Although "Molek" occurs in the Hebrew Old Testament but eight times, it has attracted an enormous amount of popular and scholarly attention. Traditionally, the term has been understood as the name of an idol-god, whose cult consisted of child sacrifice by fire. However, since 1935, the scholarly debate has been dominated by the thesis of Otto Eissfeldt, that Molek was originally a technical term for child sacrifice (cf. Punic molk), and that such sacrifices were licit in Israelite religion until the reform of Josiah. More recently, Moshe Weinfeld has argued that the Molek cult did not entail child sacrifice, but only the idolatrous dedication of children, while Paul Mosca has produced an elaborate defense of Eissfeldt's position.

Following a critical review of previous scholarship (chapter I), the dissertation examines Semitic literary and inscriptional evidence which might bear on the meaning of Molek or the nature of the related cult (chapter II). The study found that a Syro-Palestinian god "Malik" enjoyed great popularity at Ebla and that a chthonic deity named M-l-k (variously vocalized) is attested in Akkadian (including Mari), Ugaritic and possibly Phoenician. Conversely, the usage adduced by Eissfeldt appears to have been an isolated, intra-Punic development. Following a review of the archeological evidence concerning cultic child sacrifice in the same areas (chapter III), a close reading of the relevant Biblical material supports a modified form of the traditional understandings: Molek as a Canaanite god and his cult as one of actual child sacrifice, performed within the cult of the dead and forming an approved part of the Jerusalem cultus until the rise of the Deuteronomists (chapter IV). Included are extensive studies of the form, "Molek," and of the vocabulary and syntax of phrases associated with the cult. Finally, a historical-theological reconstruction of the Molek cult in Israel is proposed (chapter V).