' since they die laughing.

From The Toronto Blessing Unmasked

*audio file*

"....demonic 'sardonic' laughter...."

Diodorus Siculus (20.14) wrote:

There was in their city a bronze image of Cronus extending its hands, palms up and sloping toward the ground, so that each of the children when placed thereon rolled down and fell into a sort of gaping pit filled with fire.

Diodorus also relates relatives were forbidden to weep and that when Agathocles defeated Carthage, the Carthaginian nobles believed they had displeased the gods by substituting low-born children for their own children. They attempted to make amends by sacrificing 200 children at once, children of the best families, and in their enthusiasm actually sacrificed 300 children.

Plutarch wrote in De Superstitiones 171:

... the whole area before the statue was filled with a loud noise of flutes and drums so that the cries of wailing should not reach the ears of the people.

It seemed to many commentators that this Cronus or Saturn must also be Moloch. However, disturbingly, nineteenth century and early twentieth century archaelogy found almost no evidence of a god called something like Moloch or Molech. Rabbinical traditions about other gods mentioned in the Tanach appeared to be unreliable, just Jewish legends which raised reasonable doubt about what was said about Moloch. The descriptions of Moloch might be simply taken from accounts of the sacrifice to Cronus and from the tale of the Minotaur. No bull-headed Phoenician god was known. This did not hold back some from identifying Moloch with Milcom, with the Tyrian god Melqart, with Ba‘al Hammon to whom children were purportedly sacrificed, and with any other god called 'Lord' (Ba‘al) or (Bel). These various suggested equations combined with the popular solar theory hypotheses of the day generated a single theoretical sun god Baal, a modern meta-mythical being who was otherwise whatever the theorist wished him to be.

Eissfeldt's theory: a type of sacrifice

In 1921 Otto Eissfeldt, excavating in Carthage, discovered inscriptions with the word mlk which in the context meant neither 'king' nor the name of any god. He concluded that it was instead a term for a particular kind of sacrifice, one which at least in some cases involved human sacrifice. A relief was found showing a priest holding a child. Also uncovered was a sanctuary to the goddess Tanit comprising a cemetery with thousands of burned bodies of animal and of human infants, dating from the 8th century BCE down to the destruction of Carthage in 146 BCE. Eissfeldt identified the site as a tophet, using a Hebrew word of previously unknown meaning connected to the burning in some Biblical passages. Most of the children's bodies appeared to be those of newborns, but some were older, up to about six years of age.

Eissfeldt further concluded that the Hebrew writings were not talking about a god Moloch at all, but about the molk or mulk sacrifice, that the abomination was not in worshipping a god Molech who demanded children be sacrificed to him, but in the practice of sacrificing human children as a molk. Quite possibly this sacrifice of first-born children as a molk was even offered up at times to Yahweh himself, although relevant Scriptural passages depict Yahweh condemning such practices.

Similar "tophets" have since been found at Carthage and other places in North Africa, and in Sardinia, Malta, Sicily . In late 1990 a possible tophet consisting of cinerary urns containing bones and ashes and votive objects was retrieved from ransacking on the mainland just outside of Tyre in the Phoenician homeland [1].

Further discussion of Eissfeldt's theories unfolded.

Biblical texts

The pertinent Biblical texts follow in very literal translation. The word here translated literally as 'seed' very often means offspring. The forms containing mlk have been left untranslated. The reader may substitute either "to Moloch" or "as a molk".

Leviticus 18.21

And you shall not let any of your seed pass through lmlk, neither shall you profane the name of your God: I am Yahweh.

Leviticus 20.2–5:

Again, you shall say to the Sons of Israel: Whoever he be of the Sons of Israel or of the strangers that sojourn in Israel, that gives any of his seed lmlk; he shall surely be put to death: the people of the land shall stone him with stones. And I will set my face against that man and will cut him off from among his people; because he has given of his seed lmlk, to defile my sanctuary, and to profane my holy name. And if the people of the land do at all hide their eyes from that man, when he gives of his seed lmlk, and do not kill him, then I will set my face against that man, and against his family, and will cut him off, and all that go astray after him, whoring after hmlk from among the people.

2 Kings 23.10 (on King Josiah's reform):

And he defiled the Tophet, which is in the valley of Ben-hinnom, that no man might make his son or his daughter pass through the fire lmlk.

