2 Kings 17:31

31. Nibhaz and Tartak, idols of the Avites, are also unknown, save that rabbinical conjecture assigns to Nibhaz the form of a dog, and to Tartak the form of an ass. Of the character of the gods of Sepharvaim more can be said. The sacrifice of children as burnt offerings to them clearly indicate that they were fire-gods, akin to Molech. Hence Adrammelech and Anammelech would obviously seem to be respectively the male and female deities of fire. “The male and female powers of the sun,” says Rawlinson, “whose worship at Sippara was celebrated throughout the East, were with more than their usual accuracy identified by the Greeks with the Apollo and Diana of their own mythology; and they are, of course, represented in Scripture by the Adrammelech and Anammelech to whom the Sepharvites burnt their children in the fire. The meaning of these Hebrew names is not very certain. Adrammelech may be ‘the fire-king,’ or it may be ‘the royal arranger,’ ediru and gamilu, ‘the arranger’ and ‘ benefactor,’ being epithets which, together, are frequently applied to the gods, and which are sufficiently applicable to the sun. Anammelech, for the female sun, cannot be explained, unless it be connected with the name Anunit. The female power of the sun is named Gula or Anunit; but her primitive Babylonian name seems to have been Ai, and it is under that form that she is found in most Babylonian documents to be associated as an object of worship with the sun. It is possible that Ai, Gula, and Anunit may represent the female power of the sun in his three different phases of rising, culminating, and setting, for the names do not appear to be interchangeable, and yet they are equally associated with the sun-god.” Herodotus, vol. i, p. 497.