Moloch

Moloch (also Molech; from Hebrew melek, king) was the chief national deity of the Ammonites, worshipped through the sacrifice of children burned in fire. The name combines the consonants of melek (king) with the vowels of bosheth (shame), a deliberate scribal stigma applied by Hebrew writers. Moloch worship was one of the most condemned practices in the Old Testament: the law explicitly forbade Israelites from offering their children to Moloch (Lev. 18:21; 20:2–5), on pain of death. Despite this prohibition, Solomon erected a high place for Moloch on the Mount of Olives as part of his accommodation to his foreign wives (1 Kings 11:7), and the cult persisted through the monarchy, with children burned at Topheth in the Valley of Hinnom (2 Kings 23:10). King Josiah defiled Topheth to end the practice (2 Kings 23:13). The prophets Stephen quotes Amos 5:26 in Acts 7:43 to indict Israel's wilderness-era idolatry, applying a tradition that Moloch worship had deeper roots than the monarchy period.