Anammelek was one of the idols that the Sepharvites — the people from Sepharvaim — brought with them to Samaria after the Assyrian king deported them there following the fall of the Northern Kingdom (722 B.C.). In 2 Kings 17:31, it is described how the Sepharvites sacrificed their own children by burning them in fire as an offering to Anammelek and the related idol Adrammelek. This gruesome practice serves in the biblical account as a striking example of the pagan idolatry that filled the religious void after Israel’s exile. Etymologically, the name has been linked to the Akkadian sky god Anu ('Anu is king'), but the interpretation remains uncertain. The entire context of 2 Kings 17 emphasizes that turning away from the Lord led to judgment and exile, and that the syncretistic religious practices that arose in Samaria stood in deep opposition to covenant faithfulness toward Israel’s God.
Key events
Assyrian Relocation to Samaria
After the Assyrian king conquered the northern kingdom of Israel, people from several nations, including Sepharvaim, were settled in the cities of Samaria. These peoples brought their own gods and idols with them.
24The king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim and settled them in the towns of Samaria in place of the Israelites. They took possession of Samaria and lived in its towns.
Child Sacrifice by the Sepharvites to Anammelek and Adrammelek
The people of Sepharvaim burned their children in fire as an offering to the idols Adrammelek and Anammelek. This abominable practice stood in sharp contrast to the Lord's commands and illustrates the depth of pagan idolatry that took place in Samaria.
The foreign peoples in Samaria worshiped both the Lord and their own gods, leading to a religious mixture that was strongly condemned in the biblical account as an expression of apostasy and covenant breaking.
32They feared the LORD, but they also appointed men from their own ranks as priests of the high places, and these officiated for them in the shrines of the high places.
The chapter in 2 Kings explains that Israel's fall and the subsequent idolatry in the land were consequences of the people's persistent sin and turning away from the Lord. This theological framework shows why foreign peoples and their idols, including Anammelek, ended up in Samaria.
7All this happened because the Israelites had sinned against the LORD their God, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt, out from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. They feared other gods
9The Israelites secretly did things against the LORD their God that were not right. They built themselves high places in all their towns, from watchtower to fortified city.
11There, on every high place, they burned incense, just like the nations whom the LORD had carried into exile before them. They did wicked things that provoked the LORD to anger.
17They made their sons and daughters pass through the fire, practiced divination and sorcery, and sold themselves to do what was evil in the eyes of the LORD, provoking him to anger.