Renegade Editor’s Note: I think Yahweh is actually Moloch in disguise.

By B.Z. Goldberg
From The Sacred Fire [1930]
MOLOCH was the mighty, gluttonous god. He bestowed his bounty upon mankind, but he wished a taste of all that he gave. Moloch gave only to be gifted in return. There was no altruistic hypocrisy in his little divine circle. He was not saving the world; he was not serving mankind. He cared for neither the praise nor the glory that others might give him.

Moloch was a fierce, self-satisfied, masculine god. He defied the weaker sex even in love. He had no women himself, nor did he wish his worshippers coming to his temple to trail their women along. He wanted none of their weakness, gentleness, delicacy, or romanticism. He was the god of muscle and belly. If cannibals were looking for a god, none could please them so much as Moloch, and Moloch could wish himself no better class of worshipper.

His temple was out in the open, far from city or village with their polished ways of living. It was an immense, low structure with an enormous figure of Moloch at its end. Like the modern industrial plant with its towering chimney rising to the clouds,. the god himself appeared before his worshippers—a colossal giant of a man with a bull’s head and tremendous virile power. His arms he held outstretched as if he were forever demanding sacrifices. There were seven huge mouths to his belly, all appropriate receptacles for the offerings that might be brought to him.

The figure of Moloch was cast in bronze and merged with a large furnace that served as its pedestal. Whatever was fed to the god immediately landed in the fiery oven. Moloch the glutton would take no chances with his priests who might put away a sacrifice for themselves or share with him the fat of the land.

As the sun was setting, the worshippers left their homes and wives, and, loaded with sacrifices, they betook themselves to the warm abode of their god. While they were on their way, a huge fire was being prepared in the pit of the furnace, and as they entered the temple, flames reflected through the bronze figure of the divinity. Cold, cruel, and metallic Moloch had become incandescent, aflame with the fire of life. Moloch was the fire that does burn the bush and everything else; he was the fire that devours.

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