2 Kings 3:27
So he took his firstborn son, who was to succeed him, and offered him as a burnt offering on the city wall. And there was great fury against the Israelites, so they withdrew and returned to their own land.
Note Or And Israel’s fury was great
Then he took his eldest son that should have reigned in his stead, and offered him for a burnt offering upon the wall. And there was great indignation against Israel: and they departed from him, and returned to their own land.
Then he took his oldest son who would have reigned in his place, and offered him for a burnt offering on the wall. There was great wrath against Israel; and they departed from him, and returned to their own land.
Then he took his eldest son that should have reigned in his stead, and offered him for a burnt-offering upon the wall. And there was great wrath against Israel: and they departed from him, and returned to their own land.
Related passages
From the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, grouped by the word they explain.
- offered him
- In cases of great extremity, it was customary in various heathen nations, to offer human sacrifices, and even their own children. This was frequent among the Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Scythians, Gauls, Africans, and others; and was the natural fruit of a religious system, which had for the objects of its worship cruel and merciless divinities. The king of Moab, in this case, sacrificed his son to obtain the favour of Chemosh his god, who, being a devil, delighted in blood and murder, and the destruction of mankind. The dearer any thing was to them, the more acceptable those idolaters thought the sacrifice, and therefore burnt their children in the fire to their honour.
- Genesis 22:2, 13; Deuteronomy 12:31; Judges 11:31, 39; Psalm 106:37, 38; Ezekiel 16:20; Micah 6:7
- they departed
- 1 Samuel 14:36–46; 1 Kings 20:13, 28, 43