Moloch (or Molech) is an evil concept that’s plagued Judeo-Christian continuities for quite a long time. Usually depicted as an idol that looks like a minotaur, with a bovine head, there are accounts of people doing atrocities in the name of Moloch. These are grievous to recount, including attacks on very young children.
The word Moloch appears to be related to the word “melech” (Hebrew for king), making it somewhat euphemistic, similar to the name “Baal” being an honorific like “lord” or “master”.
One curious aspect of the tragic history involving Moloch is that in the Bible, the God of Israel repeatedly says “I did not tell you to do this”, “these were not my commands to you”, etc. when commenting on the atrocities associated with Moloch. God expresses hatred for everything to do with what is done in Moloch’s name, and quite rightly calls these abominations, but there’s something very haunting about the insistence that they were not mandated by Him, almost as if there was a misunderstanding on that point somehow.
The semiotics of the bull head may give one clue as to why that might be, considering that a sect of Israelites escaping slavery in ancient Egypt identified with a bovine deity, which they rendered as a golden calf upon their exodus from Egypt.
Something the Israelites would have associated with their main deity at that time was the series of miraculous attacks known as the plagues of Egypt. In one of these plagues, many families were said to have lost their first-born children. This story may have experienced some kind of distortion over time, and become connected with the atrocities of the bovine idol Moloch.
A seemingly more recent association of the name or honorific Moloch with the symbol of an owl may be, among other things, an esoteric hint to exercise wisdom in unpacking any Moloch lore, the owl being a symbol of wisdom.
──── by Lync Dalton ────
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