Moloch - Forms and Grammar

Forms and Grammar

The Hebrew letters מלך (mlk) usually stand for melek 'king' (Proto-Northwest Semitic malku) but when vocalized as mōlek in Masoretic Hebrew text, they have been traditionally understood as a proper name Μολοχ (molokh) (Proto-Northwest Semitic Mulku) in the corresponding Greek renderings in the Septuagint translation, in Aquila, and in the Middle Eastern 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 mispronounced 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.

In other passages, however, 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. 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 to other gods whose names contain mlk.

Amos 5:26 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.

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.

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. Though the Moloch sacrifices have traditionally been understood to mean burning children alive to the god Moloch, 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 18:10–13; 2 Kings 21.6; Ezekiel 20.26, 31; 23.37. So this phrase is well documented in scripture, and similar practices of rendering infants immortal by passing them through the fire, are indirectly attested in early Greek myth, such as the myth of Thetis and the myth of Demeter as the nurse of Demophon. Some have responded to the proponents of this view of the Moloch sacrifices (being only a ritualized "pass between flame") by pointing out their failure to understand the Hebrew idiom le ha'avir ba'esh to imply "to burn" and their use of anthropological evidence of suspect relevance to draw parallels to early Hebrew religious practices.