Chemosh

Chemosh (meaning the destroyer, subduer, or possibly fish-god) was the national deity of Moab, whose devotees are called the people of Chemosh in Numbers 21:29 and Jeremiah 48:46. The god demanded sacrifices including human offering: the Moabite king Mesha, in a moment of military crisis, offered his firstborn son as a burnt offering on the city wall, a deed that the biblical narrator says caused great wrath to come upon Israel (2 Kgs. 3:27). Solomon, in his late apostasy, built a high place for Chemosh on the Mount of Olives east of Jerusalem — the Hill of Corruption — to please his Moabite wives (1 Kgs. 11:7, 33).

Jeremiah's oracle against Moab repeatedly invokes Chemosh's coming shame and exile alongside his people (Jer. 48:7, 13, 46). The Moabite Stone (c. 840 BC), discovered in 1868, contains an inscription by King Mesha attributing his military successes to Chemosh and mentioning Israel — the most detailed extra-biblical inscription bearing on Old Testament history. Chemosh appears to have been also worshipped by the Ammonites in some periods.