HINNOM, VALLEY OF, hĭn’ əm (גֵּ֣י הִנֹּ֗ם. It is also known as the VALLEY OF THE SON OF HINNOM [Josh 15:8; Jer 7:32], the VALLEY OF THE CHILDREN OF HINNOM [2 Kings 23:10], and THE VALLEY [2 Chron 26:9; Neh 2:13, 15]. The meaning of “Hinnom” and “children of Hinnom” would suggest that it is a proper name, perhaps of the original Jebusite owner).

The location of the valley of Hinnom is uncertain because of the ambiguity of the Biblical data concerning it. It ran along the boundary of Judah and Benjamin (Josh 15:8; 18:16), and was at the entry of the Potsherd Gate (Jer 19:2), not at the “entrance of the east gate,” as the KJV has it.

The valley had an evil reputation in later OT times because it was the site of Tophet, where parents made their children pass through the fire to Baal and Molech. Ahaz and Manasseh were guilty of this horrible abomination (2 Chron 28:3; 33:6). Isaiah refers to it, although not by name, as a place where the dead bodies of the unbelieving shall lie, and where their worm shall not die and the fire is not quenched (Isa 66:24). Jeremiah predicted that God would visit the place with such awful destruction because of its wickedness that it would become known as the “valley of Slaughter” (Jer 7:31-34). Josiah defiled the high place so as to make it unfit for its idolatrous rites (2 Kings 23:10). It became a type of sin, punishment, and misery because the bodies of dead animals and criminals were burned at its ever-burning fires.

The Heb. name Ge-ben-Hinnom (Ge-Hinnom) became corrupted into Gehenna, which in the NT is used to designate the place of eternal punishment.

The location of the valley has been much disputed. All three of the valleys around Jerusalem have been identified with it—the Kidron to the E, the Tyropoeon in the center, and the Wadi er-Rababi on the W. Early Jewish, Christian, and Mohammedan writers identified it with Kidron, but scarcely anyone does so today. Since the Tyropoean valley was incorporated within the city walls before the time of Manasseh, it is extremely unlikely that it could have been the place of the sacrifice of children, which must have been done outside the walls (2 Kings 21:10-15). The Wadi er-Rababi location has the most support. It begins W of the Jaffa gate, turns S c. a third of a mile, and gradually curves E to join the Kidron valley. If Bir Ayyub is En-rogel, as seems probable, then the Wadi er-Rababi, known traditionally as Hinnom, locates the valley of Hinnom.