place · also Tophetteh
Topheth
תֹּ֫פֶת
Topheth, located in the Valley of Hinnom (also called the Valley of Slaughter or Baca Valley) south of Jerusalem, was a site of pagan child sacrifice that was defiled by King Josiah (2Ki.23.10; Jer.7.31-32; 19:2, 6, 11-14; 32:35; Isa.30.33).
- verses
- 17
- first named
- Joshua 15:8
- last named
- Jeremiah 19:14
- feature
- valley
- coordinates
- 31.77°N · 35.23°E
Hinnom Valley (OpenBible)
The gazetteer records one identification, and no competing one.
Description
Topheth in the text
Topheth was a place located in the Valley of Hinnom (also known as the Valley of Slaughter or Baca Valley), south of Jerusalem, where pagan child sacrifices were performed (2Ki.23.10; Jer.7.31-32; 19:2, 6, 11-14; 32:35; Isa.30.33). The name "Topheth" is believed to derive from the Hebrew word for "fireplace" or "hearth," indicating its association with burning. The Valley of Hinnom was used as a burial ground (Jer.19.11) and a place of idolatrous worship, where people burned their children as offerings to the Canaanite god Molech (2Ch.28.3; 33:6). King Josiah defiled Topheth to put an end to these practices (2Ki.23.10). The valley became a symbol of divine judgment and a metaphor for hell (Isa.30.33). In the New Testament, the Greek word "Gehenna," derived from "Valley of Hinnom," is used to refer to the place of eternal punishment (Matt 5:22, 29, 30; 10:28; 18:9; 23:15, 33; Mrk.9.43, 45, 47; Luke 12:5; Jas.3.6).
Relations
Direct connections
Every entity the graph places in a stated relation with this one, grouped by the kind of link. Each relation is authored once and its inverse derived, so both ends always agree. Rows marked “registry” come from the identity spine rather than from a verse, and a row marked “which bearer is the source’s decision” is one where the name could have meant more than one person. The last group is not a relation at all — it counts the events two entities stand in together.
The pattern
Where Topheth is named
Every book of the corpus in the order it is read, each as wide as the chapters it holds. A bar is the verses of that book which write the name, and the flat stretches are as much of the answer as the bars.
17 verses across 7 of 66 books; 59 write the name nowhere. Named in Joshua (2), 2 Kings (1), 2 Chronicles (2), Nehemiah (1), Psalms (1), Isaiah (1) and Jeremiah (9).
Read it
Where to read it
Every verse of the text carried here that names this entity — 17, across 7 books. The name is written 26 times in them.
Onward
Where this page goes
Nothing in the graph stands one hop from this entity yet. These are the best-connected entities of the same type, so the page still ends somewhere. Descriptions by STEPBible TIPNR.
Where they appear
What happened here
Atlas's reading of each chapter this place appears in, in canonical order. One line per chapter, and each leads to the whole of it.
- Isaiah 30Topheth is prepared as a deep and wide funeral pyre for the king.
- Jeremiah 7Topheth was made a place of burning sons and daughters and was appointed to become a place of burial.
- Jeremiah 19Topheth is renamed the Valley of Slaughter, receives the warning of burial without room, and becomes the comparison for the city’s ruin.
Sources