Is Gehenna in Jerusalem?!

The Valley of Hinnom

Facebook


Twitter


Linkedin


Instagram

Adjacent to the city walls, on the western side, is an impressive site where performances and shows are often hosted.

At the same time, however, this site etched into the Jewish nation’s memory forever
one of the most horrifying concepts of all: Gehenna.

“Rava, son of Maryon, taught in Rabbi Yochana Ben Zakai’s study hall: There are two pillars in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, and smoke rises up from between them… And this is the entrance of Gehennom” (Babylonian Talmud, Eruvin 19a).

• What is so haunting about this spot – even to this day?
• Why did the Jewish sages identify this site as the entrance of the most terrible place?
• How can we understand the fact that specifically in Jerusalem – The city of purity and the Temple, the city about which it is said, “The gate of the Garden of Eden is adjacent to Mount Moriah” (Chapters of Rabbi Eliezer, 20), is also the site of the entrance of Gehenna?

Jeremiah delivered his prophecies during the period prior to the Temple’s destruction,

and cried out with all his might against the displays of idol worship that were common in Jerusalem.

At the Valley of Hinnom, the most abominable form of idol worship was practiced, a service to a god named Molech:

“And they have built the high places of Topheth which are in the Valley of Ben-Hinnom, to burn their sons and daughters with fire” (Jeremiah 7:31).

This horrendous ritual involved a child burning ceremony. The Hebrew tradition has preserved descriptions of the Molech ritual:

“…Although all of the houses of the idols were in Jerusalem, the Molech was outside of Jerusalem in a distinct place.”

How was it done? There was an idol and it had seven bars, and the idol was before these, and its face was that of a calf and its arms were outspread like a person opening his arms to receive something from his friend.

They would fuel the fire from the inside […] and they would take the child and put it in the idol’s arms, and they would bring drums and beat them loudly, so that the child’s voice would not be heard, lest the father hear him and have mercy on him.

Why was it called the Son of Hinnom?

Because the voice of the child would roar [*the Hebrew word for ‘roar’ is similar to the word ‘hinnom’] from the intensity of the fire.

Or, because they would stand and roar and say: 

“May it be pleasant for you, may it be sweet for you, may it be fragrant for you – Therefore, it was called the Son of Hinnom.” (Yalkut Shimoni, Jeremiah, section 277)

Now we can understand how Gehenna became associated with the entrance of the Garden of Eden. Rituals of idol worship during the first Temple era including diverse forms of indulging passions and unloading responsibility, but the Molech ritual was perceived by the prophets as the most abominable of them all!

Jeremiah went out to the Valley of Hinnom and cried,

“Behold I am bringing evil upon this place, which whoever hears, his ears will tingle… therefore, behold days are coming, says the Lord, when this place will no longer be called Topheth or Ben-Hinnom Valley, but the Valley of Slaughter… And the houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah shall be like the place of the Topheth, The unclean ones.” (Jeremiah 19:3-13)

Jeremiah’s prophecies of doom angered the senior officials,

And they plotted to kill him:

“And Shephatiah the son of Mattan and Gedaliah the son of Pashhur and Jucal the son of Shelemiah and Pashhur the son of Malkiah heard the words that Jeremiah was speaking…

‘So said the Lord: This city shall surely be given into the hand[s] of the army of the king of Babylon, and he shall take it.’

And the officers said to the king,
‘This man should be put to death now, since he weakens the hands of the men of war remaining in this city and the hands of all the people, to speak to them such words, for this man does not seek the welfare of this people but the harm.’” (Jeremiah 38:1-4)

The bullae (seals) of two of these officers, Gedaliah, son of Pashhur, and Jucal, son of Shelemiah, were found during archaeological excavations at the King’s Palace site at the City of David in 2008.

Another bulla that was found bears the name […]liahu (perhaps Gedaliahu or Ga’aliahu) son of Imar,” who may have been a relative of Pashhur, son of Imar, another senior officer who was very oppressive to Jeremiah (ibid, 20:1).

See All This and More
When You Tour the City of David…

Jeremiah’s fate was that he was thrown into a pit and silenced, until the day his prophecy came true and the Babylonians invaded the city.

And what came of the other people described in the story?

 We do not know, but the discovery of their official seals among the burned layer of the destroyed palace from the first Temple era, 586 BCE, testifies to the fact that their attempts to attack Jeremiah did not change the horrible fate, that he warned was imminent.

Today, the Hebrew nation has returned, after two thousand years of exile.

And worshipping the Molech – burning children as part of the service of a god – no longer exists in the modern world.

And now, we invite you to come with us to Jerusalem and experience the living history, to absorb and breathe in the values of the Bible. Here, where it all began.

contact us