Jeremiah 19:5

This and the following verse contain another great sin of this people, with the punishment which God proportioneth to it. The sin in the general was idolatry, but a most barbarous species of it, mentioned also Jeremiah 7:31, Jeremiah 32:35, where it is said they made their sons and their daughters pass through the fire to Molech; the place where they did it is called Tophet, Jeremiah 19:6, of which also mention is made Isaiah 30:33 Jeremiah 7:31. For the opening of this text, as also of those other texts that mention this idolatry, we must open what is meant by Baal, Moloch, Tophet, and the valley of the son of Hinnom. There is no doubt but Baal and Molech, or Moloch, signify the same thing; Baal signifieth a lord, Molech a king. They ordinarily called their idols by these names; as also Malcham, Zephaniah 1:5; upon which account God would not be called Baal, Hosea 2:16, though he was called Jehovah, Elohim, and Adonai, all which signified lord, as Baal did. Both Baal and Molech seem common names to all idols. There was more than one idol in the house of Baal, 2 Kings 10:26. The Ammonites called their principal idol Milcom and Molech, as appears from 1 Kings 11:5 2 Kings 23:13. To this idol they sacrificed their children. It was a very ancient idolatry, as appeareth by the very early law of God against it, Leviticus 20:3. Some say it was derived from Saturn, whom they make contemporary with Deborah and Barak, who, to appease the gods in an imminent danger, sacrificed his son. Others say it began in the time of Serug, the father of Nahor, of whom we read Genesis 11:20, and that it had its original from the devil, speaking out of the belly of some dead persons, commanding this homage, possibly in imitation of God, who, Genesis 22:2, to try Abraham's obedience, commanded him to offer up Isaac upon the Mount Moriah. We must know there were other sacrifices they offered to Baal: they burnt incense to Baal, 2 Kings 23:5; they offered sacrifices and burnt-offerings of beasts, 1 Kings 18:26 2 Kings 10:24; only in some extraordinary straits, to show their great obedience to the devil, they offered their children. What creature they worshipped under this name is not certain, but very probably it was the sun, from 2 Kings 23:5, or some superior being, which they owned as their supreme lord and king, which they, some of them, mistook the sun, moon, and stars to be; they being glorious beings removed out of men's knowledge, so as they had not sufficient means to understand their natures, might, considering their motions, and vast influence they had upon all other creatures, mistake them for animate and supreme beings, to which as they paid other homages, (such as swearing by them, Zephaniah 1:5, burning incense, offering beasts, praying to them,) so in imitation of the heathens, and in a pretence of high devotion and homage in some special cases and straits, they offered their children. Some think they only made them go through the fire, but did not burn them; and indeed so most of the scriptures express this abominable idolatry; but some scriptures speak it plain enough, that they actually burnt them: the psalmist, Psalms 106:37, saith, They shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan, and the land was polluted with blood, which it could not have been by their children's merely passing through the fire; and it is laid to their charge, Ezekiel 16:20,21, Thou hast taken thy sons and thy daughters, whom thou hast borne unto me, and those hast thou sacrificed to them to be devoured. That thou hast slain my children, and delivered them to cause them to pass through the fire for them. We read of the idolatry of Jeroboam, who worshipped the true God, but by calves set up at Dan and Beth-el. Ahab exceeded this, bringing in the terminative worship of the creatures, worshipping the sun, moon, and stars, under the name of Baal. But, the first in Judah, of whom we read that he made his son to pass through the fire, was Ahaz, the father of Hezekiah, 2 Kings 16:3. He was followed by his grandchild Manasseh, 2 Kings 21:6. Josiah, the good son of a bad father, defiled the place where this abominable idolatry was committed, 2 Kings 23:10. The place where they committed this horrible abomination was the valley of the son of Hinnom, very near the city, and the particular place was called Tophet. There was a high place built for the idol, and many think that the name Tophet ariseth from their use of a drum or tabret, with which, while the poor children were burning, they made great noises to drown the sound of the children's yellings; though others think the word Tophet originally signifies hell, or the place of the damned, of which this place, both for the torments and roarings in it, was a lively representation. Now of this barbarous and horrible idolatry God saith, he commanded them not, neither came it into his mind. It was so far from it, that God had most severely forbid it, Leviticus 20:2, making it a capital crime for any to do it, and for any to conceal others that they knew did it; so that here is a meiosis, less spoken than was true fit the case; but possibly God's expressing a thing of this nature, being an error in his worship, under these soft terms, I commanded them not, neither did it come into my mind, giveth no small ground to considerate men to judge that we must have a command from God, though not for every individual act of our worship, nor for every circumstance of human action which we do in his worship, yet for every specifical religious act, and for any thing whereby we pay a homage to God; it being indeed the most reasonable thing imaginable, that God should have the same privilege which every prince or great man amongst men claimeth as his right, to prescribe the acts, modes, and methods for his own homage.