Jeremiah 7

This chapter mentions one of the great “unmentionables” of the Bible—the pagan practice of burning one’s own children alive in the fire to the god Molech. It is unthinkable that the Israelites—who were supposed to know the God of Love—could ever have gotten caught up in such a detestable practice. God thought so, too:

“‘The people of Judah have sinned before my very eyes,’ says the Lord. ‘They have set up their abominable idols right in the Temple that bears my name, defiling it. They have built pagan shrines at Topheth, the garbage dump in the valley of Ben-Hinnom, and there they burn their sons and daughters in the fire. I have never commanded such a horrible deed; it never even crossed my mind to command such a thing!’” (vs 30-31)

I can’t imagine anyone under any circumstances being willing to kill their child—let alone burn them alive in a fire. And I can’t imagine God—as the Creator of us all—watching some of His own precious creatures burn to death some of His other precious creatures. To see your children hurting each other in such an unimaginable way must be something akin to hell on Earth.

It’s interesting, then, to observe that the Greek word most often translated “hell” in the New Testament is a direct reference to this despicable act. The word gehenna (which is translated as “hell” twelve times in the New Testament) is the transliteration of the Hebrew word for “valley” (ga) and the proper name Hinnom. So, the word gehenna literally meant “Valley of Hinnom,” or this place where the Israelites burnt their children alive as sacrifices.

When Jesus wanted to reference the idea of “hell” in the New Testament, He linked it directly to the worst possible acts of evil in Israel’s history. Humankind can sink no lower than to treat each other in such an awful way—particularly when parents are so far gone that they will sacrifice their own children. Even God has a hard time fathoming that.

If heaven can begin here on Earth, so can hell. And it begins when we remove God from the center of our lives; the inevitable result of that is the destruction of the innocents—even for “good” reasons. (I’m sure the Israelites were justifying it to themselves somehow!) The further away we go from God, the further away we get from love. And the further away we get from love, the closer we come to the Valley of Hinnom. That’s where we become capable of doing unspeakable things to the people we’re supposed to love.

It’s hell.

And God hates hell.