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Bible Dictionaries
Topheth
Fausset's Bible Dictionary
or A spot in the valley of the son of Hinnom; S.E. and S.S.E. of Jerusalem; "by the entry of the E. gate" (Jeremiah 19:2). (See HINNOM.) Infamous by the immolation in it of children to Moloch (2 Kings 23:10; Isaiah 30:33; Jeremiah 7:31-32; Jeremiah 19:2; Jeremiah 19:6; Jeremiah 19:11). (See HELL.) From toph , the "drums" beaten to drown the shrieks of the children made to pass through the fire to Moloch; rather tophet means tabret, so "tabret grove," i.e. music grove, as Chinneroth is "the harp sea"; or tuph "to spit," less probably; or from a root "burning" (Persian, Gesenins); or "filth" (Roediger). One of the chief groves in Hinnom; forming part of the king's gardens, and watered by Siloam; Hinnom is placed by old writers E. of Jerusalem, answering to the month of the Tyropoeon, along the southern banks of the Kedron (Jerome De Loc. Hebrew).
Topheth was next defiled by idols, Baal and Moloch, with their inhuman sacrifices. Josiah threw down its altars and heaped here the filth of the city, so that, with its carcasses preyed on by worms and its perpetual fires for consuming refuse, it became a type of hell (Isaiah 66:24). In Kings and Jeremiah the article precedes, "the Topheth" In Isaiah 30:33 it is Τophteh , "tabret grove," as tupim in Isaiah 30:32 is "tabrets." Jeremiah (Jeremiah 7:32; Jeremiah 19:6) makes it prophetically "the valley of slaughter," i.e. the scene, no longer of slaughter of innocents (Jeremiah 19:4), but of the Jewish men who so richly deserved their fate. In Isaiah 30:33 Topheth symbolizes the funeral pyre of Sennacherib's army, not that it actually perished there, but the Assyrian forerunner of antichrist is to be burnt in ignominy whereas the Hebrew buried their dead. Satan is the king finally doomed to the fire with the lost (Matthew 5:22; Matthew 25:41; Mark 9:43-44).
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Fausset, Andrew R. Entry for 'Topheth'. Fausset's Bible Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/fbd/t/topheth.html. 1949.
