Zephaniah 1:5

The worship “on the housetops” is mentioned elsewhere as the cult of a certain class of apostates (see Jeremiah 19:13; Jeremiah 32:29) who ascended roots and other high places to adore the hosts of heaven. We find it mentioned as part of Josiah’s reformatory procedure that he removed “the altars that were on the top of the upper chamber of Ahaz” (2 Kings 23:12). The last half of the verse should be rendered, And the worshippers who swear to Jehovah, and who swear (also) by Malcham — i.e., those who divide their allegiance between the true God and the false. In the title given to the latter we may perhaps see a combination of “their king” (Hebrew, malcâm) and the name Moloch, or Molech. The name Malcham, however, occurs elsewhere as the name of an Ammonite deity, probably identical with Moloch. (See Jeremiah 49:1, Notes.) In 1 Kings 11:5, moreover, we have a deity “Milcham,” who is identified two verses later with Molech, “the abomination of the children of Ammon.” The allusion to the adoration of the “host of heaven upon the housetops” gains additional force if this deity is identical with the planet Saturn, as some have supposed. (See Gesenius, sub voce).