Jeremiah 32.35:

And they built the high places of the Ba‘al, which are in the valley of Ben-hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire lmlk; which I did not command them, nor did it come into my mind that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin.

Mosca's theories about offerings to Yahweh

Paul G. Mosca'a dissertation "Child Sacrifice in Canaanite and Israelite Religion: A Study in Mulk and Molech", 1975, revived and extended earlier theories that the sacrifice of children to Yahweh was accepted until late in Judah's history, an idea largely based on the problematic passage Ezekiel 20.25–26 in which Ezekiel has Yahweh say:

Moreover I gave them laws which are not good and rules by which they cannot live: When they set aside every first issue of the womb, I defiled them by their very gifts – in that they caused to pass through fire all that opens the womb, that I might render them desolate, that they might know that I am Yahweh.

Commentators have interpreted this verse in different ways over the centuries. The consensus seems to be strongly against a belief that the theology of the era depicted Yahweh desiring that the Israelites should conduct human sacrifice; indeed the remainder of Ezekiel c.20 depicts Yahweh condemning the rebellion of the Israelites against Yahweh, and swearing that "you will hear me in the end" (after they stop profaning Yahweh's "Holy Name").

Targum Jonathan followed by Rashi claimed that vv.25-26 mean that God increased the evil tendencies of the Israelites. Kimchi claimed the passage referred to God giving Judah into the governance of foreign powers whose statutes and law (including some religious statues and laws) Judah was forced to obey, an explanation accepted John Gill in his Exposition of the Whole Bible and which appears as a note in the Douay-Rheims Bible. Meir Loeb Malbim (1809–1879) claimed that the verse was ironic, intended to be a false claim by Israelites who had sinned. John Wesley in his Explanatory Notes explained simply that Yahweh permitted the people to defile themselves. The 1960s Jerusalem Bible, an ecumenical effort, indicates that the theology of that era was such that people attributed to Yahweh actions for which they were themselves to blame.

Mosca notes that though the Deuteronomist editor blames the kings of Judah and the people for passing their sons through fire, he believes that neither Isaiah nor any other of the early prophets seem to do so, perhaps, he thinks, because the molk offering was then acceptable. Mosca believes that Isaiah 30.33 uses molk imagery directed at the King of Assyria, arguing that in the context of a Topheth the line traditionally understood to mean "Indeed, it is installed for the king (lmlk) better fits the imagery if instead taken to mean "He himself is installed as a molk sacrifice:

For his Topheth has long been prepared,
He himself is installed as a victim (lmlk).
Yahweh has made its fire-pit deep and wide,
With fire and wood in abundance.
The breath of Yahweh, like a torrent of sulphur, sets it ablaze!

(See also LMLK seals in reference to vegetable offerings to a deity named "MLK" (possibly Yahweh) or the Judean king/government/cult [Grena, 2004].)

Discussion of Eissfeldt's theory

From the beginning there were some who doubted Eissfeldt's theory but opposition was only sporadic until 1970. Prominent archaeologist Sabatino Moscati (who had accepted Eissfeldt's idea, like most others) changed his opinion and spoke against it. Others followed.

The arguments were that classical accounts of the sacrifices of children at Carthage were not numerous and were only particularly described as occurring in times of peril, not necessarily a regular occurrence. Might not the burned bodies of infants be mostly those of stillborn children or of children who had died very young of natural causes? Might not the burning of their bodies be a religious practice applied in such cases? Need one assume the burning of live children? Could the accounts be not be anti-Punic propaganda? Why were accusations of human sacrifice in Carthage found only among a small number of authors and not mentioned at all by many other writers who dealt with Carthage in greater depth or were more openly hostile to Carthage? Some accounts of the sacrifices described the children as lads and lasses, hardly infants.

Texts referring to the molk sacrifice mentioned animals more than they mentioned humans. Of course, those may have been animals offered instead of humans to redeem a human life. And the Biblical decrying of the sacrificing of one's children as a molk sacrifice doesn't indicate one way or the other that all molk sacrifices must involve human child sacrifice or even that a molk usually involved human sacrifice.

