According to the Bible, Moloch was a god among the people of the Levant, especially the Canaanites and Phoenicians, whose worship was condemned in the Bible because it was associated with child sacrifice. God condemns people who “burn their sons and daughters in the fire of their gods.” (Deuteronomy 12.29-31).
Moloch and Baal
The name Moloch comes from the Hebrew root melek, which means “king.” This suggests that this may be a title rather than a personal name for the god.
It may have been an epithet for the Canaanite god Baal, which the Bible also warns the Israelites against. The name Baal also means “master” or “lord” and was associated with several important gods in the Levant.
Baal was principally associated with rain, storms, and fertility. He often appeared with a weapon, an axe or sword like the Norse god Thor, and with a thunderbolt or scepter, like the Greek god Zeus. He was sometimes depicted as a bull, which was associated with fertility.
Israelite Sacrifices to Moloch
When the Israelites took control of Canaan, they reportedly allowed the worship of Moloch to continue. It is even suggested that King Solomon had high places, called bamah, built specifically for the worship of Chemosh and Moloch (1 Kings 11.7). He reportedly did this so that his foreign wives could continue their worship, burning incense and offering sacrifices to their gods.
Later, Ahaz and Manasseh also reportedly burned their own sons as sacrifices in the Canaanite traditions (2 Kings 16.3 and 21.6).
King Josiah reportedly destroyed the Topheth in the Valley of Hinnom to prevent worship, but belief seems to have been strong and continued (2 Kings 23.10).
Topheth of Moloch
The Topheth in the Valley of Hinnom was probably the one built by Solomon for his wives and seems to have been the central place of worship for Moloch in the Levant.
During the 1900s, archaeologist Robert Alexander Stewart Macalister conducted excavations in Gezer, in the foothills of the Judean Hills between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, and discovered ten stones that were aligned. He dug deeper to uncover their significance.
He discovered a complex that contained ten jars with the bones of girls of very young age, some being just a couple of days old. The bones showed evidence of burning, some were cut in two, and others were decapitated. He also found altars and stone pillars typical of Canaanite worship.
Sites that appear to be topheths have also been discovered in Malta, Sardinia, and Sicily, probably spread by the Phoenicians and Carthaginians through their trade networks and colonies. Dedications from the children’s parents to the gods have been discovered inscribed in slabs of stone above their cremated remains.
Moloch at Carthage
In Carthage, a Phoenician colony established in North Africa in the 9th century BCE, inscriptions refer to places where the remains of children sacrificed to the gods were buried.
Archaeologists have discovered 20,000 urns with infant remains, often intermingled with those of animals, often lambs. This suggests that the infants were sacrificed alongside animals.
The Greek historian Cleitarchus also provides a description of human sacrifices at Carthage, recognizing the god with the more familiar Greek name Kronos.
“Phoenicians, and above all Carthaginians, worship Kronos; if they wish to achieve something big, they devote a child of theirs, and in the case of success, sacrifice it to the god. There is a bronze statue of Kronos among them, which stands upright with open arms and palms of its hands facing upwards above a bronze brazier on which the child is burnt. When the flames reach the body, the victim’s limbs stiffen and the tense mouth almost seems like it is laughing until, with a final spasm, the child falls into the brazier.”
Appearance of Moloch
The authors describe Moloch as represented by a bronze statue with arms outstretched over a fire pit. Medieval and modern depictions of Moloch show him as a bull with outstretched arms, ready to receive child sacrifices, but there is no ancient evidence to support this depiction. However, the Israelites often created idols in the image of calves.
Regular Human Sacrifice?
It is unclear whether human sacrifices were required on a regular basis or only offered in response to a crisis. The Carthaginians only seem to have made human sacrifices after a great defeat or disaster.
It has also been suggested that the Biblical references to passing children through the fire of Moloch and delivering them to the pagan gods may have referred to an initiation for pagan children, similar to a baptism. This is because the Book of Jubilees connects marrying a pagan with engaging in the sin of Moloch, suggesting that it represented conversion.
Therefore, while archaeology shows that human sacrifice happened, it may have been on relatively rare occasions. Passing children through the fire of Moloch may usually have meant something else.
The Demonic Moloch
John Milton recast Moloch as a child-eating fallen angel in his epic poem Paradise Lost in 1667. He is also the first speaker of the council of Hell and advocates open war against Heaven. This has shaped the representation of Moloch in modern times.
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