Adrammelech

Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible

ADRAMMELECH . 1 . Adrammelech and Anammelech (wh. see), the gods of Sepharvaim to whom the colonists, brought to Samaria from Sepharvaim, burnt their children in the fire (  2 Kings 17:31 ). There is no good explanation of the name: it was once supposed to be for Adar-malik , ‘Adar the prince.’ But Adar is not known to be a Babylonian god, and compound Divine names are practically unknown, nor were human sacrifices offered to Babylonian gods.

2 . Adrammelech and Sharezer (wh. see) are given in   2 Kings 19:37 as the sons of Sennacherib who murdered their father. [The Kethibh of Kings omits ‘his sons’]. The Babylonian Chronicle says: ‘On the 20th of Tebet, Sennacherib, king of Assyria, was killed by his son in an insurrection’; and all other native sources agree in ascribing the murder to one son, but do not name him. Adrammelech is impossible as an Assyrian personal name, and probably arises here from some corruption of the text. The sons of Sennacherib known to us are Ashur-nâdin-shum, king of Babylon, b.c. 700 694; Esarhaddon, who succeeded his father, b.c. 681; Ardi-Bçlit, Crown Prince, b.c. 694; Ashur-shum-ushabshi, for whom Sennacherib built a palace in Tarbisi; Ashur-ilu-muballitsu, for whom Sennacherib built a palace in Asshur; and Shar-etir-Ashur. Possibly Ardi-Bçlit is intended.

C. H. W. Johns.

Smith's Bible Dictionary

 Adram'melech.  (splendor of the king).

1. The name of an idol introduced into Samaria by the colonists from Sepharvaim.  2 Kings 17:31. He was worshipped with rites resembling those of Molech, children being burnt in his honor. Adrammelech was probably the male power of the sun, and  Anammelech, who is mentioned with Adrammelech as a companion god, the female power of the sun.

2. Son of the Assyrian king, Sennacherib, who, with his brother Sharezer, murdered their father in the temple of Nisroch at Nineveh, after the failure of the Assyrian attack on Jerusalem. The parricides escaped into Armenia.  2 Kings 19:37;  2 Chronicles 32:21;  Isaiah 37:38.

American Tract Society Bible Dictionary

1. Son of Sennacherib, king of Assyria,  Isaiah 37:38;  2 Kings 19:37 , who, upon returning to Nineveh after his fatal expedition against Hezekiah, was killed by his two sons, Adrammelech and Sharezer, through fear, according to Jewish tradition, of being sacrificed to his idol Nisroch. They then fled to the mountains of Armenia, B. C. 713.

2. One of the gods adored by the inhabitants of Sepharvaim, who settled in Samaria, in the stead of those Israelites who were carried beyond the Euphrates. They made their children pass through fire, in honor of this false deity, and of another called Anammelech,  2 Kings 17:31 . Some think that Adrammelech represented the sun, and Anammelech the moon.

Fausset's Bible Dictionary

 1. The idol of the Sepharvite colonists of Samaria planted by Assyria ( 2 Kings 17:31); means "burning splendor of the king" (compare Molech). The male power of the sun; as ANAMMELECH is the female, sister deity. Astrology characterized the Assyrian idolatry. Adrammelech was represented as a peacock or a mule; Anammelech as a pheasant or a horse. Children were burnt in his honor.

 2. Son and murderer of Sennacherib in Nisroch's temple at Nineveh. He and Sharezer his brother escaped to Armenia ( 2 Kings 19:36;  2 Chronicles 32:21). Named so from the idol.

People's Dictionary of the Bible

 Adrammelech ( a-drăm'me-l ĕk),  splendor of the king, or  fire king. 1. One of the idols adored by the Sepharvaim, who were settled in Samaria. They made their children pass through the fire in honor of this deity, and of another called Anammelech, "image of the king." Rawlinson supposes the sun and his wife Anunit—perhaps the moon-to be referred to.  2 Kings 17:31. 2. A son of Sennacherib, who aided in slaying his father.  2 Kings 19:37;  Isaiah 37:38.

Morrish Bible Dictionary

 1. The god of the Sepharvites, to whom they burnt their children, placed in one of the houses of the high places among the Samaritans.  2 Kings 17:31 . A sort of Adar-Mars, i.e., sun-god, who was regarded as a destroying being (Fürst).

 2. One of the sons of Sennacherib who smote his father with the sword and then fled to the land of Armenia.   2 Kings 19:37;  Isaiah 37:38 .

Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary

the son of Sennacherib, king of Assyria. The king returning to Nineveh, after his unhappy expedition made into Judea against king Hezekiah, was killed by his two sons, Adrammelech and Sharezer, while at his devotions in the temple of his god Nisroch,  Isaiah 37:38; 2 Kings 19. It is not known what prompted these two princes to commit this parricide; but after they had committed the murder, they fled for safety to the mountains of Armenia, and their brother, Esar-haddon, succeeded to the crown.

