and they have built the high places of Baal, to burn their sons in the fire as burnt-offerings unto Baal, which I commanded not, nor spake it, neither came it up into my mind
This verse names the crime that brought Jerusalem's judgment: parents built shrines to Baal and burned their own children there as offerings. God does more than condemn it — He never asked for this, never spoke of it, and it never entered His mind.
Baal was no minor local god. His shrines already stood in the land when Israel arrived. A Bible dictionary explains his name and the worship attached to it.
The name means 'master, possessor,' and whether singular or plural it always has the article. He was the chief male god of the Phoenicians and the Canaanites, and Ashtoreth was the chief female goddess. When the Israelites came into the land, they no doubt found temples, groves, altars and high places set apart to Baal. There people offered incense, burned offerings, and sacrificed children to him. A great company of prophets and priests served him, as its later revivals make clear.
Some deny that the children were really burned. One writer answers that, and sets what these idols demanded beside what God accepted.
Parents were so blinded by Satan that they gave their children as sacrifices to Molech, the god of the Ammonites. From Jeremiah 19:5 it appears that Baal was worshipped in the same way. Some have reasoned about "passing through the fire," here and elsewhere, so as to deny that they burned their children. But this seems a well-meaning attempt to soften the reality of the wickedness. It was the fullest, though not the only, profanation of the name of Israel's God. Jehovah accepted a sheep or an ox, or even a much smaller sacrifice; Satan under these names demanded their sons.
The sharpest words in the verse are about God's own mind. One writer turns that same charge on worship that people invent for themselves.
How many practices and customs in Christendom have been "devised" of men's own hearts which have no foundation in Scripture! Many seem to think that in spiritual things everyone may do "what is right in his own eyes," instead of "Thus says the LORD." God condemned Israel for doing what, He says, "I did not command them, nor did it come into My heart" (Jer. 7:31; also 19:5; 32:35). It is the thoughts of God's heart, not mine, that I am to heed and put into practice.
The judgment matches the crime. God renames the valley where they burned their children.
In Jeremiah 19 we have the sign of the potter's earthen vessel developed further. Now the valley of the son of Hinnom comes into view, and it always means judgment. "Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when this place shall no more be called Topheth, or the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter." Topheth points to the great judgment which the Lord will carry out when He Himself comes. It is not merely the place of execution by man. Plainly, the judgment of Jerusalem is the subject.
The valley outside Jerusalem did not stay in the past. Its name became the word Jesus used for hell.
Does not our Lord here, in speaking of Gehenna, or hell-fire, refer to the valley of Hinnom, where the people burned their children alive? It is also called the valley of Topheth, from the fire-stove where they burned the children. This valley was the scene of those wicked sacrifices. After Josiah's time, most believe, the valley of Hinnom (Gehenna in Greek) went on being a place of foul filth and pollution. There people burned refuse and dead bodies, and worms fed on the pieces the fire did not consume.
Does this warning belong only to the past? One writer says the same road runs through Christendom.
Idolatry and moral degradation always go together. The fearful road of falling away in Christendom is no exception. Rejection of God's revelation leads into idolatry — not necessarily idols of wood and stone — and into moral decline.
- Master. "Baal" means master or possessor. He was the chief god of Canaan, served with priests, incense, high places, and the sacrifice of children.
- Demanded. God asked for a sheep or an ox; under these idol names Satan demanded their sons — the fullest profanation of God's name.
- Devised. What men build for God out of their own hearts, God disowns: never commanded, never spoken, never in His mind.
- Renamed. God renames the ground where they burned their children. It becomes the Valley of Slaughter, and it points past Jerusalem's fall to His own final judgment.
- Repeated. The valley's name became Jesus' word for hell. The pattern that filled it still repeats: revelation rejected, idolatry adopted, morals in decline.
therefore behold, days come, saith Jehovah, that this place shall no more be called Topheth, nor Valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of slaughter.
God gives the valley south of Jerusalem a new name, and that name is His sentence on it. The ground where the people offered their children will be the ground where their own bodies fall.
Who Hinnom was, nobody knows. What happened in his valley is on record.
This is often called "the valley of the son of Hinnom," but who Hinnom and his son were is unknown. The valley running from east to west, on the south of Jerusalem, now bears that name. In some part of it, thought to be the east end, children were passed through the fire to false gods. To stop this, Josiah defiled Topheth in this valley. Isaiah gives the key to why the New Testament links this valley, under the name Gehenna, with eternal punishment. In God's judgments the valley shall become the "valley of slaughter."
The new name is not just harsher. The old ones, foul as they were, could not carry the weight of what God was about to do there.
The earthen bottle of chapter 19 is a picture of Jerusalem and the people. In the earlier sign the point was God's right to handle any nation or kingdom as He saw fit, and also His ability to do so. Here the sign is solemn: God will punish the city, its surroundings and its people in public for their sin and idolatry. Those who hear of it will feel their ears tingle. So it becomes a powerful witness to how dreadful sin is. The vile names of Tophet and Hinnom could not say enough to describe the place of their punishment. It should be called "The valley of slaughter."
This was no empty threat. The sentence reached the bodies of the people who had worshipped there.
In Tophet, the valley of Hinnom, they had done their detestable things and burned their sons with fire. Now it should become the valley of slaughter, so that their dead bodies would be eaten by the birds and wild beasts. He would cause them to eat the flesh of their loved ones. It was fulfilled during the siege of Jerusalem (Lamentations 4:10). Then he broke the bottle as a sign that the people and the city would be broken in the same way.
Commentators differ on how far this verse reaches. Gaebelein reads it as fulfilled in the siege. William Kelly sees the valley pointing further ahead, to a judgment no army could carry out.
In Jeremiah 19 we have the sign of the potter's earthen vessel developed further. Now the valley of the son of Hinnom comes into view, and it always stands for judgment… Tophet points to the great judgment the Lord will carry out when He Himself comes. It is not merely a place of execution by man. Plainly, the judgment of Jerusalem is the subject.
The name outlived Jeremiah's generation, and it changed as it travelled.
A writer says: "Less than thirty years before the Chaldeans destroyed Jerusalem, the good king Josiah swept the idol out of the valley — the hideous ox-headed human figure of Moloch — with everything that belonged to it. He defiled the place so completely that no one could ever use it again for that frightful worship. But the horrors of the past had marked people's minds so deeply that from then on the spot bore the name Tophet — the abomination, the place to be spat upon. Later the very words Ge-hinnom, the Valley of Hinnom, changed slightly into gehenna and became the common name for hell."
Jesus took that borrowed name and used it for a far worse ruin.
People knew the Valley of Hinnom, the rubbish dump outside Jerusalem, as Gehenna. Fires always burned there, and maggots did their work without stopping. On the Lord's lips this word became a terribly fitting picture of the dwelling place of the lost. Hell will indeed be the great rubbish heap of eternity. There God will keep everything that is evil beyond correction apart from the good, and it will lie for ever under His judgment. This dreadful fact comes to us from the lips of Him who loved sinful men and wept over them.
- The place. A ravine south of Jerusalem where children went through the fire to false gods. Josiah cleaned it out, but its memory stayed.
- The sin. The idolatry there was so vile that even the names Tophet and Hinnom fell short of the punishment God had prepared.
- The name. God renames the valley "slaughter" — the place of their worship becomes the place of their burial.
- The proof. The siege of Jerusalem fulfilled the threat. Kelly sees in Tophet a further judgment the Lord Himself will carry out when He comes.
- The echo. Ge-hinnom became gehenna. On the lips of Jesus that valley became the picture of hell — a warning from the One who loved sinful men and wept over them.