Moloch

or Molech , the chief god of the Ammonites, the worship of whom, which prevailed among all the Can a a nites, was accompanied with cruelties, human sacrifices among others, revolting to the humane spirit of the Jewish religion; originally it appears to have been the worship of fire, through which the innocent as well as the guilty have often to pa for the achievement of the noblest enterprises, which degenerated at length into selfish sacrifices of others for interests of one's own, into the substitution of the innocent for the guilty by way of atonement to the Deity!