It was pointed out the phrase whoring after was elsewhere only used about seeking other gods, not about particular religious practices. And should one so casually turn aside from the Greek translation made by those who may have known far more about such things than we will ever know to say that lmlk must mean 'as a molk offering' and not 'to Moloch'?

Eissfeldt's use of the Biblical word tophet was criticized as arbitrary. Even those who believed in Eissfeldt's general theory mostly took tophet to mean something like 'hearth' in the Biblical context, not a cemetery of some kind.

The detractors gained in numbers.

John Day, in his book Molech: A God of Human Sacrifice in the Old Testament (Cambridge, 1989; ISBN 0521364744), again put forth the argument that there was indeed a particular god named Molech, citing a god mlk from two Ugaritic serpent charms, and an obscure god Malik/Malku from some god lists who in two texts was equated with Nergal, the Mesopotamian god of the underworld. A god of the underwolrd is just the kind of god one might worship in the valley of Ben-Hinnom rather than on a hill top.

The debate remains hung, waiting for more evidence, some still strongly supporting Eissfeldt's theory and others decrying it as an erroneous interpretation of what has been found. It is for some a touchy issue with accusations of racial bias occasionally being made.

Moloch in medieval texts

Like some other gods and demons found in the Bible, Moloch appears as part of medieval demonology, as a Prince of Hell. This Moloch finds particular pleasure in making mothers weep; for he specialises in stealing their children. According to some 16th century demonologists Moloch's power is stronger in December.

It is likely that motif of stealing children was inspired by the traditional understanding that babies were sacrificed to Moloch.

Flaubert's conception

Salammbô, a sensationalist semi-historical novel about Carthage by Gustave Flaubert published in 1888 was extraordinarily successful. Flaubert imaginatively and not without reasonable scholarship, created his own version of the Carthaginian religion, including known Carthaginian gods such as Ba‘al Hammon, Khamon, Melkarth and Tanith. But he also included the god Moloch, and made Moloch rather than Khamon to be the god to whom the Carthaginians offered children. Flaubert described this Moloch mostly according to the Rabbinic descriptions but with his own additions. From chapter 7:

Then further back, higher than the candelabrum, and much higher than the altar, rose the Moloch, all of iron, and with gaping apertures in his human breast. His outspread wings were stretched upon the wall, his tapering hands reached down to the ground; three black stones bordered by yellow circles represented three eyeballs on his brow, and his bull's head was raised with a terrible effort as if in order to bellow.

Chapter 13 describes luridly how, in desperate attempt to call down rain, the image of Moloch was brought to the center of Carthage, how the arms of the image were moved by the pulling of chains by the priests (apparently Flaubert's own invention), and then describes the sacrifices made to Moloch. First grain and animals of various kinds were placed in compartments within the statue (as in the Rabbinic account). Then the children were offered, at first a few, and then more and more.

The brazen arms were working more quickly. They paused no longer. Every time that a child was placed in them the priests of Moloch spread out their hands upon him to burden him with the crimes of the people, vociferating: "They are not men but oxen!" and the multitude round about repeated: "Oxen! oxen!" The devout exclaimed: "Lord! eat!" .......

From the Toronto Blessing Unmasked

*audio file*

"....Dine Satan Master Dine..."

...........and the priests of Proserpine, complying through terror with the needs of Carthage, muttered the Eleusinian formula: "Pour out rain! bring forth!" The victims, when scarcely at the edge of the opening, disappeared like a drop of water on a red-hot plate, and white smoke rose amid the great scarlet colour. Nevertheless, the appetite of the god was not appeased. He ever wished for more. In order to furnish him with a larger supply, the victims were piled up on his hands with a big chain above them which kept them in their place. Some devout persons had at the beginning wished to count them, to see whether their number corresponded with the days of the solar year; but others were brought, and it was impossible to distinguish them in the giddy motion of the horrible arms. This lasted for a long, indefinite time until the evening. Then the partitions inside assumed a darker glow, and burning flesh could be seen. Some even believed that they could descry hair, limbs, and whole bodies. Night fell; clouds accumulated above the Baal. The funeral-pile, which was flameless now, formed a pyramid of coals up to his knees; completely red like a giant covered with blood, he looked, with his head thrown back, as though he were staggering beneath the weight of his intoxication.

