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Jeremiah 19:4-7 The Valley of Slaughter - Day 204

Heard a message from a Ligonier conference about God centered worship.  God cannot meet us without His holiness.  We cannot meet God without our sin.  Yes Christ paid our debt, but we must be contrite in our confession of sin.  Today's devotional is an example of where God's people did not take His holiness seriously and fell into idolatry without repentance and contrition.  Judgment followed.

Blessings 

Jeff

The days of Jeremiah are far worse than the days of the Judges.  Even though Judah still had a Davidic king, the depth of their depravity was worse than during Judges.  People in Judges did was was right in their own eyes because there was no king in Israel.  People in Jeremiah's day are doing wrong even though there is a king in Judah.

As we come to Easter, isn't it shocking that although Judah had been brought back from exile and the idolatry described here in Jeremiah had been terminated, the rejection of the Messiah comes with even greater penalty?  

Observations

Topheth - place of burning 

2 Kings 23 Josiah's reforms. He was the king before Jeremiah's prophetic office started.  And he defiled Topheth, which is in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, that no one might burn his son or his daughter as an offering to Molech.

From Complete Word Study Bible dictionary designating Hinnom, the valley that lies west and south of the hill of Jerusalem. It became a place known for idolatrous practices located there (2 Kgs. 23:10; 2 Chr. 28:3; Jer. 7:31), especially the worship of the god Molech. It runs together with the Kidron Valley on the south end of the City of David.

Even though it had been defiled years earlier, it appears that child sacrifice had resumed.

The place of child sacrifice will become the place where the parents are slaughtered.  

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