Moloch

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Moloch

Moloch (also rendered as Molech or Molekh, representing the Hebrew מלך mlk) is a Canaanite god associated in the Old Testament with human sacrifice. Alternately, some scholars have suggested that the term refers to a particular kind of sacrifice carried out by the Pheonicians and their neighbours rather than a specific god, though this theory has been widely rejected. Although Moloch is referred to sparingly in the Old Testament texts, the significance of the god and/or the sacrificial ritual cannot be underestimated, as the Isrealite writers vehemently reject the related practices, regarding them as murderous and idolotrous. The figure of Moloch has also been an object of fascination for many creative minds, and has been used to bolster metaphorical and thematic elements within numerous modern works of art, film, and literature. While no particular form of Moloch is known due to the ambiguity of his origin, he is usually depicted in the form of a calf or an ox, or else as a man with the head of a bull.

Etymology

The Hebrew letters מלך (mlk) usually stand for melek or simply the King, and were used to refer to the status of the sacrificial god within his cult. Nineteenth century and early twentieth century archaeology has found almost no physical evidence of a god referred to as Moloch or by any similar epithet. Thus, if such a god did exist, Moloch was not the name he was known by among his worshippers, but rather a Hebrew transliteration. The term usually appears in the Old Testament text as 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", "for Moloch", "as a Moloch", "to the Moloch", "for the Moloch" or "as the Moloch", whatever a "Moloch" or "the Moloch" might be. We also find hmlk 'the Moloch' standing by itself on one occassion. The written form Moloch (in the Septuagint Greek translation of the Old Testament), or Molech (Hebrew), is no different than the word Melek or king, which is purposely misvocalized by interposing the vowels of the Hebrew term bosheth or 'shameful thing'. This distortion allows the term to express the compunction felt by Israelites who witnessed their brethren worshipping this god of human sacrifices, and in doing so prevents them from giving noble status of "king" to what was for all intents and purposes, a false idol.

Molech and other gods

A variety of scholars have suggested that Moloch is not an original god himself, but actually an alternative moniker given to another god or gods from cultures who lived in proximity to the Israelites. For instance, some scholars hold that Moloch is actually the Ammonite god Milcom, due to the phonological similarity of the names. While the names are indeed similar, the Old Testament text clearly differentiates between these dieties on several occassions, most notably when referring to the national god of the Ammonites (Milcom) and the god of human sacrifice (Moloch). In other passages the god of the Ammonites is named Milcom, not Moloch (see 1 Kings 11.33; Zephaniah 1.5). Further, the Old Testament mostly refers to Molech as Canaanite, rather than Ammonite. The Septuagint refers to Milcom in 1 Kings 11.7 when referring to Solomon's religious failings, instead of Moloch, which may have resulted from a scribal error in the Hebrew. Many English translations accordingly follow the non-Hebrew versions at this point and render Milcom.

Other scholars have claimed that Moloch is merely another name for Ba'al, the Sacred Bull who was widely worshipped in the ancient Near East and wherever Carthaginian culture extended. Ba'al is also frequently mentioned in the Old Testament, sometimes even in proximity to Moloch. Jeremiah 32.35, for instance, refers to rituals dedicated to Baal in the Hinnom valley, with the offering of child sacrifices to Moloch. Allusions made to Moloch in the context of the Canaanite fertily cult, which was headed by Baal, also suggest a close relationship between the two figures. Further, the bible commonly makes reference to burnt offerings being given to Baal himself. While these examples could be interpreted to suggest that Moloch and Baal refer to the same god, it more likely refers to the acknowledgement of their close relationship. Again, the fact a distinct name is used in the context of sacrifice suggests that Moloch can only be related to Baal(perhaps in the faculty of a henotheistic underling) rather than equated with him.

The fact that the god is consistently called by this name Melek and not any other suggests that Molech is the name of a distinct deity. John Day, in his book Molech: A God of Human Sacrifice in the Old Testament claims that there was indeed a Canaanite god whose name was rendered Melek in the Old Testament. Day cites evidence of this god from the Ugraritic texts, which are serpent charms, where he appears as Malik. Malik, he claims, is equivalent to Nergal, the Mesopotamian god of the underworld who is listed upon godlists from ancient Babylonia. Day concludes that this evidence is consistent with Moloch's malevolent status in the Old Testament, such as Isaiah (57.9) where the prophetparallels sacrifice to Moloch with a journey into the underground world of Sheol. A god of the underworld is just the kind of god one might worship in the valley of Ben-Hinnom rather than on a hill top. Day also notes that the phrase whoring after which is commonly related to Moloch, was used elsewhere in the bible only in regards to seeking other gods, and not about particular religious practices.