Director Giovanni Pastrone's very popular silent film Cabiria released in 1914 was largely based on Salammbo and included an enormous image of Moloch modeled on Flaubert's description. Elizabeth Dilling quoted Flaubert's descriptions as factual in her notorious anti-Jewish The Plot Against Christianity re-released under the title The Jewish Religion: Its Influence Today. Information from the novel and film still finds its way into what purports to be serious writing about Moloch, Melqart, Carthage, Ba‘al Hammon and so forth.

Moloch as metaphor in modern art

The idol Moloch that devours its follower's children has appeared in at least two modern works of art. In Fritz Lang's 1927 dystopian film Metropolis, the hero, Freder, when he first witnesses the proletariat workers horrible conditions and watches an accident occur, has a delusion where the enormous machines of the city become anthropomorphic, with flaming mouths. The workers carry their children to the machines and cast them in, and Freder calls "Moloch!", recognizing the ancient god. "Moloch" also features prominently in the second part of Allen Ginsberg's poem Howl. In that work, Moloch is generally interpreted as representing American consumerism. In Alexandr Sokurov's 1999 film Moloch about Adolf Hitler, Moloch is of course a metaphor for the German Führer.

Moloch in literature

In Milton's Paradise Lost, Moloch is one of the greatest warriors of the rebel angels, vengeful and militant,

"besmeared with blood

Of human sacrifice, and parents' tears."

He is listed among the chief of Satan's angels in Book I, and is given a speech at the parliament of Hell in Book 2:43 - 105, where he argues for immediate warfare against God. He later becomes revered as a pagan god on Earth.

In Ginsberg's "Howl", Moloch is heavily mentioned in the second section.

Moloch in popular culture

* In a scene from Fritz Lang's silent film classic Metropolis, the character Feder witnesses a vision in which a giant machine is transformed into the demonic face of Moloch, into whose fiery maw are driven rows of chained slaves.

* Janko Kač, a Slovene writer, has written a book called Moloh(Moloch). Within that title he allegorically presented a textile factory in Prebold, which has been devouring poor workers, pushing them as far as attempting to burn it, but the woman who tried to do that, ended her agony in a small lake.

* An episode of the popular television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer named "I Robot, You Jane" (Season 1) featured a demon named Moloch. In this episode, the character Moloch "The Corruptor" came to inhabit the internet, built a robot body for himself and was eventually defeated by Buffy.

* In the video game Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance, the boss-character Moloch is a powerful Oni, a demonic member of the Dragon King's army.

* Molochs feature as powerful demonic enemies in the roguelike computer game ADOM.

* In the core Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting and other settings, including the Forgotten Realms and Planescape, Moloch is a deposed archdevil of the Nine Hells of Baator. Originally ruler of the mountainous sixth layer Malbolge, he unsuccessfully rebelled against Asmodeus in the Reckoning. Moloch's advisor and consort The Hag Countess was installed as ruler of Malbolge in his place.

* In modern Hebrew language the expression sacrifice something/someone to the Molech means to give up something valuable or harm someone for an utterly worthless cause.

* The episode of The Outer Limits named Resurrection features a story where mankind and all other mammal life becomes extinct, with androids left to rule the world. The android in charge of keeping the robot community safe is named Moloch. In the episode a robot clones a human 'Cain' from a strand of hair, and Moloch tries to find and destroy the human.

* In the Wizards of the Coast TCG Hecatomb base set, Moloch is one of the rare God cards.

"King". The sun god of the Canaanites (Ammonites?) in old Palestine and sometimes associated with the Sumerian Baal, although Moloch (or Molekh) was entirely malevolent. In the 8th-6th century BCE, firstborn children were sacrificed to him by the Israelites in the Valleye of Hinnom, south-east of Jerusalem (see also Gehenna). These sacrifices to the sun god were made to renew the strength of the sun fire. This ritual was probably borrowed from surrounding nations, and was also popular in ancient Carthage.

Moloch was represented as a huge bronze statue with the head of a bull. The statue was hollow, and inside there burned a fire which colored the Moloch a glowing red. Children were placed on the hands of the statue. Through an ingenious system the hands were raised to the mouth (as if Moloch were eating) and the children fell into the fire where they were consumed by the flames. The people gathered before the Moloch were dancing on the sounds of flutes and tambourines to drown out the screams of the victims.

According to some sources, the Moloch in the Old Testament is not a god, but a specific form of sacrifice.

