Don Isaac Abravanel, sometimes spelled Abarbanel (1437-1508) was a probing and penetrating Jewish thinker, as well as a prolific
Biblical commentator. Arguably, Leviticus 20, parasha Kedoshim, speaks about one of the Torah’s most vicious and hateful
crimes imaginable – the slaying of babies in the name of religion. Indeed, this insidious and
reprehensible practice to Molech unmasks the grotesque face of idolatry.
“And God spoke unto Moses saying: Moreover, you shall say to the
Children of Israel. Whosoever he be of the Children of Israel or of the
strangers that sojourn in Israel, that gives of his seed unto Molech, he
shall surely be put to death. The people of the land shall pelt him with
stones.”
Unequivocally, the God of Israel will have no part of it. Capital punishment fits the egregious crime: he
“that gives of his seed unto Molech, he shall surely be put to death.”
Abravanel discusses the very nature of Biblical infanticide, a ghoulishly, graphic discussion at that. See
Abravanel’s World. What was the horrendous rite, and why would a father even remotely consider
harming a child, let alone delivering a healthy and beautiful baby to a monstrous child eater?
For starters, Abravanel dismisses some classical Biblical commentators who attempt to play down the
enormity of Molech madness, let us label it. If it was as innocuous as some Bible expounders posit
(priests approached a fire, baby in tote, before returning it to dad’s open arms), the Torah would not
have come down so hard on the perpetrators.
Bible students, Abravanel insists, will find answers in the words of the prophet Jeremiah, chapter 7.
“And they have built the high places of Tophet, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their
sons and their daughters in the fire, which I commanded not. Neither came it into My mind.” Jeremiah
writes explicitly; Molech meant death by fire. Deafening drumming, too, played a part in serving
Molech. It drowned out an infant’s bloodcurdling cries for its mother and father to come help.
Readers should not put forth that the Torah’s prohibition of Molech madness differs from the idolatrous
practices to which Jeremiah refers. Abravanel brings support from Kings (2:23): “And he defiled Tophet,
which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, that no man might make his son or his daughter to pass
through the fire to Molech.” Clearly, the valley of the son of Hinnom witnessed man’s basest behavior.
For Abravanel, the ceremonial murders followed a precise protocol, featuring pathological priests.
What drove a father to psychosis? Why columns of fire? To answer the second question first, Abravanel
believes that Molech was a form of sun worship, the so-called “king” (in Hebrew ‘melech’). The ancients,
especially the Egyptians, feared the great ball of fire, deifying it, for it “rules” (in Hebrew ‘molech’) the
stars. At root, they were mesmerized and enamored by fire, one of the four basic elements.
But what brought a father to go off the deep end, erasing every line of nature and norm? In a word, it
was sheer delusion. Consider the man who has many sons and daughters. He believed that by sacrificing
one child to the sun-king, he could protect his remaining offspring. To be facetious, of course, this fair-
minded and courteous child devouring god curtailed its appetite at one infant per family, sparing and
shielding the child’s surviving siblings.
The Torah sought to stamp out such lunacy and misguidedness, and hence issued the strongest
deterrent possible: He “that gives of his seed unto Molech, he shall surely be put to death. The people of
the land shall pelt him with stones.”
