Reference: Molech
Morish
Mo'lech
This is the Fire-god, 'the abomination of Ammon.' In the latter days of Solomon, when the heathen women whom he had married had turned away his heart after other gods, he built a high place in the hill before (that is, 'east of') Jerusalem for Molech. The Israelites sacrificed their children to this idol. Passing their children through the fire might seem to imply that they were dedicated to the idol by being rapidly passed through a fire without being burnt, and this may have been done, but some passages do not admit of this interpretation. Of the Canaanites it is said, "their sons and their daughters have they burnt in the fire to their gods," De 12:31; and of Israel it is recorded, they have "caused their sons, whom they bare unto me, to pass for them through the fire, to devour them, . . . . for when they had slain their children to their idols, then they came the same day into my sanctuary to profane it." Eze 23:37,39; Le 18:21; 20:2-5; 1Ki 11:7; 2Ki 23:10; Jer 32:35.
The expression 'the tabernacle of your Molech,' Am 5:26, is quoted in Ac 7:43-44. The Israelites had not worshipped Jehovah for forty years in the wilderness; but they had carried symbols of Molech and Chiun (or Remphan) and worshipped them. The root of their idolatrous course was that they had never in heart made a clean break from Egypt.
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Smith
Mo'lech
(king). The fire-god Molech was the tutelary deity of the children of Ammon, and essentially identical with the Moabitish Chemosh. Fire-gods appear to have been common to all the Canaanite, Syrian and Arab tribes, who worshipped the destructive element under an outward symbol, with the most inhuman rites. According to Jewish tradition, the image of Molech was of brass, hollow within, and was situated without Jerusalem. "His face was (that) of a calf, and his hands stretched forth like a man who opens his hands to receive (something) of his neighbor. And they kindled it with fire, and the priests took the babe and put it into the hands of Molech, and the babe gave up the ghost." Many instances of human sacrifices are found in ancient writers, which may be compared with the description of the Old Testament of the manner in which Molech was worshipped. Molech was the lord and master of the Ammonites; their country was his possession,
as Moab was the heritage of Chemosh; the princes of the land were the princes of Malcham.
His priests were men of rank,
taking precedence of the princes. The priests of Molech, like those of other idols, were called Chemarim.