(in Hebrew, with the doubtful exception of 1 Kings xi. 7, always the Molech ), the name or title of the divinity which the men of Judah in the last ages of the kingdom were wont to propitiate by the sacrifice of their own children. According to the Hebrew consonants it might simply be read the king (mlek), an appellation for the supreme deity of a Semitic state or tribe. The traditional pronunciation (MoX~), which goes back as far as the Septuagint version of Kings, probably means that the old form was perverted by giving it the vowels of bosheth shame, the contemptuous name for BaaI (q.v.). In I Kings xi. 7 (see above) it is the name of the god of the Ammonites, elsewhere called Milcom or Malcam; but it appears from 2 Kings xxiii. 10, 13 that the worship of Milcom at the shrine set up by Solomon was distinct from Molech worship, and the text should probably therefore be emended to the longer form (so the Septuagint).

The phrase employed in speaking of these sacrifices is that of dedication to make ones son or daughter pass through (or by means of) fire to (the) Molech (2 Kings xxiii. 10; but elsewhere without the words through fire Lev. xviii. 21); and it appears from Jer. vii. 31, xix. 5; Ezek. xvi. 20 seq., that this phrase denotes a human holocaust,f and not, as sometimes has been thought, a mere consecration to Molech by passing through or between fires, as in the Roman Palilia and similar rites elsewhere (on which see Frazer, Golden Bough, 2nd ed., ii. 40 sqq., iii. 237 sqq.). Human sacrifice was common in Semitic heathenism, and at least the idea of such sacrifices was not unknown to Israel from early times (see ISAAC; JEPIrrHAII).2 We learn from 2 Kings iii. 27 that the piacular sacrifice of his son and heir was the last offering which the king of Moab made to deliver his country. Even the Hebrew historian ascribes to this act the effect of rousing divine indignation against the invading host of Israel; it would not, therefore, be surprising if under the miseries brought on Palestine by the westward march of the Assyrian power, the idea of the sacrifice of ones own son, as the most powerful of atoning rites, should have taken hold of those kings of Judah (Ahaz and Manasseh, 2 Kings xvi. 3, xxi. 6) who were otherwise prone, in their hopelessness of help from the old religion (Isa. vii. 12), to seek to strange peoples and their rites. Ahazs sacrifice of his son (which indeed rests on a somewhat late authority) was apparently an isolated act of despair, since human sacrifices are not among the corruptions of the popular religion spoken of by Isaiah and Micah. In the 7th century, however, when the old worship had sustained rude shocks, and all religion was transformed into servile fear (Mic. vi. I seq.), the example of Manasseh did not stand alone, and Jeremiah and Ezekiel made frequent and indignant reference to the high places for the sacrifice of children by their parents which rose beneath the very walls of the temple from the gloomy ravine of Hinnom or Tophet.3 (Jer. vii. 31, xix., xxxii. 35; Ezek. xvi. x8 sqq., xxiii. 37). The children apparently were not burned alive; they were slain and burned .........

From The Toronto Blessing Unmasked

*audio file*

"....Fire from the Devil....Fire from heaven...."

...............like any other holocaust (Ezek. bc. cit.; Isa. lvii. ~), their blood was shed at the sanctuary (Jer. xix. 4; Ps. cvi. 38). Thus the late Rabbinical picture of the calf-headed brazen image of Molech within which children were burned alive is pure fable, and with it falls the favorite comparison between Molech and the Carthaginian idol from whose brazen arms children were rolled into an abyss of fire, and whom Diodorus (xlx. 14) naturally identifies with the child-eater Kronos, thus leading many moderns to make Molech the planet Saturn.

