Most of the Jewish interpreters, Jarchi (on
Le 17:16), Kimchi, and Maimonides
(Mor. Neb. 3:38) among the number, say that in the worship of Molech the children were not burned, but made to pass between two burning pyres, as a purificatory rite. But the allusions to the actual slaughter are too plain to be mistaken, and Aben Ezra, in his note on
Le 18:21, says that "to cause to pass through" is the same as "to burn." "They sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils, and shed innocent blood, the blood of their sons and of their daughters, whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan" (
Ps 106:37-38). In
Jer 7:31, the reference to the worship of Molech by human sacrifice is still more distinct: "They have built the high places of Tophet...
to burn their sons and their daughters
in the fire," as "burnt-offerings unto Baal," the sun-god of Tyre, with whom, or in whose character, Molech was worshipped (
Jer 19:5). Compare the statements in
De 12:31;
Eze 16:20-21;
Eze 23:37; the last two of which may also be adduced to show that the victims were slaughtered before they were burned. But the most remarkable passage is that in
2Ch 28:3, in which the wickedness of Ahaz is described: "Moreover, he burned incense in the valley of the son of Hinnom, and burned (וִיִּבעֵר) his children in the fire, after the abominations of the nations whom Jehovah had driven out before the children of Israel." Now, in the parallel narrative of
2Ki 16:3, instead of וִיִּבעֵר, "and he burned," the reading is הֶעֵַביר, "he made to pass through," and Dr. Geiger suggests that the former may be the true reading, of which the latter is an easy modification, serving as a euphemistic expression to disguise the horrible nature of the sacrificial rites. But it is more natural to suppose that it is an exceptional instance, and that the true reading is וִיִּעֲבֵר than to assume that the other passages have been intentionally altered. We may infer from the expression, "after the abominations of the nations whom Jehovah had driven out before the children of Israel," that the character of the Molech-worship of the time of Ahaz was essentially the same. as that of the old Canaanites, although Movers maintains the contrary.
