2 Kings 23:10

23:10 The king ¹  ruined Topheth in the Valley of Ben Hinnom so that no one could pass his son or his daughter through the fire to Molech. ² 

Jeremiah 7:31-32

7:31 They have also built places of worship ³  in a place called Topheth ⁴  in the Valley of Ben Hinnom so that they can sacrifice their sons and daughters by fire. That is something I never commanded them to do! Indeed, it never even entered my mind to command such a thing! ⁵  7:32 So, watch out!” ⁶  says the Lord. “The time will soon come when people will no longer call those places Topheth or the Valley of Ben Hinnom. But they will call that valley ⁷  the Valley of Slaughter and they will bury so many people in Topheth they will run out of room. ⁸ 

Jeremiah 19:2-6

19:2 Go out to the part of the Hinnom Valley which is near the entrance of the Potsherd Gate. ⁹  Announce there what I tell you. ¹⁰  19:3 Say, ‘Listen to what the Lord says, you kings of Judah and citizens of Jerusalem! ¹¹  The Lord God of Israel who rules over all ¹²  says, “I will bring a disaster on this place ¹³  that will make the ears of everyone who hears about it ring! ¹⁴  19:4 I will do so because these people ¹⁵  have rejected me and have defiled ¹⁶  this place. They have offered sacrifices in it to other gods which neither they nor their ancestors ¹⁷  nor the kings of Judah knew anything about. They have filled it with the blood of innocent children. ¹⁸  19:5 They have built places here ¹⁹  for worship of the god Baal so that they could sacrifice their children as burnt offerings to him in the fire. Such sacrifices ²⁰  are something I never commanded them to make! They are something I never told them to do! Indeed, such a thing never even entered my mind! 19:6 So I, the Lord, say: ²¹  “The time will soon come that people will no longer call this place Topheth or the Hinnom Valley. But they will call this valley ²²  the Valley of Slaughter!

Jeremiah 19:13

19:13 The houses in Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah will be defiled by dead bodies ²³  just like this place, Topheth. For they offered sacrifice to the stars ²⁴  and poured out drink offerings to other gods on the roofs of those houses.’”

[23:10]  ¹ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the king) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[23:10]  ² sn Attempts to identify this deity with a god known from the ancient Near East have not yet yielded a consensus. For brief discussions see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor II Kings (AB), 288 and HALOT 592 s.v. מֹלֶךְ. For more extensive studies see George C. Heider, The Cult of Molek, and John Day, Molech: A God of Human Sacrifice in the Old Testament.

[7:31]  ³ tn Heb “high places.”

[7:31]  ⁴ tn Heb “the high places of [or in] Topheth.”

[7:31]  ⁵ tn Heb “It never entered my heart.” The words “to command such a thing” do not appear in the Hebrew but are added for the sake of clarity.

[7:32]  ⁶ tn Heb “Therefore, behold!”

[7:32]  ⁷ tn Heb “it will no longer be said ‘Topheth’ or ‘the Valley of Ben Hinnom’ but ‘the valley of slaughter.’

[7:32]  ⁸ tn Heb “And they will bury in Topheth so there is not room.”

[19:2]  ⁹ sn The exact location of the Potsherd Gate is unknown since it is nowhere else mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. It is sometimes identified with the Dung Gate mentioned in Neh 2:13; 3:13-14; 12:31 on the basis of the Jerusalem Targum. It is probably called “Potsherd Gate” because that is where the potter threw out the broken pieces of pottery which were no longer of use to him. The Valley of Ben Hinnom has already been mentioned in 7:31-32 in connection with the illicit religious practices, including child sacrifice, which took place there. The Valley of Ben Hinnom (or sometimes Valley of Hinnom) runs along the west and south sides of Jerusalem.

[19:2]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the words that I will speak to you.”

[19:3]  ¹¹ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[19:3]  ¹² tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.”

[19:3]  ¹³ sn Careful comparison of the use of this term throughout this passage and comparison with 7:31-33 which is parallel to several verses in this passage will show that the reference is to the Valley of Ben Hinnom which will become a Valley of Slaughter (see v. 6 and 7:32).

[19:3]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “which everyone who hears it [or about it] his ears will ring.” This is proverbial for a tremendous disaster. See 1 Sam 3:11; 2 Kgs 21:12 for similar prophecies.

[19:4]  ¹⁵ tn The text merely has “they.” But since a reference is made later to “they” and “their ancestors,” the referent must be to the people that the leaders of the people and leaders of the priests represent.

[19:4]  ¹⁶ sn Heb “have made this city foreign.” The verb here is one that is built off of the noun and adjective which relate to foreign nations. Comparison may be made to Jer 2:21 where the adjective refers to the strange, wild vine as opposed to the choice vine the Lord planted and to 5:19 and 8:19 where the noun is used of worshiping foreign gods. Israel through its false worship has “denationalized” itself in its relation to God.

[19:4]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “fathers.”

[19:4]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “the blood of innocent ones.” This must be a reference to child sacrifice as explained in the next verse. Some have seen a reference to the sins of social injustice alluded to in 2 Kgs 21:16 and 24:4 but those are connected with the city itself. Hence the word children is supplied in the translation to make the referent explicit.

[19:5]  ¹⁹ tn The word “here” is not in the text. However, it is implicit from the rest of the context. It is supplied in the translation for clarity.

[19:5]  ²⁰ tn The words “such sacrifices” are not in the text. The text merely says “to burn their children in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal which I did not command.” The command obviously refers not to the qualification “to Baal” but to burning the children in the fire as burnt offerings. The words are supplied in the translation to avoid a possible confusion that the reference is to sacrifices to Baal. Likewise the words should not be translated so literally that they leave the impression that God never said anything about sacrificing their children to other gods. The fact is he did. See Lev 18:21; Deut 12:30; 18:10.

[19:6]  ²¹ tn This phrase (Heb “Oracle of the Lord”) has been handled this way on several occasions when it occurs within first person addresses where the Lord is the speaker. See, e.g., 16:16; 17:24; 18:6.

[19:6]  ²² tn Heb “it will no longer be called to this place Topheth or the Valley of Ben Hinnom but the Valley of Slaughter.”

[19:13]  ²³ tn The words “by dead bodies” is not in the text but is implicit from the context. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[19:13]  ²⁴ tn Heb “the host of heaven.”