Tophet
in Scripture, a place in the immediate vicinity of Jerusalem, considered by Milton to be identical with the valley of Hinnom, but described in Scripture as in that valley (II Kings xxiii: 10; Jer. vii: 31). It was S. E. of Jerusalem (Jer. xix: 2), and has been prepared of old for some king of Israel, or for Moloch (Isa. xxx: 33). What ever its primary design, "high places" were erected there, and it became the chief seat of the worship of Moloch in Palestine (II Kings xxiii: 10; Jer. vii: 31); Josiah not merely stopped that cruel form of idolatry, but defiled the place (II Kings xxiii: 10; Jer. xix: 13), apparently by making it the receptacle of the filth of the capital. It became a burial ground ultimately overcrowded with bodies (Jer. vii: 31, 32; xix: 6, 11).