Ezekiel 16:21

21. Thou hast slain my children The divine husband yearns over his innocent ones slain by the heartless mother. Archinard gives the following lurid description of these sacrifices to Moloch: “A fire of aloes, of cedar, and of laurel burned between the knees of the colossus. The unguents with which it was bathed ran like sweat down its limbs of bronze. The children, enveloped with black veils, formed an immovable circle, and toward these the god extended his long arms and lowered his palms as if to bear them into the sky. The king, the chiefs, the women, and all the multitude assembled behind the priests on the parched slopes which border the valley of Hinnom. On the distant walls of the city shine the weapons of angry soldiers. The smoke of incense mounts perpendicularly. An infinite anguish weighs on all bosoms. The people of Jerusalem are absorbed with the great tragedy. Finally, the high priest of Moloch passes his left hand under the veils of the children and cuts from each brow a lock of hair which he throws into the flame. Now men in blood red mantles sound forth the sacred hymn:

Homage to the sun,

King of two zones; the unbegotten.

Father and mother, father and son,

God and goddess, goddess and god.

The voices of the singers are lost in the burst of instrumental music sounding suddenly to stifle the cries of the victims whom the knife of the priest is about to slay. The sheminith, the kinnor, the nebel sound forth, and the tambourine is beaten with heavy and repeated strokes. The temple slaves with long hooks open various compartments into the body of Baal. Into the highest they introduce flour; into the second, two turtles; into the third, a lamb; into the fourth, a ram; into the fifth, a calf; into the sixth, an ox. The seventh remains yawning open like the mouth of an oven. The instruments are silent, the fire roars, the priests of Moloch march in state before the multitude. The arms of brass lower themselves to the sacrificial victims. Each time that a child is lifted by them the priests place their hands upon it to burden it with the crimes of the people. The air is rent with the cries of the devotees, ‘Baal, eat!’ ‘Lord, eat!’ The victim lifted to the border by the brazen arms disappears like a drop of water on a red-hot plate, and a white smoke ascends into the crimson glow. The hideous idol has already licked with its thousand tongues of fire the most beautiful children of Jerusalem. On a sign from the sovereign pontiff, the priests seize the son of the king and the body of the little prince disappears after the others in the midst of the furnace. A nauseating smoke robs the eyes of the mob of the last horrors.” Israel et ses voisins Asiatiques, Geneve, 1890, pp. 223-228.