| Tophet and our Scapegoat |
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They have built the high places of Tophet, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I did not command them, nor did it come into My heart. - Jer 7:31
Tophet was a place where the Canaanites offered human child sacrifices to their god Moloch by burning them alive. A bronze idol was heated up so that the arms of the idol, forming a crucible, became red hot. Children were placed there to die in agony. Tophet means "drum" in Hebrew, and drums were pounded to drown out the cries of the children (and most likely their grieving parents). Tophet is also a synonym for hell, because of the hellish things that took place there, a place of fire and brimstone, "where their worm dies not, and the fire is not quenched". These images must have been burned into the memory of those who had witnessed such abominations. They have particularly built the high places of Tophet, where the image of Moloch was set up, in the valley of the son of Hinnom, adjoining to Jerusalem; and there they burnt their sons and their daughters in the fire, burnt them alive, killed them, and killed them in the most cruel manner imaginable, to honour or appease those idols that were devils and not gods. This was surely the greatest instance that ever was of the power of Satan in the children of disobedience, and of the degeneracy and corruption of the human nature. One would willingly hope that there were not many instances of such a barbarous idolatry; but it is amazing that there should be any, that men could be so perfectly void of natural affection as to do a thing so inhuman as to burn little innocent children, and their own too, that they should be so perfectly void of natural religion as to think it lawful to do this, nay, to think it acceptable. Surely it was in a way of righteous judgment, because they had changed the glory of God into the similitude of a beast, that God gave them up to such vile affections that changed them into worse than beasts. God says of this that it was what he commanded them not, neither cam it into his heart, which is not meant of his not commanding them thus to worship Moloch (this he had expressly forbidden them), but he had never commanded that his worshippers should be at such an expense, nor put such a force upon their natural affection, in honouring him; it never came into his heart to have children offered to him, yet they had forsaken his service for the service of such gods as, by commanding this, showed themselves to be indeed enemies to mankind." - Matthew HenryWhen I first read about Tophet in all its gory yet fascinating detail, I wondered what could make a parent agree to sacrifice his child. Apparently lots were drawn, and often substitutions made at the last minute. But what would drive a people to do this? The answer, of course, was that it was to appease an angry god.
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