God’s abhorrence at the killing of children.

“The people of Judah have done evil in my eyes”, declares the Lord. “They have set up their detestable idols in the house that bears my name and have defiled it. They have built the high places of Topheth in the valley of Ben Hinnom to burn their sons and daughters in the fire – something I did not command, nor did it enter my mind.” (Jeremiah 7:30-31)

Jeremiah does not identify the pagan gods or goddesses that had been set up in the Temple, but his description of what was happening in the Valley of Ben Hinnom fits the description of Molech, the detestable god of the Ammonites, who had been introduced to the land of Judah by King Solomon when he set up shrines to each of the gods of his foreign wives (1 Kings 11:7).

Molech was a particularly evil god to whom children were sacrificed in the fire. This form of religious sacrifice was so abhorrent to God that Moses was told to make it a capital offence: “The Lord said to Moses, say to the Israelites: any Israelite or any alien living in Israel who gives any of his children to Molech must be put to death. The people of the community are to stone him” (Lev 20:1-2).

The Fires of Gehenna

Hezekiah had cleansed the land of many foreign shrines on the high places but Manasseh, his son, re-introduced a wide range of idolatry including the worship of Molech: “In both courts of the temple of the Lord, he built altars to all the starry hosts. He sacrificed his own son in the fire, practising sorcery and divination” (2 Kings 21:5- 6).

All this was reversed when the young Josiah came of age and instituted reforms, removing “from the temple of the Lord all the articles made for Baal and Asherah and all the starry hosts” (2 Kings 23:4). Josiah also “desecrated Topheth which was in the valley of Ben Hinnom, so no-one could use it to sacrifice his son or daughter in the fire of Molech” (2 Kings 23:10).

Sacrificing children in pagan fire was so abhorrent to God that Moses was told to make it a capital offence.

But all this was reversed once again by Josiah’s son Jehoiakim, which is what caused Jeremiah to explode in righteous anger. The reason why Jehoiakim re-established the burning of babies in the valley of Ben Hinnom is probably to be found in a passing reference in 2 Kings 24:2, which says: “The Lord sent Babylonian, Aramean, Moabite and Ammonite raiders against him.” It was a common practice to buy off raiders by installing a shrine to their god, acknowledging defeat and reducing the amount of treasure that had to be given to them. The fact that Ammonite raiders are mentioned here would be a reason for re-installing a shrine to Molech.

Jeremiah was outraged: he refers to the shrine as ‘Topheth’ which in Hebrew is a pun, rhyming with the word bosheth (‘shame’) and pronounced like the verb ‘to spit’ used in Job 17:6. The Valley of Ben Hinnom certainly became a ‘valley of shame’ as Jerusalem’s refuse tip which was burning constantly. The name was later shortened to ‘Ge Hinnom’, which when translated into Aramaic and Greek becomes the Gehenna that we meet in the New Testament, as the word for hell whose fires are never extinguished.

Speechlessness

Jeremiah’s level of outrage at the burning of little children in this valley of shame had no measure. He was virtually rendered speechless; as can be seen from the words he puts into the mouth of God: “[this is] something I did not command, nor did it enter my mind.” This strange anthropomorphism is unlike any other pronouncement from Jeremiah.

It gives us another little glimpse into the life and ministry of Jeremiah and his amazing relationship with God. The words must have just tumbled out of Jeremiah’s mouth without him stopping to remember that he was speaking on behalf of the Lord God Almighty, the Creator of the Universe, who was not only omnipotent but also omniscient. It is hard to think that God would actually have said that he had been taken by surprise – that the sins of the people of Judah had actually not ever entered his mind!!

The Valley of Ben Hinnom is the Gehenna we meet in the New Testament as the word for hell whose fires are never extinguished.

Jeremiah’s use of this phrase reveals the nature of genuine, God-inspired prophecy that is expressed through our own human mind and in our human language. It is a reflection of Jeremiah’s own shock and horror, and the abhorrence of the Holy Spirit, that Jehoiakim could have sunk to such a depth of spiritual degradation and offence against the word of God. He was actually committing a crime of which God had said a perpetrator should be stoned to death. Here was the King himself bringing into the land of Judah this terrible practice of burning babies alive.

Glory Departed

It was probably at this moment that Jeremiah realised why God had told him to cease praying for the welfare of the nation - because its fate was already sealed. The holiness of the God of Israel, who had created human beings in his own image for fellowship with him, could not keep company with such detestable behaviour.

God could do no other than remove his presence from the Temple, from Jerusalem and from among the people of Judah. They would now be left to their fate which Jeremiah knew meant that the Babylonians would come and conquer the land, tearing down the walls of Jerusalem, setting fire to the King’s palace and first desecrating and then destroying the Temple. Jeremiah could already foresee what Ezekiel was later to speak about – the word ICHABOD, ‘Glory Departed’, over the Temple.

So, what is God saying to us today? He sees hundreds of live babies torn from their mother’s wombs every day, thrown into a black plastic bag and taken out of the back door of our hospitals and thrown into the incinerator – the modern equivalent of the shrine of Molech. Can we really expect God to bless a nation whose land is filled with the blood of the innocent?

This article is part of a series on the life and ministry of the Prophet Jeremiah. Click here to read previous instalments. You may also be interested in our News Page this week, which features several pro-life events coming up in September.