Why does the Lord say that Judah has “built the high places of Baal to burn their sons in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal, which I did not command or decree, nor did it come to my mind”?

The Lord describes in more detail what was involved in Judah’s worship of these false gods. They have filled this place with the blood of innocents and built the high places of Baal to burn their sons in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal. Their pagan worship included offering their children as sacrifices to Baal. 2 Kings 23:10 tells us that during the reforms brought about under the rule of Josiah, Topheth was desecrated so that it no longer functioned as a place of pagan worship. And he defiled Topheth, which is in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, that no one might burn his son or his daughter as an offering to Molech. It would seem that under Jehoiakim they started to use the site for child sacrifice again.¹

Concerning this kind of behaviour the Lord says, I did not command or decree (this), nor did it come into my mind. The covenant law explicitly prohibited the sacrifice of children (Leviticus 18:21; Deuteronomy 12:30; Deuteronomy 18:10) and it is something that the Lord has in no way desired in any form whatsoever. There is absolutely no similarity or even comparison between the Lord and these false gods, and Judah, who knows the Lord because they have his word, have insulted his character by thinking that child sacrifice is acceptable. It is possible that this very emphatic rejection of this practice by the Lord suggests that the people were even connecting these offerings to both Baal and the Lord in a syncretistic way.²