Jeremiah 7:31

And they have built the high places of Tophet,.... Where was the idol Moloch; and which place had its name, as Jarchi thinks, from the beating of drums, that the parents of the children that were

And they have built the high places of Tophet, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I commanded them not, neither came it into my heart.

High places of Tophet; See Poole "". It comes from Toph, that signifies a drum, because they did beat drums to hinder the noise of their children’ s screeches, when they burnt them in sacrifice upon the altars, called here, high places, to Moloch, which is also called Melchom. Which is in the valley of the son on Hinnom: Tophet was situate in a pleasant valley near Jerusalem, a place in the possession of the children of one Hinnom, , watered by the river of Siloe. To burn their sons and their daughters in the fire: this most inhuman practice of burning their children, even their own bowels, to Moloch, not their sons only, but their daughters, who were most tender, the did expressly against the command and caution of God; See Poole ""; having learned it of the heathen, ,31, the devil commanding them so to do by his oracles. They took pattern from the Samaritans where those of every nation make gods of their own, . Neither came it into my heart; which was always so far from my approving, that I never let it come into my thought or debate, whether I should or not; or which I abhorred from my heart: he speaks herein after the manner of men: see 32:35

Jeremiah 7:31 And they have built the high places of Tophet, which [is] in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I commanded [them] not, neither came it into my heart.Ver. 31. To burn their sons and their daughters.] Haply in a sinful imitation of Abraham or Jephthah; or else after the example of the Canaanites and other heathens, who thus sacrificed to the devil, commanding them so to do by his oracles, though Hercules taught the Italians to offer unto him rather men made of wax. Macrob. Saturn., lib. vii.

(31) High places.—Not the same word as in Jeremiah 7:29, but bamoth, as in the “high places” of Baal, in Numbers 22:41; Numbers 23:3, the Bamoth-baal of Jos 13:17. The word had become almost technical for the mounds, natural or (as in this passage) artificial, on which altars to Jehovah or to other gods were erected, and appears in 1 Samuel 9:12; 1 Kings 3:4; Ezekiel 20:29; Amos 7:9. Tophet.—This appears to have been originally, not a local name, but a descriptive epithet. The word appears in Job 17:6 (“by-word” in the Authorised version) as a thing spat upon and loathed. Its use is probably therefore analogous to the scorn with which the prophets substituted bosheth, the “shameful thing,” for Baal (e.g., Jeremiah 3:24; Jeremiah 11:13). When the prediction is repeated in Jeremiah 19:5; Jeremiah 32:35, we have the “high places of Baal,” and “Tophet” here is obviously substituted for that name in indignant contempt. The word in Isaiah 30:33, though not identical in form (Tophteh, not Tophet), had probably the same meaning. Other etymologies give as the meaning of the word “a garden,” “a place of burning,” or “a place of drums,” i.e., a music grove, and so connect it more closely with the Molech ritual. Possibly the last was the original meaning of the name, for which, as said above, the prophets used the term of opprobrium. The son of Hinnom.—Possibly the first recorded owner, or a local hero. The name is perpetuated in later Jewish language in Ge-henna = Ge-Hinnom = the vale of Hinnom. It was older than the Molech worship with which it became identified, and appears in the “Doomsday Book” of Israel (Joshua 15:8; Joshua 18:16). To burn their sons and their daughters.—The words are important as determining the character of the act more vaguely described in Jeremiah 32:35, as “making to pass through the fire.” The children were, in some cases at least, actually burnt, though often, perhaps (see Ezekiel 16:21), slain first. Horrible as the practice seems to us, it was part of the Canaanite or Phœnician worship of Molech or Malcom (Leviticus 18:21; Leviticus 20:2-5), and had been practised by Ahaz (2 Kings 16:3; 2 Chronicles 28:3) and Manasseh (2 Kings 21:6; 2 Chronicles 33:6).

Verse 31. Tophet - in the valley of the son of Hinnom] Tophet was the place in that valley where the continual fires were kept up, in and through which they consecrated their children to Moloch.

31, 32. For a recurrence of the substance of this passage see ch. Jeremiah 19:5 f., 11.

31. High places of Tophet — The word for “high places” is not the same which has been repeatedly so translated in this book, as in Jeremiah 7:29, but rather high altars.