Then did Solomon build an high place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, in the hill that is before Jerusalem, and for Molech, the abomination of the children of Ammon.
Then did Solomon build an high place for Chemosh [Septuagint, Chamoos]. He was the tutelary divinity, the national idol of the Moabites (Numbers 21:29; Jeremiah 48:7; Jeremiah 48:13; Jeremiah 48:46); and though he is once called the god of the Ammonites (Judges 11:24), that designation arose entirely from a community of feeling between two nations having the same origin, because Chemosh was an idol distinct from Milcom. He built altars for these three; but although he is described, 1 Kings 11:8, as doing likewise "for all his strange wives," there is no evidence that they had idols differing from these. The daughter of Pharaoh must be considered an exception; for neither here nor elsewhere is mention made of a temple to Ammon or Osiris. Among the very numerous notices of the Edomites and the Hittites which are contained in the historical books of the Old Testament, there is no allusion or hint as to the religion or worship of either (2 Kings 23:13; 2 Chronicles 25:20); and the probability is, that they adopted the ritual of one of these three great idols, whose worship, particularly the Zidonian, was, through the civilization and commercial contact of the people of Zidon with other nations, extensively prevalent. Corbaux has suggested ('Journal of Sacred Literature,' October, 1852) that the two names in this verse refer to the same idol, Chemosh (vanquisher, subduer) being the proper appellative, end Molech an epithet, signifying the royal god, and identical with Baal (Jeremiah 19:5; Jeremiah 32:35; Ezekiel 20:23; Ezekiel 20:31: cf. Leviticus 18:21; Leviticus 20:1-8).
In the hill that is before Jerusalem. This hill appears, from Zechariah 14:4, to be the mount of Olives. 'This position is not thus indicated in relation to the Jerusalem that now is, or afterward was, but as it then existed, confined mainly to mount Zion. Bearing this in mind, there is no difficulty in correctly locating the scene of these abominable transactions on the summit immediately east of Siloam and the lower part of Zion; but travelers, unmindful of the local mutations of the city, and locating it on the east, or before the present city, have greatly misplaced it. The portion of mount Olivet thus designated is nearly isolated, being merely connected to the remainder by the isthmus over which the road to Bethany passes. It rises very precipitously, and to a considerable height above the Kedron and the valley on the east, which nearly enclose it. The picturesque sepulchral village of Siloam, where, "it is said," Solomon kept his strange wives, occupies a portion of its northwestern face, opposite the "Virgin's Fount;" and many other sepulchres are found in its cliffs around.
It is the southernmost or right hand, portion of mount Olivet (see the notes at 2 Kings 23:13)' (Barclay's 'City of the Great King,' p,. 65; Rosenmuller's 'Geography,' 1:, p. 7; Porter's 'Handbook,' p. 100). This rock has in modern times been designated, from Solomon's idolatrous worship, 'the mount of Offence.' Robinson ('Biblical Researches,' 1:, p. 405) says this name, mons Offensionis, seems to have arisen in 1283 AD It was an aggravation of the idolatrous conduct of Solomon that the temples of these idols were erected in sight of the temple of Yahweh, and that as the pool of Siloam was situated at the mouth of the Tyropoeon-opposite to, and just a few yards from, the mount of Offence-the priests officiating in both temples would draw the water necessary for their respective lustrations from the same source (see Porter and Rawlinson as above, and Drew's 'Scripture Lands,' p. 157).