Old Testament

Molech has most often been characterized in the Old Testament by the phrase "to cause to pass through the fire," (h'byrb's in Hebrew) as is used in 2 Kings 23.10. Although this term does not specificy on its own whether the ritual related to Moloch involves human sacrifice or not, the Old Testament clearly interprets it to be so. For example, Isaiah 57.5 states that:

you who burn with lust among the oaks, under every luxuriant tree; who slay your children in the valleys, under the clefts of rocks

Four verses later, Moloch is mentioned specifically:

You journeyed to Molech with oil and multiplied your perfumes; you sent your envoys far off, and sent down even to Sheol. (Isaiah 57.9)

This reference to the underworld suggests that the fate of children is to be sent to death at the hands of Molech. Thus, although Moloch's role in the Old Testament is small, it is nonetheless important, as his worship most clearly illustrates the more brutal aspects of idolatry and therefore reinforces the second commandment. Leviticus 18.21 reads:

And you shall not let any of your seed pass through Mo'lech, neither shall you profane the name of your God: I am the Lord.

This passage can be taken to suggest that the Moloch cult has been borrowed by the Israelites from the Canaanites, as it appears amidst a listing of violations which are distinctly Canaanite, such as homosexuality (18.22) and bestiality (18.23). The brutal and idolatrous worship given to Molech is provided among these other trangressions to juxtapose correct worship in the Israelite tradition with the incorrect forms practiced by the people of Canaan.

Leviticus 20.2-5 reinforces this point, dealing with Moloch at length and promising a punishment of death by stoning for perpetration of human sacrifices:

Whoever he be of the Sons of Israel or of the strangers that sojourn in Israel, that gives any of his seed Mo'lech; 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 Mo'lech, 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 Mo'lech, 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 Mo'lech from among the people.

Here it becomes evident that it is not only worship of Moloch that is a transgression. Failure to identify and punish worshippers of Moloch is also considered to be a grave sin. As well, the metaphor of prostitution is used in order to convey the sense of spiritual adultery which is being committed against Yahweh through the worship of Moloch.

These passages suggest that disdain for Moloch arose due to his worship in addition to that given to Yahweh, thereby affirming an idolotrous multiplicity of gods. Alternately, Moloch's worship may have been forbidden based on the fact that he was actually equated with Yahweh. The prose sections of Jeremiah suggest that there were some worshippers of Moloch who thought Yahweh had commanded the offerings to Moloch based upon the sacrifices of the first-born which are mentioned in the Pentateuch (for instance, Exodus 22.28). Jeremiah 32.35 reads:

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 Mo'lech; which I did not command them, nor did it come into my mind that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin.

This wording suggests that the Israelites may have erroneously developed the idea that Yahweh had decreed such sacrifices as were given to Moloch. This theory that Moloch was equated with Yahweh is questionable in reality, however, as sacrifices to Moloch were undertaken away from the temple in the valley of Hinnom, in a place commonly referred to as Tophet (as mentioned in 2 Kgs 23.10, Jer. 7.31-32, 19.6, 11-14).

Traditional accounts and theories

Greco-Roman Sources

The Old Testament accounts of sacrifices to Moloch bear considerable similarity with accounts from Greek and Roman sources describing offerings of children as sacrifices by way of fire in the Punic city of Carthage, a Phoenician colony. Cleitarchus, Diodorus Siculus and Plutarch all mention burning of children as an offering to Cronus or Saturn, that is, their equivalent to Ba‘al Hammon, who was the chief god of Carthage. For example, Plutarch wrote in De Superstitiones 13:

... they themselves offered up their own children (...) meanwhile the mother stood by without tear or moan (...) and her child was sacrificed nevertheless; and 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.

Similarly, Diodorus Siculus (20.14) wrote the following of the Carthagians:

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 notes that 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. However, all of these interpretations must be interpreted with caution, as there was much polemical propoganda circulated about Carthagians by both Greeks and Romans alike, as Carthagians were perceived to be the enemy.

