The generic name of this deep winding gorge is “The Valley of the Son of Hinnom,” so designated by Joshua as bounding Jerusalem on the south.[159] Who Hinnom was, or why this valley bears his name, are facts on which sacred and profane historians are silent. He is, however, one of those men who have left to posterity a name without a biography.
Historically this vale is divided into two sections. From En-Rogel to the southwestern spur of Mount Zion it is known in Scripture as Tophet――meaning “tabret-drum”――from the custom of beating drums to drown the cries of those children which were here burnt in sacrifice to Moloch. Here, in this deep retired glen, stood the brazen image of the idol of Ammon, with the body of a man and the head of an ox. Within the statue was a large furnace, into which, at the appointed time, and amid the wild shouts of the multitude and the beating of drums, the tender victims were thrown. First placed on the burning arms and legs of the idol, they were then caused to fall into the devouring fires within. Significantly does the name of this monster imply “Horrid King,” as here, at his shrine, were practiced the most revolting rites ever witnessed under the sun. It is to such scenes Jeremiah refers in his denunciation of the children of Judah: “They have built the high places of Tophet, which are in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and daughters in the fire, which I commanded them not, neither came it into my heart.”[160] Revolting at such a sight, Jehovah sends the same prophet to curse the ground for man’s sake: “Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that it shall no more be called Tophet, nor the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter; for they shall bury in Tophet till there be no place.”[161] In less than fourteen years from the announcement of these fearful words the valley was defiled by King Josiah, who filled it with the bones of the dead, and thereby rendered it ceremonially unclean, so that no Jew could enter it.[162] But a more terrible doom awaited it, and a more literal fulfillment of prophecy was to take place. Here, where the shrine of Moloch had stood, the last struggle between the Jews and the Romans occurred,[163] and from the carnage of that bloody scene the vale received the name of “The Valley of Slaughter.” The dead were here interred till there was no room to bury others, and the historian verifies prophecy by this ghastly picture: “Manneus, the son of Lazarus, came running to Titus at this very time, and told him that there had been carried out through that one gate no fewer than 115,880 dead bodies, in the interval between the fourteenth day of the month Xanthicus, when the Romans pitched their camp by the city, and the first day of the month Panemus. This was itself a prodigious multitude; and though this man was not himself set as a governor at that gate, yet was he appointed to pay the public stipend for carrying these bodies out, and so was obliged of necessity to number them, while the rest were buried by their relatives; though all their burial was this, to bring them away and cast them out of the city. After this man there ran away to Titus many of the eminent citizens, and told him the entire number of the poor that were dead, and that no fewer than 600,000 were thrown out of the gates, though still the number of the rest could not be discovered.”[164]