MOLOCH. - Name of a Semitic deity, from the common melekh "king"; the Septuagint, rendering 2 Kings 23:10, 13 as ὁ Μολόχ, caused the current pronunciation, which never existed in the living language; the Masoretes vocalized it Mólekh from the term bōšeth "ignominy, infamous object"; one must adhere to the pronunciation melekh or to that of the Phoenicians, milk.

In the Old Testament M. is always placed in relation to human sacrifices, particularly of children (Lev. 18:21; 20:2-5; 1 Kings 11:7; 2 Kings 23:10; Jer. 32:35); they were slaughtered (Ezek. 16:21) and then placed on a grill (tōpheth) to burn, according to the typical Hebrew expression: ha-ābhīr... bā'ēl lam-mōlekh (2 Kings 23:10) or ha-ābhīr lam-mōlekh (Lev. 18:21; Jer. 32:35) or even without the name of the god M., which is implied (Deut. 18:10; 2 Kings 16:3; 17:17; 21:6; Jer. 7:31; 19:5; Ezek. 16:21; 20:26, 31; 23:37; etc.).

It is the Canaanite deity Milk, who appears in the theophoric names of the el-'Amārnah letters; human sacrifices were offered to him, as is attested by recent discoveries, especially at Gezer. Milk has been linked to Melkart ("Melek of the city") of Tyre, and to Baal-Kammōn, a deity to whom the Phoenicians and Carthaginians, according to the classical authors, immolated human victims, especially children. Milk, national god of the Ammonites, is the same name Milk with mimation.

The Mosaic law, with severe prohibition, sought to preserve Israel from this horrible Canaanite cult (Lev. 18:21; 20:2; Deut. 12:31; 18:10); and the prophets (the cited passages of Jeremiah and Ezekiel) inveighed against the morbid deviation of popular religion, which in its syncretism practiced such abominations. For this cult the valley of Hinnom remained sadly famous in Israel (v. GEHENNA).

Recently, O. Eissfeldt attempted to explain M. as a common noun, "a kind of sacrifice," basing himself on 3 or 4 Punic inscriptions of the 3rd century A.D. (1). M., therefore, would not be a deity: in the Bible the god to whom this bloody sacrifice was offered is Yahweh. This attempt, exegetically untenable, has been directly refuted, as regards the Old Testament, by Fr. A. Bea.

Bibliography11 works

BIBL.: M.-J. Lagrange, Etudes sur les religions sémitiques, 2nd ed., Paris 1905, pp. 99-109; H. Vincent, Canaan d'après l'exploration récente, ibid. 1907, pp. 188-200; A. Lemonnier, Le culte des dieux étrangers en Israël. M., in Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques, 7 (1913), pp. 432-66; L. Desnoyers, Histoire du peuple hébreu, I, Paris 1922, pp. 183, 243 ff., 342-345; II, ibid. 1930, p. 212 ff.; O. Eissfeldt, Molk als Opferbegriff im Punischen und Hebräischen und das Ende des Gottes M., Halle 1935; id., Molochs Glück und Ende, in Forschungen und Fortschritte, 11 (1935), p. 285 ff.; R. de Vaux, in Revue biblique, 45 (1936), pp. 278-82; A. Bea, Kinderopfer für M. oder für Jahweh?, in Biblica, 18 (1937), pp. 95-107; A. Clamer, Le Lévitique (La Ste Bible, ed. L. Pirot, 2), Paris 1940, p. 142 ff.; P. Spadafora, Ezechiele (La S. Bibbia, ed. S. Garofalo), Turin 1948, pp. 129 ff., 164 ff., 189.

Francesco Spadafora

@incollection{ec8_moloch, author = {Spadafora, Francesco}, title = {Moloch}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {VIII}, pages = {1229--1230}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1952}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/moloch} }

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