1 Thus saith Yahweh, Go and get a potter's earthen bottle, and take of the ancients of the people, and of the ancients of the priests;

-The kind of bottle mentioned in this passage, Bakbook, takes its name from the gurgling sound (bakbook) which it makes in pouring out its contents. It is evidently the ordinary narrow-necked vessel of common dull, red earthenware, now used for drinking purposes by the fellahheen, and which in pouring out makes just this gurgling noise.

2 And go forth unto the valley of the son of Hinnom, which is by the entry of the east gate, and proclaim there the words that I shall tell thee,

The gate mentioned cannot be "the East or Sun-gate," as in our version, for this valley looks south, but must be "the Pottery Gate" as Gesenius has shown. See the rendering in the margin of the Revised Version.-Ibid.

6 Therefore, behold, the days come, saith Yahweh, that this place shall no more be called Tophet, nor The valley of the son of Hinnom (Gai-ben-Hinnom; or in the Greek, Geenna; in our tongue Gehenna is the orthography), but The valley of slaughter.

In the nineteenth chapter Jeremiah is commanded by the Lord to go forth into Gai-ben-Hinnom, the valley of the son of Hinnom, which is by the entry of the east gate, and prophecy there against the kings of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem.

He charges them with having burned incense in it to other gods; with having filled it with the blood of innocents; and with having burned their sons with fire as offerings unto Baal there.

Because of these horrible crimes he tells them that the place should no more be called Tophet, nor Gehenna, but the Valley of Slaughter. And they shall bury them in Tophet till there be no place to bury. This was the judgment of Gehenna executed upon Jerusalem by the Chaldeans, and nearly 700 years afterwards by the Romans.

Herald of the Kingdom and Age to Come, June 1851