VALLEY OF, called also Tophet, and by the Greeks Gehenna, a
small valley on the south-east of Jerusalem, at the foot of Mount Zion,
where the Canaanites, and afterward the Israelites, sacrificed their
children to the idol Moloch, by making them “pass through the fire,” or
burning them. To drown the shrieks of the victims thus inhumanly
sacrificed, musical instruments, called in the Hebrew _tuph_, tympana or
timbrels, were played; whence the spot derived the name of Tophet. _Ge
Hinnom_, or “The Valley of Hinnom,” from which the Greeks framed their
Gehenna, is sometimes used in Scripture to denote hell or hell fire. See
HELL.
small valley on the south-east of Jerusalem, at the foot of Mount Zion,
where the Canaanites, and afterward the Israelites, sacrificed their
children to the idol Moloch, by making them “pass through the fire,” or
burning them. To drown the shrieks of the victims thus inhumanly
sacrificed, musical instruments, called in the Hebrew _tuph_, tympana or
timbrels, were played; whence the spot derived the name of Tophet. _Ge
Hinnom_, or “The Valley of Hinnom,” from which the Greeks framed their
Gehenna, is sometimes used in Scripture to denote hell or hell fire. See
HELL.