Moreover he. — “And he (emphatic) burnt incense” to Moloch, the god of Ammon, for whom Solomon had built a high place (1 Kings 11:5-8), which was still in existence.
In the valley of the son of Hinnom. — Also called simply the valley of Hinnom (Joshua 15:8), on the west and south of Jerusalem (Joshua 18:16), the scene of the cruel rites in honour of
“Moloch, horrid king, besmeared with blood.”
MILTON.
(Jeremiah 7:31-32; Jeremiah 19:2-6, where “the Baal” is named as the object of this worship, Moloch being a Baal.) In later times, the term “valley of Hinnom,” spelt as one word, and with modified vowels, Gĕhinnâm, became the appellation of hell, “the house of woe and pain.” It is so used in the Targums, and later in the Talmud, and appears in the New Testament under the Græcised form Γέεννα, whence the Latin Gehenna.
Burnt his children in the fire. — Kings, “And even his own son he made to pass through the fire.” The chronicler has paraphrased by transposing two Hebrew letters (ba‘ar for ‘abar). “His children is simply a generalised expression, as we might say, “he burnt his own offspring or posterity.” (Comp. Psalms 106:37.) Thenius accuses the chronicler of exaggerating the fact. But this peculiar use of the plural is one of the marks of his style. (Comp. 1 Chronicles 6:57; 1 Chronicles 6:67; and 2 Chronicles 28:16, infra.)