What is the significance of Topheth in the Bible?

This is often called 'the valley of the son of Hinnom,' but who Hinnom and his son were is unknown. Joshua 15:8; Joshua 18:16; Neh. 11:30. The valley running from east to west, on the south of Jerusalem, now bears the above name. In some part of this, supposed to be the east end, children were passed through the fire to false gods. Jer. 7:31-32; Jer. 32:35. To prevent this Josiah defiled TOPHETH in this valley. 2 Kings 23:10; 2 Chr. 28:3; 2 Chr. 33:6. The prophet Isaiah gives the key to its being associated in the N.T. (under the name of GEHENNA) with eternal punishment: "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. 30:33. See HELL. In God's judgements the valley shall become the 'valley of slaughter.' Jer. 19:2-14.

γέεννα, Gehenna, the Greek equivalent for two Hebrew words, signifying 'valley of Hinnom.' It was the place near Jerusalem where the Jews made their children pass through fire to heathen gods, and which was afterwards defiled. 2 Kings 23:10. A continual fire made it a fit emblem of the place of eternal punishment. Matt. 5:22, 29, 30; Matt. 10:28; Matt. 18:9; Matt. 23:15, 33; Mark 9:43, 45, 47; Luke 12:5; James 3:6. The above-named place of defilement and fire is also called in the O.T. TOPHET or TOPHETH. 2 Kings 23:10; Isa. 30:33; Jer. 19:13.

In Jeremiah 19 we have the sign of the potter's earthen vessel further developed. Now the valley of the son of Hinnom is brought forward, which is always significant of judgment. "Therefore, behold, the days come, says Jehovah, that this place shall no more be called Tophet, nor the valley of the son of Hinnom, but The valley of slaughter." Tophet indicates the great judgment which the Lord will execute when He Himself comes. It is not merely the place of execution by man. Plainly, the judgment of Jerusalem is the topic.

The earthen bottle of chapter 19 is figurative of Jerusalem and the people. In the previous sign the significance was the right of God to handle any nation or kingdom as He saw fit, and also His ability to do so: here it is the solemn sign that the city and its surroundings and people shall be publicly punished for their sin and idolatry in a way that when others hear of it their ears should tingle. It thus becomes an eloquent witness of the awfulness of sin, so that the vile names of Tophet and Hinnom could not be expressive enough to describe the place of their punishment; it should be called “The valley of slaughter” (v. 6). To the prophet the Lord said, “Then shalt thou break the bottle in the sight of the men that go with thee, and shalt say unto them, Thus says the Lord of hosts: even so will I break this people and this city” (vv. 10-11).

But it is not to be a mere devastation. "For Topheth [is] prepared of old; for the king also it is prepared; he has made [it] deep [and] large: the pile thereof fire and much wood; the breath of Jehovah, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it" (v. 33). Tophet is ordained: this shows clearly when and how it will be. Tophet is the figure of the judgement on God's part that is coming. It should be "for the king also," not "yea, for the king." That little change has done much mischief in confounding two important personages. Nobody need deny that the word translated "yea" may be rightly so in certain cases; but the natural meaning of it is either "and" or "also," and the latter is just what is required here. His declaration is, that Tophet is ordained not for "the Assyrian" only, but also for "the king." The king and the Assyrian are so totally different and opposed that it was needful to reveal the same doom for both. The mistranslation was because our translators did not know the difference, but fancied the king and the Assyrian to be one and the same.

"The king" is that false Messiah who will be found with the Jews in the last days. Received in his own name, he will be accepted as the true Anointed, but he is the devil's Messiah. And the consequence is that God's fire or Tophet is prepared for him. The point here is that God will prepare the same fire for both of them; not only for the hostile Assyrian, but for the leader of Judah's wickedness, "the king." For him the fire of Tophet is prepared as well as for his enemy, the Assyrian. God in this marvellous manner, and not waiting for the day of eternity, will cast him directly into hell, even before the devil himself. Lest we might think that he is the only one, it is said, "for the king also"; for this personage, who is to reign over the apostate Jews, will also be singled out of God to be dealt with in the same way. Figurative expressions may be used, but they are figures of a terrible reality which Christendom has long forgotten. The more urgent is the need that the believer should wake up to his fuller confession of the truth, in a day when men sink down in a self-complacent dream of an onward progress for the earth, the ritualist being as besotted as the rationalist. "Behold, the Judge stands before the door."

The closing verses are remarkable. Tophet was a valley close to Jerusalem, defiled by horrible heathen practices (see, 2 Kings 23:10; Jeremiah 7:31-32), so that it becomes a symbol of fiery judgment. Not only will the Assyrian be cast there but also "for the king it is prepared." Who this "king" may be is not specified, but doubtless he is that wilful king of whom Daniel 11:36 speaks, and whom we identify with the second "beast" of Revelation 13; that one who will come in his own name, as the Lord Jesus predicted in John 5:43, and who will be received by apostate Jews as their king. He will be the foe within, as the Assyrian the foe without. The doom of both is fixed.

