When the king of Moab saw that the battle was too fierce for him, he took with him seven hundred swordsmen to break through to the king of Edom, but they could not prevail. 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.
was the secure door unlocked and open that day? or did he shoot through it
It was a custom of the ancients in great crises of danger for the rulers of a city or nation, in order to avert the common ruin, to give up the most beloved of their children for sacrifice as a ransom to the avenging daemons; and those who were thus given up were sacrificed with mystic rites. Kronos then, whom the Phoenicians call Elus, who was king of the country and subsequently, after his decease, was deified as the star Saturn, had by a nymph of the country named Anobret an only begotten son, whom they on this account called ledud, the only begotten being still so called among the Phoenicians; and when very great dangers from war had beset the country, he arrayed his son in royal apparel, and prepared an altar, and sacrificed him.
Phoenicians, and above all Carthaginians, worship Kronos; if they wish to achieve something big, they devote a child of theirs, and in the case of success, sacrifice it to the god. There is a bronze statue of Kronos among them, which stands upright with open arms and palms of its hands facing upwards above a bronze brazier on which the child is burnt. When the flames reach the body, the victim's limbs stiffen and the tense mouth almost seems like it is laughing until, with a final spasm, the child falls in the brazier.
They also alleged that Kronos had turned against them inasmuch as in former times they had been accustomed to sacrifice to this god the noblest of their sons, but more recently, secretly buying and nurturing children, they had sent these to the sacrifice; and when an investigation was made, some of those who had been sacrificed were discovered to have been substituted by stealth. … In their zeal to make amends for the omission, they selected two hundred of the noblest children and sacrificed them publicly; and others who were under suspicion sacrificed themselves voluntarily, in number not less than three hundred. There was in the city a bronze image of Kronos, extending its hands, palms up and sloping towards the ground, so that each of the children when placed thereon rolled down and fell into a sort of gaping pit filled with fire.
… with full knowledge and understanding they themselves offered up their own children, and those who had no children would buy little ones from poor people and cut their throats as if they were so many lambs or young birds; meanwhile the mother stood by without a tear or moan; but should she utter a single moan or let fall a single tear, she had to forfeit the money, and her child was sacrificed nevertheless; and the whole area before the statue was filled with a loud noise of flutes and drums so that the cries of wailing should not reach the ears of the people.
The legendary death of Carthage's first queen Elissa (Dido) by immolation has been connected to the tophet ritual by some scholars.
Dido was enraged by this betrayal, and could no longer bear to live. She had her sister Anna build a pyre under the pretense of burning all that reminded her of Aeneas, including weapons and clothes that he had left behind, and the couch she called their bridal bed. When Dido saw Aeneas' fleet leaving, she cursed him and proclaimed endless hate between Carthage and the descendants of Troy, foreshadowing the Punic Wars. Dido then ascended the pyre, laid again on the couch, and stabbed herself with Aeneas' sword.
>should she utter a single moan or let fall a single tear