Rabbinical Tradition

The significance of Moloch was elaborated and speculated upon by numersous post-biblical thinkers, Jewish and non-Jewish. The 12th century rabbi Rashi stated that the cult of Moloch involved a father conceding his son to pagan priests, who then passed a child between two flaming pyres. Rashi, as well as other rabbinic commentators, interpreted human sacrifice to Moloch as being adulterous, as it solidified allegiance to a false god. Such an interpretation in terms of idolatry made the biblical laws seem more pertinent in the 12th century, as the prevalence of human sacrifice had long since tapered away. Commenting on Jeremiah 7.31, Rashi stated that Moloch

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.

Another rabbinical tradition says that the idol was hollow and divided into seven compartments, each of which contained an separate offering for the god. In the first compartment was 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, all of which were burnt together by heating the statue inside. Rabinnic tradition also connected the term Tophet to the Hebrew root tpp, which supposedly refers to the sound of burning children. However, it should be noted that such Rabbinical speculations about other gods mentioned in the Tanach are unreliable, having been culled mostly from Jewish legends, which raises reasonable doubt as to what they said about Moloch. Later commentators have compared these accounts with the aforementioned Greek and Latin sources describing child sacrifices made by the Carthagians. Such descriptions may have simply been taken from these accounts of sacrifices to Cronus, as well as from the myth of the Minotaur.

Moloch in medieval texts

Like some other gods and demons found in the Bible, Moloch appears as part of medieval demonology, primarily as a Prince of Hell. This Moloch specialises in making mothers weep, as he takes particular pleasure from stealing their children. According to some 16th century demonologists, Moloch's power is stronger in October. It is likely that the motif of stealing children was inspired by the traditional understanding that babies were sacrificed to Moloch. Moloch was alternately conceived of in such accounts as a rebellious angel.

Molech as a type of sacrifice

Eissfeldt's Discovery

It was widely held that Moloch was a god until 1935 when Otto Eissfeldt, a German archaeologist, published a radical new theory based upon excavations he had made in Carthage. During these excavations he made several telling discoveries, most importantly that of a relief showing a priest holding a child, as well as a sanctuary to the goddess Tanit comprising a cemetery with thousands of burned bodies of animal and of human infants. He concluded that mlk in Hebrew was instead a term used to refer to a particular kind of sacrifice, rather than a specific god, since mlk (molk) is a Punic term for sacrifice. This sacrifice, he claimed, involved humans in some cases cases. The abomination described in the Hebrew writings, then, was occured not in the worship a god Molech who demanded children be sacrificed to him, but rather in the practice of sacrificing human children as a molk. Hebrews were strongly opposed to sacrificing first-born children as a molk to Yahweh himself. Eissfelt also speculated that the practice may also have been conducted by their neighbors in Canaan.

Eissfeldt's theory is supported by the aforementioned classical sources which suggests that the Punic culture practiced human sacrifice as well as the archaelogical evidence. Thus, Eissfeldt identified the site as a tophet, using a Hebrew word of previously unknown meaning connected to the burning of human beings in some Biblical passages. Similar "tophets" have since been found at Carthage and other places in North Africa, as well as in Sardinia, Malta, Sicily. In late 1990 a possible tophet consisting of cinerary urns containing bones, ashes and votive objects was retrieved from ransacking on the mainland just outside of Tyre in the Phoenician homeland [1]. Thus, a body of evidence exists in support of the theory that Moloch actually refers to the act of human sacrifice itself.

Criticisms

From the beginning there were those who doubted Eissfeldt's theory, though opposition was only sporadic until 1970. Prominent archaeologist Sabatino Moscati, who had at first accepted Eissfeldt's idea like most others changed his opinion and spoke against it. The most common arguments against the theory were that classical accounts of the sacrifices of children at Carthage were not numerous and were only described as occurring in times of peril, rather than being a regular occurrence. Critics also questioned whether or not the burned bodies of infants could be stillborn children or children who had died of natural causes. Burning of their bodies may have been a religious practice applied under such circumstances. Further, it was noted that many of the allegations of human sacrifices made against the Carthagians were indubitably polemical, and therefore accounts of such sacrifices were exaggerated or else entirely false. Accusations of human sacrifice in Carthage had been found only among a small number of authors and were not mentioned at all by many other writers who dealt with Carthage in greater depth, and sometimes even among those who were more openly hostile to Carthage.

