Jeremiah 7:31 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

High places of Tophet; See Poole on "Isaiah 30:33". It comes from Toph, that signifies a drum, because they did beat drums to hinder the noise of their children's screeches, when they burnt them in sacrifice upon the altars, called here, high places, to Moloch, which is also called Melchom. Which is in the valley of the son on Hinnom: Tophet was situate in a pleasant valley near Jerusalem, a place in the possession of the children of one Hinnom, Joshua 15:8, watered by the river of Siloe. To burn their sons and their daughters in the fire: this most inhuman practice of burning their children, even their own bowels, to Moloch, not their sons only, but their daughters, who were most tender, the did expressly against the command and caution of God; See Poole on "Deuteronomy 18:10"; having learned it of the heathen, Deuteronomy 12:30,31, the devil commanding them so to do by his oracles. They took pattern from the Samaritans where those of every nation make gods of their own, 2 Kings 17:29-31. Neither came it into my heart; which was always so far from my approving, that I never let it come into my thought or debate, whether I should or not; or which I abhorred from my heart: he speaks herein after the manner of men: see Jeremiah 3:16, Jeremiah 32:35