The Ancient Word...

Wrapped around the southeast side of Jerusalem lay a deep valley. In Hebrew they called it Ge Ben-Hinnom ("Valley of the Son of Hinnom"), Ge-Hinnom ("Valley of Hinnom"), or later Ge-Henna ("Valley of Hinnom").

After Israel conquered Canaan, this Valley formed the boundary between the tribal lands of Judah and Benjamin (see Joshua 15:8; 18:16).

Later, Israel forgot the God who had delivered them from Egypt and brought them to the Promised Land. At a place called Topheth, in the Valley of Hinnom, they set up altars to Baal and Molech. There they burned their own children alive as sacrifices to these Canaanite and Ammonite idol-gods (see 2 Kings 23:10; 2 Chronicles 28:3; 33:6).

When His patience ran out, the Lord sent Jeremiah to the Valley with a prophecy of judgment:

The people of Judah have done evil in my eyes, declares the LORD...They have built the high places of Topheth in the Valley of Ben Hinnom to burn their sons and daughters in the fire -- something I did not command, nor did it enter my mind. So beware, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when people will no longer call it Topheth or the Valley of Ben Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter, for they will bury the dead in Topheth until there is no more room...the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem...will become desolate. (Jeremiah 7:30-34, NIV; compare 19:1-15; 32:28-35)

God's terrible promise came to pass in 586 B.C. when King Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem and ravaged the land. At Ge-Hinnom, Babylonian armies slaughtered the idolatrous Jews by the thousands.

Six hundred years later, citizens of Jerusalem used the Hinnom Valley as a garbage dump for the city. In his teaching, Jesus used this stinking, rotting, smoldering, maggot-infested trash heap as an image for eschatological judgment:

If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell (literally Gehenna), where the fire never goes out...And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the Kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell (Gehenna), where "their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched." (Mark 9:43-48; compare Matthew 5:22, 29, 30; 10:28; 18:9; 23:15, 33; Luke 12:5; James 3:6)

Those who reject the Lord will once again be slaughtered in the "Valley of Hinnom." Those who seek their own kingdoms, rather than God's Kingdom, will be tossed onto the trash heap of history, the garbage dump of the universe.

... for Today

The imagery is stark. Gehenna represents ugliness, filth, violence, and death. No Jew in the first century, familiar with the Valley of Hinnom, could misunderstand the metaphor. Who would want to be thrown into such a place to perish there?

In the past, "hellfire and brimstone preaching" coerced people into the Kingdom. We used fear to steer people to Christ and endorsed any means necessary to produce converts. Even revival meetings had their share of "turn or burn" sermons. Rarely does that happen anymore, and some folks lament its demise. "Whatever happened to the idea of rescuing people from Hell?"

But Jesus himself did not use Gehenna as his stock sermon. He seemed less worried about saving people from Gehenna and more devoted to saving people to the Kingdom of God. He preferred to declare that "the Kingdom of God is at hand" rather than "judgment is on the way."

That message still moves us in a powerful way today. While Gehenna remains a reality, God's love (not intimidation) provides the deepest motivation for our transformation.

Discuss...

1. What comes to mind when you think of Hell? How much of that is biblical? See the texts cited in this issue.
   
2. What is the relationship between fear and love as "tools" for reaching others?

Chris Davis, PhD & David Timms, PhD
Hope International University
Fullerton, California

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