a
god worshiped throughout the countries of the ancient
Middle East and to whom violent child sacrifices were supposed to have been made. Worshiped as a
sun god,
Moloch embodied the
savage and devastating aspects of the
sun's
heat and was
thought to bring
plagues. The name comes from a combination of the consonants of the Hebrew
word melech (meaning
king) with the vowels of the
word boshet (meaning
shame). The
image of
Moloch was an idol of bronze and
iron seated on a throne, with a
human body and the head of a calf. The arms of the idol were outstretched and ended in large hands. It is said that in the sacrifice a
fire was started and a
baby, usually the first-born male was placed by the parents onto the idol's outstretched hands. The infant would then tumble from the idol's hands into the
fire. The sacrifice was believed to be a way of averting
disaster and
death.