HINNOM, VALLEY OF. A ravine in or near Jerusalem. The precise location has not yet been determined. Scholars differ as to which of the three valleys, Kidron, Tyropeon. or Wady er Ilababi, is likely to have been called the Valley of Hinman. .fewisli and Arah tradition favor the first, which runs east of the temple elevation. A majority of recent investigators prefer the last, which is south of the present city. Min•i prob ability, however, seems to attach to the Tyro peon. In Enoeh xxvi.. the ravine over \Odell the author marvels is evidently the Valley of Ilinnom. and it is unquestionably identical with the Tyropmon, lying between Mounl Zion and the western bill. Consequently a writer familiar with Jerusalem and living toward the end of the second century B.C. located the Valley of Hinnom in the Tyropreon. The chief objections are that if the city did not in times extend be yond the Tyropreon, there ought to be some re mains of walls there, and that. if the Tyroraron was within the city. the sacrifices of the first born to -Moloch would have been madP in the immediate neighborhood of the Yahweh temple. But whatever the extent of the city, it is highly improbable that important sanctuaries were left unprotected outside the walls. That Solomon should build temples to Chemosh and Moloch, the gods of the conquered Moabitish and Ammon itish dependencies, was only natural ( I. Kings xi. 7). These shrines would not be far from the royal sanctuary. When even kings like Ahaz and Manasseh offered their firstborn. and questions such as those in Micah vi. 6-7 could be asked in Judah touching the expediency of making similar sacrifices to Yahweh, there is no reason to sup pose that the inhabitants of Jerusalem objected to having offerings of the firstborn made to Moloch near the Yahweh temple. A later addi tion to I. Kings xi. 7, found in the Greek version, states that Solomon also built a temple to Ash taroth. (See ASTARTE.) This is not improb able. but it may simply reflect the memory of the actual existence of such a sanctuary in the valley. The sites had probably been occupied long before Solomon by C'anaanitish shrines. The name of the valley is quite obscure. Its full title seems to have been either "Valley of the Sons of Hin man" or "Valley of the Son of Hinnom." The former is found in II. Kings xxiii. 10. and often in the best manuscripts of the Greek version: the latter in Joshua xv. S and xviii. 16, where the abbreviated form Valley of Hinnom is also found, and in II. Chron. xxviii. 3, xxxiii. 6; Jer. vii. 31 32. xix. 2-6, xxxiii. 35. Hinnom was regarded by
the Greek translators as a proper name, and many modern authors take the same view. But as the name is changed in Jer. vii. 32, xix. 6, to 'Valley of Slaughter.' it probably originally sug gested a pleasant Meaning. It has been conjec tured that the name of the divinity worshiped in the valley was Bcn Nannian, 'pleasant son,' which may have been a descriptive title of Tammuz. Another explanation, necessitating no alteration of the consonantal text, is that hinam meant in this connection 'sexual enjoyment.' and that the participants in the licentious rites, practiced at the shrines and in the groves of this valley were called 'sons of joy.' In the Babylonian Talmud (Ernbin, 19 a), Hinnom is connected with the word hinam used in the sense of levity, licen tiousness. The meaning of the root is 'to be jocund.' and the word hinnorn should probably be connected with it. At one of the sanctuaries in this valley children were passed through the altar-fire to Moloch. It is not evident whether the phrase implies a burnt-offering or an ordeal by lire. But Josiah defiled one of the chief sanc tuaries. the Taphet, later pronounced Tophet to suggest bosheth, 'shame.' What basis there is for the mediieval rabbinic statement that per petual fires were kept up in this valley for eon sinning dead bodies of criminals and carcasses of animals, cannot he ascertained. If Tophet was at the southern end of the Tyroreon, near Siloam. this cremation of refuse would be outside the city limits. The apocalyptic expectation in the sec ond century of a final battle between the nations and Israel outside of the holy city seems to have rested upon this feature of the surroundings. Here the enemy would he consumed, and the pious who should go up to the temple in Jerusalem on Sabbaths and at new moons would look with satisfaction upon the carcasses consumed by fire and worms (Is. lxvi. 23-24). The same idea is found in Enoch xxvii. Gradually the term go or Aramaized, Gehenna, came to be used, not• of this valley in Jerusalem. but of the sub terranean Tartarus to which it was the entrance; of the unseen place of final punishment of the impenitent; of the sudden destruction of both soul and body; or figuratively, of the inner con demnation of spiritual loss. On the geographical question, consult: Warren's article "Ilinnom," in the Hastings Bible Dictionary; Conder's ar ticle "Jerusalem," in the Encyclopc•dia Biblica; George Adam Smith, Historical Geography of the Holy Land (London, 1897). See GEHENNA; HELL; JUDGMENT, FINAL; ESCHATOLOGY.