I think they were more henotheistic than monolatrist, as evidenced by the fact that they’re forever being warned about worshiping other gods in addition to the God of Abraham. (Don’t give your firstborn to Molock, don’t have sex with temple prostitutes [which implies worship of the goddesses and gods to whom this was sacred], etc…) Some kings (Solomon and Ahab especially) seemed to be very tolerant of other religions and consequently the prophets had to have fits because there was some defection or dual worship (cafeteria plan worship of gods seems to have been not at all uncommon in the ancient world), and of course a lot of them picked up “bad habits” in Babylon. Evidently many hedged their bets by worshiping other group’s deities as well or as needed.
They did worship other gods besides Yahweh even after they were ostensibly exclusively Yahwist. Specifically, the worship of Yahweh’s consort, Asherah, was popular at least until the Babylonian exile.
Speaking of the “don’t sacrifice your firstborn to Molock- you can think about it maybe, but don’t ya do it” injunction, I was thinking about this the other day and wondered if this was, as many rituals and odd customs were, based in practicality. In a time when pretty much all mothers of more than a couple of children were probably going to lose at least one and some mothers lost most or all even if they had a large family, I wonder if this was perhaps to inure them to the loss of a child and or stop them from bonding too heavily with them in infancy to avoid heartbreak and depression. Or maybe they just didn’t like kids.
I think it’s more that the gods want sacrifices, and the more valuable the sacrifice, the more the god is pleased, and what’s more valuable than your first born son?
And it’s “Moloch”
Or Melek, or Malachu, or Malaqi, or Molock- you’ll see them all. “Moloch” is the archaic term for “something that requires great sacrifice”- i.e. a symbolic use of the name, like shibboleth is both a Biblical term AND a general term for an ‘identifying habit or word’ (or password even). There seems to be no uniform transliteration for the god himself. M_L_K is a standard semitic word for ‘lord’ or ‘king’, similar to Baal or El (not to be confused with M.L.K.- though his last name was strangely king- and his archrival and ally Malcolm X took the name Malik- meaning ‘king’- weird).