Relief for Innocent Victims

IT IS one of the most repulsive crimes ever committed by man​—ritual sacrifice of children. Some do not believe that such a gross practice could have taken place. But this trademark of Phoenician worship has been confirmed by numerous archaeological discoveries.

Children from noble families were offered up in fire to such gods as Tanit and Baal-Hammon. In Carthage young victims were burned in sacrifice to a bronze statue of Kronos. Diodorus Siculus, a historian of the first century B.C.E., says that the child’s relatives were not allowed to cry. Perhaps it was believed that tears of anguish would diminish the value of the sacrifice.

For a time a similar ritual was practiced near Jerusalem in ancient Topheth. Worshipers there would dance and strike tambourines to drown out the child’s cries as it was thrown into the furnace-belly of Molech.​—Jeremiah 7:31.

Jehovah feels great anger toward those who heartlessly stop up their ears to the pain of others. (Compare Proverbs 21:13.) As the God who shows compassion for children, Jehovah will certainly include such innocent victims in the “resurrection of both the righteous and the unrighteous.”​—Acts 24:15; Exodus 22:22-24.