the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
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Bible Dictionaries
Topheth
People's Dictionary of the Bible
or Topheth (tô'feth), and once Tophet (tô'fet), place of burning, first applied to a deep part of the "valley of the son of Hinnom, Jeremiah 7:31, "by the entry of the east gate." Jeremiah 19:2. It seems also to have been part of the king's gardens, and watered by Siloam. Tophet occurs only in the Old Testament. 2 Kings 23:10; Isaiah 30:33; Jeremiah 7:31-32; Jeremiah 19:6; Jeremiah 19:11-14. The New does not refer to it. 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 30:32-33. Tophet was probably the king's "music-grove" or garden, denoting originally nothing evil or hateful. Certainly there is little evidence that it took its name from the drums 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, pouring into it all the filth of the city, till it became the "abhorrence" of Jerusalem. See Hell.
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Rice, Edwin Wilbur, DD. Entry for 'Topheth'. People's Dictionary of the Bible. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/rpd/t/topheth.html. 1893.
