Jeremiah (1-31) 19:6 Commentary and Bible Study

Verse 6 is nearly a repetition of Jeremiah 7:32. Jeremiah has been sent to proclaim the word of God in the valley of Hinnom to those who are guilty of the very worst of sins: the offering up of their own children. The place was also given the name Topheth, which some understand as ‘place of burning’, and others derive the name from a word meaning a drum or the beating of a drum, which was done there to cover the terrible cries of the children as they were burnt alive. But this place is going to deserve a new name as a result of what God is going to do there when he judges Jerusalem, for that same place is going to be used by the Babylonians to dispose of the bodies of those who die in the siege of Jerusalem. ‘And I will make void the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place; and I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hands of them that seek their lives: and their carcases will I give to be meat for the fowls of the heaven, and for the beasts of the earth.’ Jerusalem was to fall and its people literally be slaughtered, but the same imagery is used as a picture of the final judgment and the great battle that will take place at the coming of Christ at the end of the world (Revelation 19:17-19). As said in the notes on Jeremiah 7:32, in the New Testament the valley of Hinnom or Tophet becomes Gehenna, the word used is translated as ‘hell’ in the KJV. The city will become a byword for the abominations that were done there, and the resulting punishment of God. All who go by and think of what has happened there will hiss with horror at the thought of it. Where Israel offered up their own children to Molech, the abomination of Ammon, God will bring a siege on the city that results in them eating the flesh of their sons and daughters. No wonder passers-by take a sharp intake of breath or let out an involuntary cry when they hear of the terrible circumstances that caused the inhabitants to do such a dreadful thing. ‘They shall eat every one the flesh of his friend in the siege and straitness, wherewith their enemies, and they that seek their lives, shall straiten them.’ What dire straits could cause such desperate and repulsive behaviour – that is the question which all who hear about this would ask.