Easton's Bible Dictionary

• An idol; a form of the sun-god worshipped by the inhabitants of Sepharvaim (2Kings 17:31), and brought by the Sepharvite colonists into Samaria.
• A son of Sennacherib, king of Assyria (2Kings 19:37;  Isaiah 37:38 ).

Holman Bible Dictionary

 2 Kings 17:24 2 Kings 17:31-33 2 2 Kings 19:37

Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

(Heb. Adramme ’ lek,  אִדְרִמֶּלֶךְ  , prob. for,  אֶדֶר  הִמֶּלֶךְ,  glory of the king, i.e., of Moloch; Sept.  Ἀδραμέλεχ ) , the name of a deity, and also of a man. (See Cuneiform Inscriptions).

 1. An idol worshipped by the sacrifice of children in the fire, in connection with Anammelech, by the inhabitants of Sepharvaim, who were transported to Samaria by the king of Assyria ( 2 Kings 17:31). Selden  (De Diis Syris, 2, 9) has confounded the two idols, being misled by a corrupt reading of the text ( אֵֹלהִ,  god, instead of 1. אֵֹלהֵי,  gods of, as in the margin). The above etymology (making the name equivalent to the splendid king), first proposed by Jurien (Hist. des cultes, 4, 653) favors the reference of this divinity to the sun, the moon perhaps being denoted by the associated Anammelech (as the female companion of the sun, comp. Rawlinson ’ s Herodotus, 1, 611), in general accordance with the astrological character of Assyrian idolatry (Gesenius, Comment. ub. Jesaias, 2, 327 sq.), and seems preferable to the Persian derivation (i. q. adar or azar, fire) proposed by Reland (De vet. ling. Pers. 9). The kind of sacrifice has led to the conjecture (Lette, De idolo Adrammelech, in the Bibl. Bremens. nov.  — fasc. 1, p. 41 sq.) that Saturn is meant; but Selden (De Diis Syris, 1, 6) and others have identified him with Moloch, chiefly on the ground that the sacrifice of children by fire, and the general signification of the name, are the same in both (see Gregorius, Feuergotzen d. Samaritaner, Lauban, 1754). Little credit is due to the rabbinical statements of the Bab. Talmud, that this idol was worshipped under the form of a peacock, or, according to Kimchi, that of a mule (Carpzov, Apparatus, p. 516); but it is probable that the former notion may have arisen from a confusion with some other ancient idol of the Assyrians of that form. The Yezidees, or so-called devil-worshippers of the same region, appear to retain a striking vestige of such a species of idolatry in their sacred symbol called Melek Taus, or king peacock, a name by which they personify Satan, the chief object of their reverence (Layard ’ s Nineveh, 1st ser. 1, 245; 2d ser. p. 47).

 2. A son of Sennacherib, king of Assyria. Both he and Sharezar were probably the children of slaves, and had therefore no right to the throne. Sennacherib, some time after his return to Nineveh, from his disastrous expedition against Hezekiah, was put to death by them while worshipping in the temple of his god Nisroch; having accomplished this crime, they fled for safety to the mountains of Armenia, and their brother Esarhaddon succeeded to the throne ( 2 Kings 19:37;  Isaiah 37:38; comp.  2 Chronicles 32:21), B.C. 680. See SENNACHERIB. Moses Chorensis (p. 60) calls him Adramelus; so, also, Abydenus (in Euseb. Chron. Armen. 1, 53), who makes him the son and murderer of Nergal, Sennacherib ’ s immediate successor (see Hitzig, Begriff d. Kritik, p. 194 sq.); while, according to Alexander Polyhistor (in Euseb. Chron. Arm. 1, 43), Sennacherib was assassinated by his son Ardumusanus. Colossians Rawlinson (Outlines of Assyrian History, also in the Lond. Athenaeum, March 18 and April 15, 1854) thinks he has deciphered the names of two Assyrian kings called Adrammelech, one about 300 and the other 15 years anterior to Sennacherib; but neither of them can be the one referred to in Scripture.

Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblial Literature

Adrammelech, 1

Adram´melech is mentioned, together with Anammelech, in  2 Kings 17:31, as one of the idols whose worship the inhabitants of Sepharvaim established in Samaria, when they were transferred thither by the king of Assyria, and whom they worshipped by the sacrifice of their children by fire. This constitutes the whole of our certain knowledge of this idol.

Adrammelech, 2

Adrammelech, one of the sons and murderers of Sennacherib, king of Assyria ( 2 Kings 19:37;  Isaiah 37:38).