or למּלך does not in itself denote the slaying and burning of the children as Moloch-sacrifices, but primarily affirms nothing more than the simple passing through fire, a kind of februation or baptism of fire (see at Lev 18:21); such passages as Eze 16:21 and Jer 7:31, where sacrificing in the valley of Benhinnom is called slaying and burning the children, show most distinctly that in the verse before us בּאשׁ העביר is to be taken as signifying actual sacrificing, i.e., the burning of the children slain in sacrifice to Moloch, and, as the emphatic וגם indicates, that this kind of idolatrous worship, which had never been heard of before in Judah and Israel, was introduced by Ahaz.[1]
In the Chronicles, therefore העביר is correctly explained by ויּבער, “he burned;” though we cannot infer from this that העביר is always a mere conjecture for הבעיר, as Geiger does (Urschrift u. Uebers, der Bibel, p. 305). The offering of his son for Moloch took place, in all probability, during the severe oppression of Ahaz by the Syrians, and was intended to appease the wrath of the gods, as was done by the king of the Moabites in similar circumstances (2Ki 3:27). - In 2Ki 16:4 the idolatry
- ↑ “If this idolatry had occurred among the Israelites before the time of Ahaz, its abominations would certainly not have been passed over by the biblical writers, who so frequently mention other forms of idolatry.” These are the correct words of Movers (Phöniz. i. p. 65), who only errs in the fact that on the one hand he supposes the origin of human sacrifices in the time of Ahaz to have been inwardly connected with the appearance of the Assyrians, and traces them to the acquaintance of the Israelites with the Assyrian fire-deities Adrammelech and Anammelech (2Ki 17:31), and on the other hand gives this explanation of the phrase, “cause to pass through the fire for Moloch,” which is used to denote the sacrificing of children: “the burning of children was regarded as a passage, whereby, after the separation of the impure and earthly dross of the body, the children attained to union with the deity” (p. 329). To this J. G. Müller has correctly replied (in Herzog’s Cyclop.): “This mystic, pantheistic, moralizing view of human sacrifices is not the ancient and original view of genuine heathenism. It is no more the view of Hither Asia than the Mexican view (i.e., the one which lay at the foundation of the custom of the ancient Mexicans, of passing the new-born boy four times through the fire). The Phoenician myths, which Movers (p. 329) quotes in support of his view, refer to the offering of human sacrifices in worship, and the moral view is a later addition belonging to Hellenism. The sacrifices were rather given to the gods as food, as is evident from innumerable passages (compare the primitive religions of America), and they have no moral aim, but are intended to reward or bribe the gods with costly presents, either because of calamities that have already passed, or because of those that are anticipated with alarm; and, as Movers himself admits (p. 301), to make atonement for ceremonial sins, i.e., to follow smaller sacrifices by those of greater value.”
