Milcom or Milkom (
Ammonite
Ammonoids are a group of extinct marine mollusc animals in the subclass Ammonoidea of the class Cephalopoda. These molluscs, commonly referred to as ammonites, are more closely related to living coleoids (i.e., octopuses, squid and cuttlefish ...
: 𐤌𐤋𐤊𐤌 *''Mīlkām'';
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
: or מַלְכָּם ) was the name of either the national god, or a popular god, of the
Ammon
Ammon (Ammonite: 𐤏𐤌𐤍 ''ʻAmān''; he, עַמּוֹן ''ʻAmmōn''; ar, عمّون, ʻAmmūn) was an ancient Semitic-speaking nation occupying the east of the Jordan River, between the torrent valleys of Arnon and Jabbok, in p ...
ites. He is attested in the
Hebrew Bible and in archaeological finds from the former territory of Ammon. His connections to other deities with similar names attested in the Bible and archaeologically are debated, as well as his relationship to the Canaanite supreme deity
El, or the putative deity
Moloch.
Attestations
Milcom is attested several times in the
Hebrew Bible, although these attestations say little about him. In the
Masoretic Text
The Masoretic Text (MT or 𝕸; he, נֻסָּח הַמָּסוֹרָה, Nūssāḥ Hammāsōrā, lit. 'Text of the Tradition') is the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) in Rabbinic Judaism. ...
, the name Milcom occurs three times, in each case in a list of foreign deities whose worship is offensive to
Yahweh, the god of the
Israelites. It is mentioned at as "Milcom the detestation of the Ammonites", at as "Milcom the god of the children of Ammon", and at as "Milcom the abomination of the children of Ammon". The name occurs several additional times in the
Septuagint: 2 Samuel 12:30, 1 Chronicles 20:2, Amos 1:15, Jeremiah 40 (=30):1.3, Zephaniah 1:5, and 1 Kings 11:7. The Masoretic text reads , meaning "our king" in most of these instances. It is likely that the Hebrew text originally read Milcom in at least some of these instances.
The Bible attests Milcom as playing the role of the Ammonites' chief state god in parallel to Yahweh's role in Israel. Given that the Bible refers to Milcom having been worshiped by royal sanction in Jerusalem, it is possible that he was also worshiped as a native rather than a foreign god in Israel.
Outside the bible, the name Milcom is attested in archaeology, such as on several Ammonite seals, where he is often connected with bull imagery. These seals indicate that Milcom was seen as benevolent, exalted, strong, and has associations with the stars. The
Amman Citadel Inscription
The Amman Citadel Inscription is the oldest known inscription in the so-called Ammonite language. It was discovered in 1961 in the Amman Citadel, and first published in full in 1968 by Siegfried Horn.Horn (1969). p. 2. At the time of its discover ...
(c. 9th or 8th century BCE), as it has been reconstructed, contains an oracle from Milcom, while the name is also mentioned on the
Tell el-Mazar ostracon. Two Ammonite names are attested containing the name ''Milcom'' as an element. However, in Ammonite
theophoric names,
El, the chief god of the Canaanite pantheon, appears more frequently than Milcom. On this basis, Walter Aufrecht proposes that Milcom was not the state god of the Ammonites and that he may instead have been a patron god of the Ammonite royal house.
Stone statues discovered around
Ammon
Ammon (Ammonite: 𐤏𐤌𐤍 ''ʻAmān''; he, עַמּוֹן ''ʻAmmōn''; ar, عمّون, ʻAmmūn) was an ancient Semitic-speaking nation occupying the east of the Jordan River, between the torrent valleys of Arnon and Jabbok, in p ...
may depict Milcom. Several of these figures show features of the
Ancient Egyptian god
Osiris, namely the
atef
Atef is the specific feathered white crown of the ancient Egyptian deity Osiris. It combines the Hedjet, the white crown of Upper Egypt, with curly ostrich feathers on each side of the crown for the Osiris cult. The feathers are identified as os ...
crown, suggesting that aspects of Osiris may have been adopted into Milcom's cult. An image of a four-winged
scarab beetle
The family Scarabaeidae, as currently defined, consists of over 30,000 species of beetles worldwide; they are often called scarabs or scarab beetles. The classification of this family has undergone significant change in recent years. Several sub ...
has also been suggested to portray Milcom, however, this is inconclusive.
Relationship to other Near-Eastern deities
The name seems to derive from the root , meaning 'to rule'. On the basis of the similar iconography and the greater attestations of names containing the name ''El'' than ''Milcom'', it has been suggested that Milcom may have been an epithet of El used in Ammon, or that Milcom was another god who gradually become associated with El in the same manner as Yahweh became associated with El in Israel. Scholar Collin Cornell has criticized attempts to argue that Milcom was the same deity as El or became
syncretized
Syncretism () is the practice of combining different beliefs and various schools of thought. Syncretism involves the merging or assimilation of several originally discrete traditions, especially in the theology and mythology of religion, th ...
with him as lacking evidence; he argues that similarities between El and Milcom in fact only show that El and Milcom "were I
on
On, on, or ON may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Music
* On (band), a solo project of Ken Andrews
* ''On'' (EP), a 1993 EP by Aphex Twin
* ''On'' (Echobelly album), 1995
* ''On'' (Gary Glitter album), 2001
* ''On'' (Imperial Teen album), 200 ...
eLevantine gods characteristic of their region and era."
Gods with similar names are also attested. A god called ''mlkm'' is mentioned on a list of gods from
Ugarit, one called ''Malkum'' is also attested on tablets from
Drehem
Puzrish-Dagan (modern Drehem) is an important archaeological site in Al-Qādisiyyah Governorate (Iraq). It is best-known for the thousands of clay tablets that are known to have come from the site through looting during the early twentieth century ...
, and a god called ''Malik'' is attested from
Nineveh, as well as
theophoric names
A theophoric name (from Greek: , ''theophoros'', literally "bearing or carrying a god") embeds the word equivalent of 'god' or God's name in a person's name, reflecting something about the character of the person so named in relation to that deit ...
in the
Mari tablets and
Ebla tablets
The Ebla tablets are a collection of as many as 1,800 complete clay tablets, 4,700 fragments, and many thousands of minor chips found in the palace archives of the ancient city of Ebla, Syria. The tablets were discovered by Italian archaeologist P ...
. The name is also similar to the potential god
Moloch found in the Bible, and Moloch is once called the god of the Ammonites in the Masoretic text (1 Kings 11:6-7). The relations between these deities is uncertain; the description of Moloch as a god of the Ammonites may be a scribal error. As further evidence against identifying Milcom with Moloch, E. Puech notes that both are portrayed as having separate places of worship in Jerusalem in the Bible.
References
Sources
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*{{cite book, last=Veen , first=Pieter van der , chapter=Milkom , title=Iconography of Deities and Demons in the Ancient Near East: an iconographic dictionary with special emphasis on first-millennium BCE Palestine-Israel , editor-last1=Uehlinger , editor-first1=Christoph , editor-last2=Eggler , editor-first2=Jürg , publisher=Brill , chapter-url=https://www.academia.edu/648369 , year=2012 , pages=1–5
Ammon
Deities in the Hebrew Bible
Phoenician mythology
West Semitic gods
Osiris
El (deity)