Hinnom
Hinnom [1]
Hin´nom or rather Ben-Hinnom, an unknown person, whose name was given to the valley which bounds Jerusalem on the north, below Mount Zion, and which in Scripture is often mentioned in connection with the horrid rites of Moloch, which under idolatrous kings were there celebrated (;;;; ). When Josiah overthrew this idolatry, he defiled the valley by casting into it the bones of the dead, the greatest of all pollutions among the Hebrews: and from that time it became the common jakes of Jerusalem, into which all refuse of the city was cast, and where the combustible portions of that refuse were consumed by fire. Hence it came to be regarded as a sort of type of hell, the Gehenna of the New Testament being no other than the name of this valley of Hinnom (Ge-Hinnom); see , sq.;;; .