Besides the final overthrow of the two great enemies of the nation — the Assyrian and Gog, of which we read in this section, we learn some more particulars of the end of the king, or Antichrist, the false prophet of Revelation 13; 19. In Isaiah 11:4, we are told that the Lord will with the breath of His mouth slay the wicked, which, taken in connection with 2 Thessalonians 2:8, can leave no doubt on our minds of whom the prophet writes, nor the appropriateness of alluding in that chapter, which gives us the characteristic of the rule of the Lord as Israel's king, to the final end of the Antichrist, the miserable personator of Him who is to come. Now in Isaiah 30:33, we learn where the execution of the judgment will take place. "For Tophet is ordained of old, for the king moreover 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." In the valley of the son of Hinnom will that divine vengeance overtake him, of which men on earth can be spectators; but Revelation 19:20 acquaints us with his immediate and irrevocable doom, "cast alive into the lake of fire," which those will not be able to behold, whose vision, as in flesh, is bounded by the horizon of this world. Thus judgment on the Assyrian and on the king, and the overthrow of all the schemes of conquest cherished by Gog, are taught us in this section as awaiting Israel's enemies, whilst on them instead of judgment will be poured out the Holy Ghost, (Isa. 32:15); and then shall be illustrated most fully, what John the Baptist foretold, "He shall baptize with the Holy Ghost and with fire." (Matt. 3:10-11.) We know now the former, baptism with the Holy Ghost. By and by both will be witnessed, when the Holy Ghost, having gone with the Church from earth, shall be poured out on Israel, and on all flesh, according to Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Joel, and the fire of judgment shall be seen overtaking the bold and hardened enemies of God and His people.

"But this was to revive the old Canaanitish and Phoenician worship, with all its abominations and all its defilements. The valley of Gihon, which bounds Jerusalem on the west, descends at its southern extremity into that of Hinnom, which in turn joins at the ancient royal gardens the valley of Kidron, that runs along the eastern declivity of the Holy City. There, at the junction of the valleys of Hinnom and Kidron, in these gardens, was Topheth--'the spitting out,' or place of abomination--where an Ahaz, a Manasseh, and an Amon, sacrificed their sons and daughters to Baal-Moloch, and burnt incense to foul idols. Truly was Hinnom, 'moaning,' and rightly was its name Gehinnom (valley of Hinnom--Geheena), adopted as that for the place of final suffering. And it is one of those strange coincidences that the hill which rises on the south side of this spot was that 'potter's field,' the 'field of blood,' which Judas bought with the wages of his betrayal, and where with his own hands he executed judgment on himself. History is full of such coincidences, as men call them; nor can we forget in this connection that it was on the boundary-line between the reigns of Jotham and Ahaz that Rome was founded (in 752 B.C.), which was destined to execute final judgment on apostate Israel" (A. Edersheim).

The first effect of Christ taking His power will not, be peace. He will in fury tread down His enemies. This is the preliminary or David aspect of war, not the Solomon display of glory which is properly the millennium. It is not according to His purpose by one stupendous act to put down all authority and power — which of course He could do if He pleased — but during a certain limited period, after the sudden and instantaneous judgment of the beast and of the false prophet, and a little later of the Assyrian, to use Israel as His instrument in breaking to pieces the opposing Gentile power. But Messiah will Himself personally appear in the judgment of these three at least. The brightness of His presence, and the breath of His nostrils, slay the wicked, but these are cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone (Rev. 19:20). He will also personally meet the king of the north, the Assyrian, whose doom overtakes him in the same terrible manner as it fell upon the western beast and upon antichrist. The Assyrian falls not by the sword of a mighty man, nor by the sword of a mean man, but by the voice of Jehovah shall he be beaten down. That is, his will not be the destruction which falls upon his armies whose bones Israel will be seven months in burying, but he shall be cast alive into Tophet. To an Israelite no more appropriate word could be used, or so significant of his end. Tophet is the place where the Israelites burned alive their children to the god Moloch; the word is closely associated with, and carries the idea of being burnt alive (2 Kings 23:10). Tophet was prepared for him and also for "the king." "The breath of Jehovah like a stream of brimstone doth kindle it" (see Isa. 30:27-33; also Ezek. 38, Ezek. 39; Zech. 14:13).

Verses 29-34. The hair was cut off as a sign of mourning (Job 1:20). Jerusalem is to lament in the high places. They have defiled His house. On the heights of Tophet, in the valley of the son of Hinnom, they had burned their children as a sacrifice to Molech (2 Kings 23:10). The days were now to come when the same place should become the place of slaughter. The carcasses of the people should then be meat for the beasts of the earth; they should lie there unburied. Such was to be Jerusalem's rejection and judgment.