Gehenna

Gehenna, the Greek form of the Hebrew Gehinnom, or Valley of Hinnom. This valley, or rather narrow gorge, lies south and west of the city of Jerusalem. Here Solomon built a high place for Moloch (1 Kings, xi. 7), and indeed Gehenna seems to have become a favourite spot with the later Jewish kings for the celebration of idolatrous rites. It was here that Ahaz and Manasseh made their children pass through the fire 'according to the abomination of the heathen;' and at its south-east extremity, specifically designated Tophet ('place of burning'), the hideous practice of infant sacrifice to the fire-gods was not unknown (Jeremiah, vii. 31). When King Josiah came forward as the restorer of the old and pure national faith he 'defiled' the Valley of Hinnom by covering it with human bones, and after this it appears to have become 'the common cesspool of the city, into which its sewage was conducted to be carried off by the waters of the Kidron, as well as a laystall, where all its solid filth was collected. Hence, it became a huge nest of insects, whose larvae or "worms" fattened on the corruption.' It is also said that fires were kept constantly burning here to consume the bodies of criminals, the carcasses of animals, and whatever other offal might be combustible. Among the later Jews Gehenna and Tophet came to be symbols for hell and torment, and in this sense the former word is frequently employed by Jesus in the New Testament—e.g. Mark, ix. 47, 48.