Jeremiah 7:32

It shall no more be called Tophet, nor the valley of the son of Hinnom: they were called so after this, and are known by those names to this day; but the meaning is, they shall acquire a name from another occasion, that shall suit them as well, viz. for the great slaughter that shall be made there, or rather thereabouts, in and about Jerusalem, and therefore called the valley of slaughter, from the effect of slaughter; as Judas's field was called Aceldama, Acts 1:19, being a place for burying of the slain, as the next words show. They shall bury in Tophet, till there be no place; either there shall be so great a slaughter made upon that spot by the Chaldeans, that they shall bury as many as the place will contain, and the rest of the carcasses they shall throw on heaps, to rot above ground; for to lie unburied is frequently used as a curse on such, the burying of the dead being accounted as a thing sacred, and a significant symbol of the resurrection: or those that are slain in and about Jerusalem, at the siege and taking of it, shall be carried thither to be buried, either because there shall be no burying-places left about Jerusalem, or that valley shall be filled till there be no place for more, that hereby it may be so polluted, that no thoughts of holiness may remain in it; for a dead carcass under the law was unclean; and that which before was a valley of pleasure and great delight, and they had dedicated to God, shall now be a valley of slaughter.