MULEK

Mulekite PN	1.	Son of ZEDEKIAH, king of JUDAH, ca. 590 BC (Mosiah 25:2; Helaman 6:10; 8:21)
	2.	Name of all of the land northward, originally settled by colony which included No. 1 (Helaman 6:10)
	3.	City east of ZARAHEMLA by the seashore and near the cities of GID and BOUNTIFUL, ca. 67 BC (Alma 51:26; 52:2, 16, 17, 19, 20, 22, 26, 28, 34; 53:2, 6; Helaman 5:15)

Etymology

This entry will treat the two most likely spellings of this name, MULEK and MULOCH, independently, even though the spellings may not represent different individuals, but simply spelling variants of the same name. The texts actually contain four slightly different spellings: The city name, found only in the books of ALMA and HELAMAN, is consistently spelled Mulek. The descriptor of the Land Northward, a hapax that occurs only in Helaman 6:10, is written Mulek in the printer’s manuscript through the 2013 edition. The only deviation from the current standard spelling, Mulek, occurs with the three occurrences of the PN. The first time it occurs in the Book of Mormon, in Mosiah 25:2, it is spelled Muloch in the printer’s manuscript. In the 1830-1852 printings, and in all RLDS editions, Mulok appears. The spelling was changed in the 1879 LDS edition to Mulek and has remained Mulek through the 2013 LDS edition. When the PN occurs again, in Helaman 6:10 (the second occurrence), the printer’s manuscript originally had Muleh but the h is overwritten with a k (probably immediately), producing the correction Mulek, followed by the 1830 through the 2013 editions. In Helaman 8:21, the third and final appearance of the PN, it is spelled consistently Mulek in the printer’s manuscript through the 2013 edition.

As Royal Skousen has noted, “It is, of course, theoretically possible that the Book of Mormon is referring to two different individuals: MULOCH, an ancestor of ZARAHEMLA, in the book of MOSIAH; and MULEK, a son of king ZEDEKIAH, in the book of HELAMAN.”^[1] Therefore, in the interest of completeness this onomasticon entry will treat the two most promising spellings, MULEK and MULOCH, as different names belonging to two different persons, even though it is more likely that they are textual variants of one and the same PN.

The common Semitic root mlk, which in West Semitic means “to reign (malāk), king (melek),” and in East Semitic, “to counsel (malāku), counselor (malku),” provides the most likely etymology for MULEK.^[2] MULEK was the son of ZEDEKIAH (Helaman 6:10, 8:21), the king in JERUSALEM when LEHI left.^[3]

It is very tempting to read MULEK as a shortened form, perhaps a hypocoristicon, of a longer name. For example, from the same time period, the days of ZEDEKIAH, the name Malchiah in Jeremiah 38:6, reads in Hebrew מלכיהו malkiyahû and means “Yahweh is (my) king.” It has been proposed by some scholars that Malchiah may have been the son of ZEDEKIAH,^[4] which, if it is correct, has been obscured by the King James translation. That is, the Hebrew, malkiyahû ben hammelek, can be translated most readily, as the Septuagint does, as “Malchiah the son of the king,” rather than the King James rendering, “Malchiah the son of Hammlech.” Because of the suggested identity of Malchiah as a son of ZEDEKIAH, LDS scholars have also suggested a connection between Book of Mormon MULEK and biblical Malchiah.^[5]

The form MULEK, if it is a hypocoristicon of a name similar to Malchiah, would be from the noun pattern for a diminutive or caritative, puʿail (fuʿayl in Arabic), meaning “little king.”^[6]The diphthong –ai- can shorten to /e/.^[7] Given that MULEK was the son of King ZEDEKIAH (see Helaman 8:21), then a PN based on a diminutive of the Semitic root mlk would seem appropriate.^[8]

Another possible etymology for MULEK involves the fairly common West Semitic word mlk, “a type of sacrifice.” As is indicated by Latin terms derived from Punic (e.g., molchomor, probably from mlʾk ʾmr, “sacrifice of a lamb”^[9]), it would appear to have the requisite vowels. MULEK would then be a hypocoristicon with a meaning similar to “(the divine) sacrifice.” The meaning “sacrifice” seems to derive from the meaning “vow”^[10] or Arabic mulk “power.”^[11] Alternatively, the meaning sacrifice may derive from the West Semitic DN Molk.^[12] If MULEK is to be derived from mulk or molk, then the preferred etymology would be a hypocoristic form involving the verb to vow.

A less likely possibility is to derive MULEK from the common Semitic root hlk, “to go, walk,” which has been suggested by some as the root of the divine name Molech. If so, MULEK would mean “traveler, sojourner” (JH). But there is no HEBREW form that would produce MULEK from the root hlk. Nevertheless, “sojourner” may be attractive for metonymic reasons (befitting an individual who had traveled a great distance from his homeland), and could therefore add to the growing evidence of metonymy being a factor in the determination of Book of Mormon names (JAT).

The (possibly independent) name MULOCH could also derive from the common Semitic root mlk, as described above, though the form is not readily transparent. MULOCH looks very much like a participle from a hollow verb in an oblique conjugation. However, no Hebrew root matches the form MULOCH. There is a South-west Semitic root, lwḥ, that appears to mean “shine,” and would work with MULOCH. ^[13]

Cf. Book of Mormon MULOKI, MELEK, AMALEKI, AMALICKIAH, AMLICI, AMULEK, MELCHIZEDEK.