מלכים ב, פרק ט״ז, פסוק ג׳

King Ahaz makes a deliberate choice to abandon the path of God, opting instead to adopt the customs of the kings of Israel. Pushing his rebellion even further, he embraces the dark rituals of the ancient Canaanite nations [ביאור שטיינזלץ]. Central to these practices is the worship of the idol Molech, a horrific ritual in which a father passes his own child between two burning bonfires [מצודת דוד]. Such actions revive the very abominations of the foreign nations that God had previously driven out and removed from the land to make way for the Israelites [מצודת ציון].

Ahaz subjected more than one of his children to this terrifying act. Tragically, one of his sons was completely consumed by the flames. However, his second son, Hezekiah, survived the ordeal. Before the ritual, Hezekiah’s mother took desperate measures to protect her child by coating his body with a fireproof substance derived from a salamander. Because of her intervention, the fires raged all around Hezekiah but ultimately left him completely unharmed [מלבי״ם].