It is with these sacrifices that the name of the Molech is always connected; sometimes the Baal (lord) appears as a synonym. At the same time, the horrid ritual was so closely associated with Yahweh worship (Ezek. xxiii. 39) that Jeremiah more than once finds it necessary to protest that it is not of Yahwehs institution (vii. 31, xix. ~). So too it is the idea of sacrificing the firstborn to Yahweh that is discussed and rejected in Micah vi. It is indeed plain that such a sacrificefor we have here to do, not with human victims in general, but with the sacrifice of the dearest earthly thing could only be paid to the supreme deity; and Manasseh and his people never ceased tO acknowledge Yahweh as the God of Israel. Thus the way in which Jeremiah (Jer. xix. 5) and the legislation of Leviticus (xviii. 21, xx. 25) and the author of Kings, seem to mark out the Molech or Baal as a false god, distinct from Yahweh, is precisely parallel to the way in which Ilosea speaks of the golden calves or Baaiim. In each case the people thought themselves to be worshipping Yahweh under the title of Molech or Baal; but the prophet refuses to admit that this is so, because the worship itself is an apostasy to heathenism. Note, also, the attitude of Ezekiel in xx. 25 seq., 31, references which cannot be explained away.

Although the motive came from within, the form taken by the cult has appeared to many to be of non-Israelite origin. Babylonia and Assyria, however, seem to be out of the question:

malik, arbiter, decider, is there an epithet of various gods, and as an appellative means prince and not king; further, little The etymology of the word Tophet is obscure; it is possibly of Aramaic origin and means fire-place, cf. tophteh, pyre, (Isa. xxx. 33). The vocalization is artificial, the Masoretes ,having given it the vowel-points of bsheth. See W. R. Smith, Religion of the Semites, 2nd ed., 377.

evidence for the prevalence of human sacrifice has as yet been found in those lands (A. Jerernias, Das Alte Test. im Lichte d. alten Orients, 2nd ed., p. 454). Among the Canaanite branch, the king-god is more prominent, and apart from the Ammonite variant Milcom, numerous names compounded with Milk- are found on Phoenician inscriptions and among western Semites mentioned in cuneiform literature (H. Zimmern, Keilinsclzr. u. das Alte Test., 3rd ed. pp. 470 sqq.). It is true that child sacrifice in connection with fire prevailed among the Phoenicians, and, accqrding to the Greeks, the deity honored with these grisly rites was Kronos (identified with the Phoenician El, God ). On the other hand, the seat of the cult appears to have been at Jerusalem, and the period during which it flourished does not favor any strong Phoenician influence. Again, the form of the word Tophet and Ahazs association with Damascus might point to an Aramaean origin for the cult; but it would not be safe to support this view by the statements and names in 2 Kings xvii. 31. On the whole, the biblical tradition that the Molech-cult was Canaanite and indigenous (Deut. xii. 29 sqq., xviii. 9 seq.) holds the ground. There was a tendency in time of misfortune to revert to earlier rites (illustrated in some ancient mourning customs), and it may have been some old disused practice revived under the pressure of national distress.

See, generally, G. F. Moore, Ency. Bib., S.D.; Lagrange, Etudes sur les religions smitiques 2nd ed. pp. 99109; B. Stade, Bib. Theol. d. Alt. Test. i. 232 seq., 244 seq.; J. G. Frazer, Adonis, &c., 2nd ed. pp. 144 seq. 401 sqq; and J. A. Montgomery, Journ. Bib. Lii., 1908, I. 40 sqq. On archaeological evidence for human sacrifice from Palestinian soil, see H. Vincent, Canaan daprbs lexploration rcente, pp. 50, 116, I89sqq. (W. R. S.; S. A. C.)

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Chemosh, was the god of the Moabites (Num. 21:29; Jer. 48:7, 13, 46). The word Chemosh meant the destroyer, subduer, or fish-god. Chemosh also means five in semitic languages.

According to the Christian Bible, the worship of this god, "the abomination of Moab," was introduced at Jerusalem by Solomon (1 Kings 11:7), but was abolished by Josiah (2 Kings 23:13). On the Moabite stone, Mesha (2 Kings 3:5) ascribed his victories over the king of Israel to this god, "And Chemosh drove him before my sight."

Le 18:21 And thou shalt not let any of thy seed pass through the fire to Molech, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I am the LORD.

2Ki 21:6 And he made his son pass through the fire, and observed times, and used enchantments, and dealt with familiar spirits and wizards: he wrought much wickedness in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger.

Jer 32:35 And they built the high places of Baal, which are in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire unto Molech; which I commanded them not, neither came it into my mind, that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin.

Eze 20:26 And I polluted them in their own gifts, in that they caused to pass through the fire all that openeth the womb, that I might make them desolate, to the end that they might know that I am the LORD.

Lu 17:29 But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all.

Ge 19:24 Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven;