And they have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I commanded not, neither did it come up into my mind.
Jeremiah's charge against Judah reaches its lowest point here. Just outside the city, in a valley, parents were burning their own children as worship. God's answer is the sharpest line in the verse: He never asked for it, and it never entered His mind.
The people leaned on the temple for safety while this went on in the valley below.
Jeremiah 7 begins a new prophecy, focused above all on the temple. The people had no conscience about their sin, and they treated the temple as their protection. Instead it had become one more proof of their wickedness. They were to remember Shiloh, for God's house would be overthrown in the same way... He required obedience, not sacrifice. When the people came into His house while they were practising idolatry, they only defiled it.
The Valley of the Son of Hinnom was a real place. A later king acted against what Jeremiah describes.
The valley running from east to west, on the south of Jerusalem, is called 'the valley of the son of Hinnom.' In some part of this valley, thought to be the east end, parents passed their children through the fire to false gods. To prevent this, Josiah defiled Topheth in this valley.
Some have tried to soften what "passing through the fire" means. One writer rejects that, and says who was really receiving these children.
Some have argued about "passing through the fire," here and elsewhere, so as to deny that they burned their children. But this seems a kindly effort to soften the reality of the wickedness. It was the fullest, though not the only, profaning of the name of Israel's God. The Lord accepted a sheep or an ox, or even a much smaller sacrifice; Satan under these names demanded their sons.
The word "sacrifice" sounds like self-giving. One writer looks behind the word at the parents' real motive.
People called this a sacrifice. But it did not come from unselfish love for Molech. It came from the selfish evil of wanting to get rid of a child. How evil it is today that many want to get rid of a child before it is born! Molech was an image with its arms stretched out. Parents placed their children in its arms while a fire burned beneath. Then drums and noisy music drowned out the child's cries as the fire burned it to death. So this religious wickedness treated the torture and murder of an unwanted child as holy.
God does not only condemn the cruelty. He condemns where it came from: people invented it. That test still cuts.
How many practices and customs in the Christian world come from what men have "devised" in their own hearts, with 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 never asked for. He says, "I commanded them not, neither came it 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. These He has revealed in His Word, and it is our happiness and wisdom to heed that.
(The ESV reads "nor did it come into my mind.")
The judgment falls on the very ground where the sin happened.
On the heights of Topheth, in the valley of the son of Hinnom, they had burned their children as a sacrifice to Molech. The days were now coming when that same place would become the place of slaughter. The dead bodies of the people would then be food for the beasts of the earth; they would lie there unburied. Such was to be Jerusalem's rejection and judgment.
The valley's name outlived the valley. It became the word our Lord used for hell.
When our Lord speaks of Gehenna, or hell-fire, does He not point back to the valley of Hinnom? That is where the people burned their children alive. It is also called the valley of Topheth, from the fire-stove in which the children were burned... After Josiah's time, many believe the valley of Hinnom stayed a place of filth and pollution. People burned rubbish and dead animals there, and worms fed on the pieces the fire left. Does our Lord not draw a contrast here? Those fires went out and those worms died. But the eternal condition is one "where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched."
- Place. Topheth lay in the valley south of Jerusalem. There parents passed their children through the fire to false gods, until Josiah defiled the place to stop it.
- Power. God accepted a sheep or an ox; Satan, under these borrowed names, demanded their sons.
- Pretence. The word "sacrifice" dressed it up, but the drums that drowned the child's cries show what it really was.
- Principle. God's objection is not only the horror but the origin: it never came from Him. It is the thoughts of God's heart, not ours, that we are to act on.
- Payment. The valley where they burned their children became the valley of slaughter. Its name, Gehenna, became the Lord's own word for a fire that is not quenched.
Therefore, behold, days are coming, saith Jehovah, when it shall no more be said, Topheth, and Valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of slaughter; for they shall bury in Topheth, till there be no place.
Jeremiah has just described a people who burned their own children in a ravine outside Jerusalem. Now God renames that ravine, and the place of their sin becomes the place of their burial.
The new name is the judgment. What the people used as a shrine, God turns into a graveyard:
The Lord had rejected the generation of His wrath. So the valley of slaughter would take the place of the high places of Tophet in the valley of Hinnom's son. This would go on until Tophet had no more space for burial, and the bodies of Judah became food for birds and beasts. All joy would cease, and the land would be desolate.
The old names in the verse carry a history. This was a real place on the south side of Jerusalem, and something specific had happened there:
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 this, thought to be the east end, children were passed through the fire to false gods. To prevent this, Josiah defiled Tophet in this valley.
Verse 31 says God never commanded these burnings. They never even entered His mind:
God condemned Israel for doing something He never commanded. He says of it, "I did not command them, nor did it come into My mind." It is the thoughts of God's heart, not mine, that I am to heed and put into practice. These He has revealed in His Word, and it is our happiness and wisdom to heed that.
The children had been burned there for a false god named Molech. Now God turns that same ground into a killing field:
On the heights of Tophet, in the valley of the son of Hinnom, they had burned their children as a sacrifice to Molech. The days were now to come when the same place should become the place of slaughter. Their bodies should lie there unburied. Such was to be Jerusalem's rejection and judgment.
Commentators differ on how far this threat reaches. Some read it as fulfilled when enemy armies besieged Jerusalem:
In Tophet, the valley of Hinnom, they had worked their abominations and burned their sons with fire. Now it should become the valley of slaughter, and the birds and wild beasts should eat their bodies. He would cause them to eat the flesh of their loved ones. It was fulfilled during the siege of Jerusalem (Lam. 4:10).
Others see the valley pointing past any human army to a judgment the Lord carries out Himself:
Now the valley of the son of Hinnom comes forward, and it always signifies judgment... Tophet points to the great judgment which the Lord will carry out when He Himself comes. It is not just the place where men carry out a sentence. Clearly, the judgment of Jerusalem is the topic.
This ravine did not stay a piece of local geography. One dictionary traces the link back to the prophet Isaiah:
Isaiah gives the key to why this valley is linked in the New Testament, under the name Gehenna, with eternal punishment.
The same name was on the Lord's lips when He spoke of final judgment:
The Valley of Hinnom was the rubbish dump outside Jerusalem, where the fires always burned and the maggots never stopped their work. People knew it as Gehenna. On the Lord's lips this word became a terribly fitting picture of the home of the lost. Hell will indeed be the great rubbish heap of eternity. There God will separate all that is incurably evil from the good, and it will lie for ever under His judgment. This terrible fact reaches us from the lips of Him who loved sinful men and wept over them.
- Renamed. God's judgment starts with a new name. The valley where Judah burned its children becomes the valley where Judah buries its dead.
- Unasked. The sin behind it was worship God never asked for. He looks for His own word, not our ideas.
- Overflowing. Judah buries its dead in Tophet until no space is left, and birds and beasts take the rest.
- Disputed. Some writers see this fulfilled in the siege of Jerusalem. Others read Tophet as a judgment the Lord carries out Himself.
- Remembered. That same valley gave its name to Gehenna. A ravine outside Jerusalem became the Bible's picture of hell, and the One who wept over sinners is the One who warned of it.