Valley of Hinnom #67

The Valley of Hinnom is a deep ravine that curves around the south and west sides of the ancient city of Jerusalem. In the Old Testament it is first a boundary line between tribal lands and later a place of terrible idolatry, and in the New Testament its Greek form, Gehenna, becomes one of the words Jesus uses when he speaks about final judgment. For readers searching for the background of “Gehenna” or the “valley of the son of Hinnom,” it is the place where geography turned into a warning.

Biblical Significance

The valley first appears in the book of Joshua as part of the boundary between the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, running along “the valley of the son of Hinnom” south of the Jebusite city, which is Jerusalem (Joshua 15:8; 18:16). It is not until the later monarchy that it acquires a dark reputation. Kings Ahaz and Manasseh of Judah are said to have burned their own sons as offerings there, following the practice of surrounding pagan nations (2 Chronicles 28:3; 33:6). A place in the valley called Topheth was the center of this worship. When King Josiah carried out his reforms, he defiled Topheth so that no one could make a son or daughter pass through the fire to Molech (2 Kings 23:10).

The prophet Jeremiah condemned the practice in strong terms. He declared that God had never commanded it, and he warned that the valley would be renamed the Valley of Slaughter, because the bodies of the people would be buried there until there was no more room (Jeremiah 7:31-32; 19:1-6). Later, in the Jewish literature between the Testaments, the valley became a symbol for the place of final punishment.

The Hebrew name Ge Hinnom became Gehenna in Greek. The word appears about a dozen times in the New Testament, almost all of them in the teaching of Jesus. He warns that anyone who calls a brother a fool is liable to the “hell fire” (Matthew 5:22), urges his hearers to take drastic action against sin rather than be thrown into Gehenna (Mark 9:43-48), and tells them to fear the one who can destroy both soul and body there (Matthew 10:28). James also uses the word (James 3:6). Some popular sources claim that the valley was a burning garbage dump in Jesus’ day, which would explain the imagery, but the earliest written evidence for that claim comes from a medieval Jewish commentator, and many scholars regard it as unproven.

Today

The valley is today a steep, mostly dry channel running below the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem, and its path can be followed on foot along the western and southern slopes. It joins the Kidron Valley near the ancient pool of Siloam and runs on toward the Dead Sea.

The best-known archaeological find here is at Ketef Hinnom, a burial site on the slope above the valley. In 1979, archaeologists found two small silver scrolls in a tomb there, which contain a form of the priestly blessing of Numbers 6:24-26 and are usually dated to the seventh or early sixth century BC, making them among the oldest known biblical texts.