Furthermore, the nature of what was sacrificed is not for certain. Tthe children put to death are described in both the biblical and classical accounts as boys and girls rather than infants exclusively. The Biblical decrying of the sacrificing of one's children as a molk sacrifice does not precisely indicate that all molk sacrifices must involve human child sacrifice or even that a molk usually involved human sacrifice. Many texts referring to the molk sacrifice mentioned animals more often than humans. The term Mlk is a vesatile one and can also be combined with 'dm to mean "sacrifice of a man," while mlk 'mr refers to the "sacrifice of a sheep." Therefore the term mlk on its own is not specified. Thus, some scholars have concluded that mlk refers to the act of "offering" in general, rather than human sacrifice specifically.

If Molech were indeed type of sacrifice and not a god, this would suggest that an improbable number of biblical interpreters would have misunderstood the term, which is referred to in the sense of a god in numerous books of the bible. Such a misunderstanding is unlikely considering the fact that biblical writers wrote during or in close proximity to the time that such sacrifices were being practiced. It is also highly unlikely that all other ancient versions of the biblical texts would ubiquitously ignore the sacrificial definition of Molech if the word indeed developed out of this meaning. However, none of the ancient versions notes this connotation for the term. Thus, there is little support of the supposition that the Molech of the Old Testament should be equated with the Punic molk.

Furthermore, 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 along the lines of 'hearth' in the Biblical context, rather than a cemetery of some kind. With each of these criticisms considered, detractors to Eissfelt's theories have steadily gained in numbers.

Moloch in literature and popular culture

Throughout modernity, Moloch has appeared frequently in works of literature, art, film, as well as in popular culture. In Milton's classic 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."

Milton lists Moloch among the chief of Satan's angels in Book I. Furthermore, Moloch orates before the parliament of Hell in Book 2:43 -105, arguing for immediate warfare against God. The poem explains that he later becomes revered as a pagan god on Earth.

In his successful 1888 novel about Carthage entitled Salammbô, French Author Gustave Flaubert imaginatively created his own version of the Carthaginian religion, depicting known gods such as Ba‘al Hammon, Khamon, Melkarth and Tanith. He also included Moloch within this pantheon, and it was to Moloch that the Carthaginians offered children as sacrifices. Flaubert described Moloch mostly according to the Rabbinic descriptions, though he made some additions of his own. Due to Flaubert's vivid descriptions of the God, images from Salammbô (and the subsequent silent film Cabiria released in 1914 which was based largely upon it) have actually come to inform, in some instances, serious scholarly writing about Moloch, Melqart, Carthage, Ba‘al Hammon and so forth.

"Moloch" also features prominently in the second part of the poem Howl, arguably Allen Ginsberg's most recognizable work. In this poem, Moloch is interpreted as representative of American greed and bloodthirst, and Ginsberg parallels the smoke of the sacrificed humans to the pollution created by factories. In Alexandr Sokurov's 1999 film Moloch Moloch is employed as a metaphor for Adolph Hitler. Moloch also appears again and again in popular culture, in a variety of media spanning movies to videogames. In addition, modern Hebrew language often used the expression sacrifice something/someone to the Molech to refer to any harm undertaken for worthless causes.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Day, John Molech: A God of Human Sacrifice in the Old Testament New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989. ISBN 0-521-36474-4
• Grena, G.M. LMLK—A Mystery Belonging to the King vol. 1 Redondo Beach, CAL: 4000 Years of Writing History, 2004. ISBN 0-9748786-0-X

See also

• Baal

External links

• Old articles on Moloch
  • Encyclopædia Biblica: Minni – Mordecai (Contains a very long but now outdated article on Moloch from 1899.)
  • Jewish Encyclopedia: Moloch and Chiun (Short examples of older discussion.)
  • Catholic Encyclopedia: Moloch (A short but quite good article, in part denying that Moloch sacrifices were offered to Yahweh as argued in the Encyclopædia Biblica and Jewish Encyclopedia.)
• On the Molk sacrifice
  • Hannibal Barca: The God in Stone (A strong statement of the molk sacrifice theory.)
  • Phoenicia: Child Sacrifice (Arguments for and against child sacrifice in Carthage and elsewhere.)
  • A Preliminary Report on the Incirli Stele (Discussion of a stele with Phoenician text which may equate molk/mulk to first-born son).
  • HelgaSeeden, "A tophet in Tyre?" 1991. from Bertyus 39 (American University of Beirut).
• Modern conspiracy theories
  • Infowars.com
  • Entry at DeliriumsRealm.com

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