And the Avites made Nibhaz and Tartak,.... The former of which is represented by the Jews in the shape of a dog, deriving the word from "nabach", to bark, as if it was the same with the Anubis Latrator of Virgil b, an Egyptian deity; though that is said c to have its name from NOeb, which in the Egyptian language signifies "gold", the statutes of it being made of gold; and the latter in the form of an ass, for what reason I cannot say; but the first word, according to Hillerus d, signifies, "the remote one seeth", that is, the sun, which beholds all things; and Tartak is a chain, and may denote the fixed stars chained as it were in their places; or the satellites of the planets, chained to their orbs:
and the Sepharvites burnt their children in fire to Adrammelech and to Anammelech the gods of Sepharvaim; which were the same with Moloch; which may be concluded, partly from the worship paid them, and partly from the signification of their names; both end with "melech", king, which Moloch also signifies; the first may be interpreted the mighty king, and the latter the king that answers in an oracular way; from the first, one of the sons of Sennacherib king of Assyria had his name, Isaiah 37:36, though the Jews, according to their fancy, represent the one in the likeness of a mule, and the other in the likeness of a horse; and some make the one to be a peacock, and the other a pheasant e; the Septuagint version puts the article before them in the feminine gender, excepting the two last, taking them for she deities, or leaving the word εικονα, "images", to be understood.
b Aeneid. l. 6. So Ovid. Metamorph. l. 9. Fab. 12. ver. 689. c Jablonski apud Michael. Obs. Sacr. Exercit. 4. p. 66, 67. d Ut supra, (Onomast. Sacr.) p. 859. e Vid. Kimchium in loc.