The valley Gehennon, called also the valley of Tophet. Gehennon is the Syriac word for hell. The same is meant by Tophet. These several names it should seem, were all equally applied to the same place. The prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah both speak of this awful spot. (Isa. xxx. 33. Jer. 7: 31.) And it is said, that Josiah, the good king, "defiled the place;" that is, he destroyed it for the purpose for which it had been used, by those wretched parents who had been deluded to sacrifice their children to the idol - god Molech, in thisspot. (See 2 Kings 23. 10.) For by destroying it, that cruel, unnatural, and impious practice could no more be done there. Some have thought, that the name Tophet took its rise from Thoph, a drum; for it is supposed, that this, and perhaps other musical instruments, were loudly sounded upon those occasions, to drown the piercing cries of the poor children. The name of Hinnom is derived from the sons of Hinnom. (Joshua xv. 8.) See Molech.
VALLEY OF, called also Tophet, and by the Greeks Gehenna, a small valley on the south-east of Jerusalem, at the foot of Mount Zion, where the Canaanites, and afterward the Israelites, sacrificed their children to the idol Moloch, by making them “pass through the fire,” or burning them. To drown the shrieks of the victims thus inhumanly sacrificed, musical instruments, called in the Hebrew tuph, tympana or timbrels, were played; whence the spot derived the name of Tophet. Ge Hinnom, or “The Valley of Hinnom,” from which the Greeks framed their Gehenna, is sometimes used in Scripture to denote hell or hell fire. See HELL.
Hin´nom or rather Ben-Hinnom, an unknown person, whose name was given to the valley which bounds Jerusalem on the north, below Mount Zion, and which in Scripture is often mentioned in connection with the horrid rites of Moloch, which under idolatrous kings were there celebrated (Jos 15:8; Jos 18:16; Neh 11:30; Jer 7:31; Jer 19:2). When Josiah overthrew this idolatry, he defiled the valley by casting into it the bones of the dead, the greatest of all pollutions among the Hebrews: and from that time it became the common jakes of Jerusalem, into which all refuse of the city was cast, and where the combustible portions of that refuse were consumed by fire. Hence it came to be regarded as a sort of type of hell, the Gehenna of the New Testament being no other than the name of this valley of Hinnom (Ge-Hinnom); see Mat 5:22, sq.; Mar 9:43; Luk 12:5; Jas 3:6.
That is, the valley of Hinnom, or of the son of Hinnom, a narrow valley just south of Jerusalem, running up westward from the valley of the Cedron, and passing into the valley of the Cedron, and passing into the valley of Gihon, which follows the base of mount Zion north, up to the Joppa gate. It was well watered, and in ancient times most verdant and delightfully shaded with trees. The boundary line Judah and Benjamin passed through it, Jos 15:8 18:6 Ne 11:30. In its lowest part, towards the southeast, and near the king’s gardens and Siloam, the idolatrous Israelties made their children pass through the fire to Moloch, 1Ki 11:7 2Ki 16:3 Jer 32:35 . See MOLOCH.\par The place of these abominable sacrifices is also called Tophet, Isa 30:33 Jer 7:31 . According to some, this name is derived from the Hebrew toph, drum, because drums are supposed to have been used to drown the cries of the victims. But this opinion rests only on conjecture. King Josiah defiled the place, 2Ki 23:10, probably by making it a depository of filth. It has been a common opinion that the later Jews, in imitation of Josiah, threw into this place all manner of filth, as well as the carcasses of animals and the dead bodies of malefactors; and that with reference to either the baleful idolatrous fires in the worship of Moloch, or to the fires afterwards maintained there to consume the mass of impurities that might otherwise have occasioned a pestilence, came the figurative use of the fires of Gehenna, that is, valley of Hinnom, to denote the eternal fire in which wicked men and fallen spirits shall be punished. This supposition, however, rests upon uncertain grounds.\par It seems clear that the later Jews borrowed their usage of the fire of the valley of Hinnom (Gehenna) to represent the punishment of the wicked in the future world directly from two passages of Isaiah: "For Tophet is ordained of old; yea, for the king it is prepared; he hath made it deep and large: the pile thereof is fire and much wood; the breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it," Isa 66:24 . These they correctly interpreted figuratively, as representing the vengeance, which God would take on his enemies and the oppressors of his people. That the prophet, in this terrible imagery, alluded to any fire kept perpetually burning in the valley of Hinnom, has not been clearly proved. But however this may be, it is certain that the Jews transferred the name Gehenna, that is the valley of Hinnom, to the place in which devils and wicked men are to be punished in eternal fire, and which in the New Testament is always translated hell, Mat 5:22,29,30 10:28 Mar 9:43,45,47 Luk 12:5 Jas 3:6 . See HELL.\par The rocks on the south side of Hinnom are full of gaping apertures, the mouths of tombs once filled with the dead, but now vacant.\par
Hin’nom. (lamentation). Valley of Hinnom. Otherwise called, "the valley of the son" or "children of Hinnom," a deep and narrow ravine, with steep, rocky sides, to the south and west of Jerusalem, separating Mount Zion to the north from the "hill of evil counsel," and the sloping rocky plateau of the "plain of Rephaim" to the south. The earliest mention of the valley of Hinnom is in Jos 15:8; Jos 18:16, where the boundary line between the tribes of Judah and Benjamin is described as passing along the bed of the ravine.
On the southern brow, overlooking the valley at its eastern extremity, Solomon erected high places for Molech, 1Ki 11:7, whose horrid rites were revived, from time to time, in the same vicinity. The later idolatrous kings, Ahaz and Manasseh, made their children "pass through the fire," in this valley, 2Ki 16:3; 2Ch 28:3; 2Ch 33:6, and the fiendish custom of infant sacrifice to the fire-gods seems to have been kept up in Tophet, which was another name for this place.
To put an end to these abominations, the place was polluted by Josiah, who renders it ceremonially unclean, by spreading over it human bones and other corruptions, 2Ki 23:10; 2Ki 23:13-14; 2Ch 34:4-5, from which time, it appears to have become the common cesspool of the city, into which sewage was conducted, to be carried off by the waters of the Kidron. From its ceremonial defilement, and from the detested and abominable fire of Molech, if not from the supposed ever-burning funeral piles, the later Jews applied the name of this valley -- Ge Hinnom, Gehenna. (land of Hinnom) -- to denote the place of eternal torment. In this sense, the word is used by our Lord. Mat 5:29; Mat 10:28; Mat 23:15; Mar 9:43; Luk 12:5.
Hinnom (hîn’nom), perhaps lamentation. The valley of the son or sons of Hinnom, or, more concisely, the valley of Hinnom, the boundary between Judah and Benjamin. Jos 15:8; Jos 18:16. It was the place where children were made "to pass through the fire to Molech," and was defiled by Josiah, in order to extinguish forever such detestable rites. 2Ki 23:10; 2Ch 28:3; 2Ch 33:6; Jer 7:31-32; Jer 19:2; Jer 19:6; Jer 32:35. It is mentioned after the captivity again as the frontier of Judah and Benjamin. Neh 11:30. From the fires of Moloch and from the defilement of the valley, comp. Isa 30:33; Isa 66:24, if not from the supposed everburning funeral fires, the later Jews applied the name of the valley (in the Septuagint Geënna), to the place of eternal suffering for lost angels and men; and in this sense it is used in the New Testament. Mat 5:22; Mat 5:29-30; Mat 10:28; Mar 9:43; Mar 9:45; Mar 9:47; Luk 12:5; Jas 3:6.
See GE-HINNOM, or GE BEN-(BENE-)HINNOM: