Matthew Henry on Jeremiah 7:29–end
Here is, I. A loud call to weeping and mourning. Jerusalem, that had been a joyous city, the joy of the whole earth, must now take up a lamentation on high places (Jer 7:29), the high places where they had served their idols; there must they now bemoan their misery. In token both of sorrow and slavery, Jerusalem must now cut off her hair and cast it away; the word is peculiar to the hair of the Nazarites, which was the badge and token of their dedication to God, and it is called their crown. Jerusalem had been a city which was a Nazarite to God, but now must cut off her hair, must be profaned, degraded, and separated from God, as she had been separated to him. It is time for those that have…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Jeremiah 7:31
high places of Tophet--the altars [HORSLEY] of Tophet; erected to Moloch, on the heights along the south of the valley facing Zion.
burn . . . sons-- (Psa 106:38).
commanded . . . not--put for, "I forbade expressly" (Deu 17:3; Deu 12:31). See on Jer 2:23; Isa 30:33.
John Gill on Jeremiah 7:31
And they have built the high places of Tophet,.... Where was the idol Moloch; and which place had its name, as Jarchi thinks, from the beating of drums, that the parents of the children that were burnt might not hear the cry of them: which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom; a valley near Jerusalem, and lay to the south of it, Joshua 15:8,
to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire: which was done, as Jarchi says, by putting them into the arms of the brasen image Moloch, heated hot. The account he gives of Tophet is this,
"Tophet is Moloch, which was made of brass; and they heated him from his lower parts; and his hands being stretched out, and made hot, they put the child betwe…
Read the whole note in the consoleJohn Calvin on Jeremiah 7:31
Jeremiah 7:31
31. And they have built the high places of Tophet, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I commanded them not, neither came it into my heart.
31. Et aedificavit excelsa Topheth, quae in valle filii Hinnom, ut comburerent filios suos et filias suas igni; quod non mandavi, et non ascendit super cor meum.
Jeremiah in this verse also inveighs against those superstitions by which the Jews had corrupted the true and pure worship of God. He says, that they had builded high places, which was prohibited in the law. (Leviticus 26:30.) Now God, as it has been before said, prefers obedience to all sacrifices, (1 Samuel 15…
