There remains to be noticed one passage (2 Sam. xii,
MOLECH
438
MOLECH
31) in wliich the Hebrew written text has '25"?, mal- ken, while the marginal reading is '23p, malben, which is adopted by our translators in their rendering " brick- kiln." Kimchi explains mullcm as '-the place of Mo- lech," where sacrifices were offered to hira, and the children of Ammon made their sons to pass through the fire. jMilcom and Malken, he says, are one. On the other hand, Movers, rejecting the points, reads ")3??, malkdn, " our king," which he explains as the title by which he was known to the Ammonites.
2. liiblical Recount of this Deilt/.— There is some dif- ficulty in ascertaining at what period the Israelites be- came ac([uainted with this idolatry; yet four reasons render it probable that it was before the time of Solo- mon, the date usually assigned for its introduction. First. Jlolech appears — if not under that name, yet un- der the notion that we attach to it — to have been a principal god of the Phoenicians and Canaanites, whose other idolatries the Israelites confessedly adopted ver\' early. Secondly, there are some arguments which tend to connect IMolech with Baal, and, if they be tenable, the worship of Molcch might be essentially as old as that of the latter. Thirdly, if we assume, as there is much apparent ground for doing, that, wherever human sacrifices are mentioned in the Old Testament, we are to understand them as being offered to Jlolech — the ap- parent exception of the gods of Sepharvaim being only a strong evidence of their identity with him — then the remarkable passage in Ezek. xx, 26 (comp. ver. 31) clearly shows that the Israelites sacrificed their first- born by fire when they were in the wilderness. Fourth- ly, the rebuke contained in Amos v, 26, as quoted in Acts vii, 43, appears to imply that some idol similar to this was secretly worshipped as early as the exodus. See Ciiiux. Moreover, tliose who ascribe the Penta- teuch to jNIoses will recognise both the early existence of the worship of this god and the apprehension of its contagion in that express prohibition of his bloody rites which is found in the ^Mosaic law. The offender who devoted his offspring to IMolech was to be put to death by stoning; and in case the people of the land refused to inflict upon him this judgment, Jehovah would him- self execute it, and cut him off from among bis people (Lev. xviii, 21 ; xx, 2-5).
Nevertheless, it is for the first time directly stated that Solomon erected a high place for Molech on the Mount of Olives (1 Kings xi, 7) ; and from that period his worship continued uninterruptedly there, or in To- phet, in the valley of Hinnom, until Josiah defiled both places (2 Kings xxiii, 10, 13). Jehoahaz, however, the son and successor of Josiah, again " did what was evil in the sight of Jehovah, according to all tliat his fathers had done" (2 Kings xxiii, 32). The same broad con- demnation is made against the succeeding kings, Jchoi- akim, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah ; and Ezekiel, writing during the captivity, says, "Do ye, by offering j-our gifts, and by making your sons pass through the fire, pollute yourselves with all your idols until this (hit/, and shall I be iiuiuired of by you?" (xx, 31). After the restoratifin, all traces of this idolatry disappear.
Molech, " the king," was the lord and master of tlie Ammonites; their country was his jwssession (Jer. xlix, 1), as Jloab was the heritage of ( 'hemosh ; the princes of the land were the princes of ;\IaUhani (Jer. xlix, 3; Amos i, 15). His priests were men of rank (Jer. xlix, 3), taking precedence of the princes. So the priest of Hercules at Tyre was second to tlie king (.lustin, xviii, 4, § 5), and like Molech, the god himself, Baal Cham- man, is Melkart, "the kinf/ of the city." The priests of Molech, like those of other idols, were called Chemarim (2 Kings xxiii, 5; Hos. x, 5; Zeph. i, 4).
Most of the Jewish interpreters, Jarchi (on Lev. xviii, 21), Kimclii, and ^Liimonitles (.)for. Xeh. iii, 38) among the number, say that in the worslii]) of Molech the children were not burned, but made to pass between two burning pyres, as a' purificatory rite. But tlie al-
lusions to the actual slaughter are too plain to be mis- taken, and Aben Kzra, in his note on Lev. xviii, 21, says that '• to cause to pass through" is the same as " to burn." "They sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils, and shed innocent blood, the blood of their sons and of their daughters, whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan" (Psa. cvi, 37, 38)." In Jer. vii, 31, the reference to the worship of Jlolech by human sacri- fice is still more distinct : '• They have built the high places of Tophet . , . to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire,'' as " burnt-offerings unto Baal," the sun-god of Tyre, witli whom, or in whose character, IMolech was worshipped (Jer. xix, 5). Compare the statements in Deut. xii, 31; Ezek. xvi, 20, 21; xxiii, 37 ; the last two of which may also be adduced to show that the victims were slaughtered before they were burned. But the most remarkable passage is that in 2 Chron. xxviii, 3, in which the wickedness of Ahaz is described : " Aloreover, he burned incense in the valley of the son of Hinnom, and burned ("^^2*1) his chililrea in the fire, after the abominations of tlie nations whom Jehovah had driven out before the children of Israel." Now, in the parallel narrative of 2 Kings xvi, 3, instead of "i>22i1, "and he burned," the reading is 'l''2"rt, "he made to pass through," and Dr. Geiger suggests that the former may be tlie true reading, of which the latter is an easy modification, serving as a euphemistic ex- pression to disguise the horrible nature of the sacrificial rites. But it is more natural to suppose that it is an exceptional instance, and that the true reading is ~2>^1, than to assume that the other passages have been in- tentionally altered. We may infer from the expression, " after the abominations of the nations whom Jehovah had driven out before the children of Israel," that the character of the Molech-worsliip of the time of Ahaz was essentially the same as that of the old Canaanites, although Movers maintains the contrary.