Topheth

In Bible versions:

Topheth: NET NIV NRSV NASB
Tophet: AVS TEV

a 'high place' in the valley of Hinnom outside Jerusalem

---

a drum; betraying

Google Maps: Topheth (31° 46´, 35° 13´)

Hebrew

Strongs #08612: tpt Topheth

Tophet or Topheth = "place of fire"

1) a place in the southeast end of the valley of the son of Hinnom
south of Jerusalem. Same as 08613

8612 Topheth to'-feth

the same as 8611; Topheth, a place near Jerusalem:-Tophet,
Topheth.
see HEBREW for 08611

Tophet [EBD]

=Topheth, from Heb. toph "a drum," because the cries of children here sacrificed by the priests of Moloch were drowned by the noise of such an instrument; or from taph or toph, meaning "to burn," and hence a place of burning, the name of a particular part in the valley of Hinnom. "Fire being the most destructive of all elements, is chosen by the sacred writers to symbolize the agency by which God punishes or destroys the wicked. We are not to assume from prophetical figures that material fire is the precise agent to be used. It was not the agency employed in the destruction of Sennacherib, mentioned in Isa. 30:33...Tophet properly begins where the Vale of Hinnom bends round to the east, having the cliffs of Zion on the north, and the Hill of Evil Counsel on the south. It terminates at Beer 'Ayub, where it joins the Valley of Jehoshaphat. The cliffs on the southern side especially abound in ancient tombs. Here the dead carcasses of beasts and every offal and abomination were cast, and left to be either devoured by that worm that never died or consumed by that fire that was never quenched." Thus Tophet came to represent the place of punishment. (See HINNOM.)

Tophet [NAVE]

TOPHET, called also Topheth. A place in the valley of the sons of Hiom, 2 Kin. 23:10.
Jewish children passed through the fire to Molech in, 2 Kin. 23:10; Jer. 7:31, 32; 19:6, 11-14; 32:35.
See also 2 Chr. 28:3; 33:6.
Destroyed by Josiah, 2 Kin. 23:10.
Horror of, Isa. 30:33.

Topheth [NAVE]

TOPHETH
See: Tophet.

TOPHETH [SMITH]

and once To?phet (place of burning), was in the southeast extremity of the "valley of the son of Hinnom," (Jeremiah 7:31) which is "by the entry of the east gate." (Jeremiah 19:2) The locality of Hinnom is to have been elsewhere. [HINNOM] It seems also to have been part of the king?s gardens, and watered by Siloam, perhaps a little to the south of the present Birket el-Hamra . The name Tophet occurs only in the Old Testament. (2 Kings 23:10; Isaiah 30:33; Jeremiah 7:31,32; 19:6,11,12,13,14) The New does not refer to it, nor the Apocrypha. Tophet has been variously translated. The most natural meaning seems that suggested by the occurrence of the word in two consecutive verses, in one of which it is a tabret and in the other Tophet. (Isaiah 30:32,37) The Hebrew words are nearly identical; and Tophet war probably the king?s "music-grove" or garden, denoting originally nothing evil or hateful. Certainly there is no proof that it took its name from the beaten to drown the cries of the burning victims that passed through the fire to Molech. Afterward it was defiled by idols and polluted by the sacrifices of Baal and the fires of Molech. Then it became the place of abomination, the very gate or pit of hell. The pious kings defiled it and threw down its altars and high places, pouring into it all the filth of the city, till it became the "abhorrence" of Jerusalem.

TOPHETH [ISBE]

TOPHETH - to'-feth (ha-topheth, etymology uncertain; the most probable is its connection with a root meaning "burning"--the "place of burning"; the King James Version, Tophet, except in 2 Ki 23:10): The references are to such a place: "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" (Jer 7:31). On account of this abomination Topheth and the Valley of Hinnom should be called "The valley of Slaughter: for they shall bury in Topheth, till there be no place to bury," the Revised Version margin "because there shall be no place else" (Jer 7:32); see also Jer 19:6,12,13,14. Josiah is said to have "defiled Topheth" as part of his great religious reforms (2 Ki 23:10). The site of this shameful place would seem to have been either at the lower end of the Valley of Hinnom (see HINNOM, VALLEY OF), near where Akeldama is now pointed out, or in the open ground where this valley joins the Kidron.

E. W. G. Masterman