2 Kings 16:3

3. Walked in the way of the kings of Israel By running into all sorts of idolatry, and forming leagues with the heathen. His reign was a period of enormous wickedness, and to Judah one of numerous disasters.

Made his son to pass through the fire This expression, more fully written in 2 Kings 23:10, to pass through the fire to Molech, is interpreted by the rabbies to mean merely the passing between two burning pyres as a purificatory rite. But this is refuted by the parallel passage in 2 Chronicles 28:3: He burnt his children in the fire, and also by the unequivocal statements of the following texts: Psalms 106:37-38; Jeremiah 7:31; Jeremiah 19:4-5; Ezekiel 16:20-21; Ezekiel 23:37. A comparison of all these passages will show that the victims were slain before they were burned. The laws of Moses warned the Israelites against this very abomination, Compare Leviticus 18:21; Leviticus 20:2-4; Deuteronomy 18:10. The rabbinical theory evidently sprung from a desire to escape the charge of the atrocious idolatries of the ancient Jews.

Abominations of the heathen Several of the Canaanitish nations, as well as the Ammonites and Moabites, appear to have practised this horrible rite. According to Movers, “the burning of the children was regarded as a passing through, by which they attained to purification with the deity after the dissolution of the earthly, impure dross of the body.”