A Life for a Life

2 Kings 23:10
“And he [Josiah] defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of the children of Hinnom, that no man might make his son or his daughter pass through the fire to Molech.”

Those who take the Bible seriously will recall the numerous passages where God condemns the pagan custom of sacrificing the first-born child to the god Moloch. These children were just weeks or months old and burned alive as an atonement sacrifice; that is, offering one life on behalf of another. The Canaanites slaughtered thousands of children in this way when their nation was threatened. God ordered the complete destruction of the Canaanites.

We might ask, is this a necessary lesson for people living in the enlightened twenty-first century? Sadly, it is because the very same thing is still being practiced in America and the West today. Oh, the names have changed. Molech is not worshipped, while the fires have become the incinerators, but the motive is still the same: a life for a life. Abortion will immediately come to mind where the mother’s lifestyle may continue by the sacrifice of the fetus, as parts, in an incinerator.

However, the national pace of sacrifice is now being accelerated by embryonic stem cell research. Stem cells are harvested from a fertilized human egg, and what remains is disposed of with other tissue in the incinerator. The object of the research is to be able to cure, say, an Alzheimer patient by injecting the brain with stem cells. The principle remains the same: “a life for a life.” God still disapproves.

Photo: Babylonian cylinder representing sacrifice of a child to Moloch. Courtesy of Jewish Encyclopedia. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
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