Jeremiah 32:34-35

See on Jeremiah 7:30-31, in the main identical with these vv. In addition it is to be remarked that here Baal and Molech are identified. Molech is probably only a variant or distortion of the word melech, king, in order to express contempt or abhorrence by giving to the consonants the vowels of bosheth, shame(cp. Ishbosheth, 2 Samuel 2:8, for Eshbaal, 1 Chronicles 8:33). Apparently this title of king "was in use among the Phoenicians and especially at Byblus; and Philo of Byblus writes of the god of his city, whom he calls Cronus, that he sacrificed his own son. Of this deity Diodorus says, -The Carthaginians had a brasen statue of Cronus, with hands extended upwards, but with the palms bent downwards towards the earth, so that the child who was laid upon them rolled into a pit of fire below." Now since Cronus was a god of the Underworld where -no rays of the sun penetrated and no wind blew" (Homer, Iliad8:479 ff.), i.e. was a god of the Dead, it is quite probable that the deity whom the Semites called Melech was also a god of the Shades. Such a god would naturally be supposed to have the desire of peopling his realm, and human sacrifices would seem to be acceptable to him. Thus Melech seems to be the designation of a deity like the Babylonian Nergal(2 Kings 17:30), the god of pestilence, war, and the country of the dead." Barnes on 1 Kings 11:5 C. B.