Milcom

Milcom (meaning their king), also known as Molech or Moloch, was the national deity of the Ammonites and one of the most condemned idols in the Old Testament. The name derives from the Hebrew root for "king" (melek), presenting this god as the divine sovereign of the Ammonite people. Milcom was closely related in character and cult to the Moabite god Chemosh, and both were classified in the biblical tradition among the "abominations" of the surrounding nations. The rite most associated with Milcom worship was the offering of children in fire — a practice explicitly prohibited in the Mosaic law (Leviticus 18:21; 20:2–5; Deuteronomy 18:10).

Solomon's apostasy in his old age included building a high place for Milcom on the hill east of Jerusalem, called an "abomination of the Ammonites" (1 Kings 11:5, 7), which was dismantled only by Josiah's reform (2 Kings 23:13). The valley of Hinnom, called Topheth, became the site of Molech worship under later Judean kings — a place where children were burned in fire, an act Jeremiah condemned as something God had never commanded (Jeremiah 32:35). The valley's defilement under Josiah transformed it into Gehenna, the enduring biblical symbol of final judgment and the destruction that follows the rejection of God's covenant.