He defiled Topheth By throwing different kinds of filth and dead carcasses into it, and making it the burying-place of the city. Topheth was a place very near Jerusalem, where was the image of Molech, to whom some sacrificed their children, burning them in the fire, as the reader may see in the note on Leviticus 18:21; and to whom others, as many able interpreters think, only dedicated them, by making them pass between two fires, or by waving them, or making them jump over a fire. It is supposed to be called Topheth, from toph, a drum; because they beat drums at the burning of their children, that their shricks might not be heard. This place, near Jerusalem, was also called the valley of the sons of Hinnom, (2 Chronicles 28:3,) from the yelling of the sacrificed infants. Thus Milton calls Molech:
Horrid king, besmear'd with blood
Of human sacrifice, and parents' tears,
Though for the noise of drums, and timbrels loud,
Their children's cries unheard, that pass'd through fire
To his grim idol. Par. Lost, book 1. 50:392.