Moloch
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- For other uses, see Moloch (disambiguation).
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.
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Forms and grammar
The Hebrew letters מלך (mlk) usually stands for melek 'king' but when vocalized as mōlek in Masoretic Hebrew text, they have been traditionally understood as a proper name Μολοχ (molokh) 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.
- But you shall carry Sikkut your king,
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.
- You have lifted up the shrine of Molech
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 8.31 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.
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 old 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] (http://almashriq.hiof.no/ddc/projects/archaeology/berytus-back/berytus39/seeden-tophet/).
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.
Paul G. 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 when the very prominent archaeologist Sabatino Moscati, who had accepted it 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
Salammbo, 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!" 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.
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.
- In the Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting of 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.
References
External links
- Old articles on Moloch
- Encyclopædia Biblica: Minni – Mordecai (http://www.cwru.edu/univlib/preserve/Etana/encyl_biblica_l-p/minni-mordecai.pdf) (Contains a very long but now outdated article on Moloch from 1899.)
- Jewish Encyclopedia: Moloch (http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=718&letter=M&search=Moloch) and Chiun (http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=468&letter=C&search=Chiun) (Short examples of older discussion.)
- Catholic Encyclopedia: Moloch (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10443b.htm) (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 (http://www.barca.fsnet.co.uk/carthage-god-stone.htm) (A strong statement of the molk sacrifice theory.)
- Phoenicia: Child Sacrifice (http://phoenicia.org/childsacrifice.html) (Arguments for and against child sacrifice in Carthage and elsewhere.)
- A Preliminary Report on the Incirli Stele (http://www.humnet.ucla.edu/humnet/nelc/stelasite/report.html) (Discussion of a stele with Phoenician text which may equate molk/mulk to first-born son).
- HelgaSeeden, "A tophet in Tyre?" 1991. (http://almashriq.hiof.no/ddc/projects/archaeology/berytus-back/berytus39/seeden-tophet/) from Bertyus 39 (American University of Beirut).