Moreover he burnt incense in the valley of the son of Hinnom, and burnt his children in the fire, after the abominations of the heathen whom the LORD had cast out before the children of Israel.
Ver. 3. And burnt his children in the fire.] Some he burnt outright, in honour of Moloch, or Saturn (indeed the devil), and others he caused to pass through the fire, with the safeguard of their lives, though not haply of their hair; believing that thereby they were purged from their spiritual filthiness. The Tartars do the like at this day: the Papists also, in their supposed purgatory, dream of such a like purgation. The king of Spain put his eldest son into the hands of the bloody Inquisitors, to be murdered by them, that he might approve himself an obedient son to the Pope, who thereupon blasphemously applied unto him that saying of the apostle, He spared not his own son, but gave him for us. See 2 Kings 16:3. a
a Jerome. Caten.