Passage

Jeremiah 7.31

"They have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I did not command, and it did not come into My mind." (Jeremiah 7:31, NASB95)

Synthesis

Jeremiah 7:31 is the most direct prohibition-by-denunciation of child sacrifice in the Old Testament. The setting is Jeremiah's Temple sermon (Jer 7:1-15), delivered at the gate of the Jerusalem Temple in the final decades before the Babylonian exile. Judah has built shrines in the Valley of Ben-Hinnom (Hebrew ge ben-Hinnom, later contracted to Gehenna) and is offering its own children there in fire-rituals modelled on the surrounding Canaanite and Phoenician cults. God's response is striking for its grammar: He does not merely forbid the practice, He denies authoring it at all. The double clause "which I did not command, and it did not come into My mind" pushes farther than ordinary prohibition. Yahweh distances Himself from the cult so totally that the practice is not on His mental horizon, not in the universe of what He could conceivably ordain.

Apologetically this verse is load-bearing in two debates. Against skeptics who claim the God of the Old Testament endorsed child sacrifice (citing Genesis 22, Judges 11, the firstfruits laws, etc.), Jeremiah 7:31 is the canonical-internal rebuttal: the same God who appears in Genesis and Judges is here on record categorically rejecting the practice and saying it never entered His mind. Against critics who treat Israelite religion as just one more ANE child-sacrificing cult, the verse anchors Israel's prophetic distinctiveness; the Hebrew Bible's own self-criticism of fellow Israelites who slid into pagan child-sacrifice is part of how it refuses pagan continuity.

Immediate context (±2 verses)

ASV (ASV)

"29. Cut off thy hair, O Jerusalem, and cast it away, and take up a lamentation on the bare heights; for Jehovah hath rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath. 30. For the children of Judah have done that which is evil in my sight, saith Jehovah: they have set their abominations in the house which is called by my name, to defile it."

"31. And they have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I commanded not, neither came it into my mind."

"32. Therefore, behold, the days come, saith Jehovah, that it shall no more be called Topheth, nor The valley of the son of Hinnom, but The valley of Slaughter: for they shall bury in Topheth, till there be no place to bury. 33. And the dead bodies of this people shall be food for the birds of the heavens, and for the beasts of the earth; and none shall frighten them away." (Jeremiah 7:29-33, ASV)

WEB (WEB)

"29. Cut off your hair, and throw it away, and take up a lamentation on the bare heights; for Yahweh has rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath. 30. “For the children of Judah have done that which is evil in my sight,” says Yahweh. “They have set their abominations in the house which is called by my name, to defile it."

"31. They have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I didn’t command, nor did it come into my mind."

"32. Therefore behold, the days come”, says Yahweh, “that it shall no more be called Topheth, nor The valley of the son of Hinnom, but The valley of Slaughter; for they shall bury in Topheth, until there is no place to bury. 33. The dead bodies of this people shall be food for the birds of the sky, and for the animals of the earth; and no one shall frighten them away." (Jeremiah 7:29-33, WEB)

KJV (KJV)

"29. Cut off thine hair, O Jerusalem, and cast it away, and take up a lamentation on high places; for the LORD hath rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath. 30. For the children of Judah have done evil in my sight, saith the LORD: they have set their abominations in the house which is called by my name, to pollute it."

"31. And they have built the high places of Tophet, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I commanded them not, neither came it into my heart. ^{came: Heb. came it upon my heart}"

"32. Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that it shall no more be called Tophet, nor the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of slaughter: for they shall bury in Tophet, till there be no place. 33. And the carcases of this people shall be meat for the fowls of the heaven, and for the beasts of the earth; and none shall fray them away." (Jeremiah 7:29-33, KJV)

YLT (YLT)

"29. Cut off thy crown, and cast [it] away, And lift up on high places lamentation, For Jehovah hath rejected, And He leaveth the generation of His wrath. 30. For the sons of Judah Have done the evil thing in Mine eyes, An affirmation of Jehovah, They have set their abominations in the house On which My name is called, to defile it,"

"31. And have built the high places of Tophet, That [are] in the valley of the son of Hinnom, To burn their sons and their daughters with fire, Which I did not command, Nor did it come up on My heart."

"32. Therefore, lo, days are coming, An affirmation of Jehovah, And it is not said any more, 'The Tophet,' And 'Valley of the son of Hinnom,' But 'Valley of the slaughter,' And they have buried in Tophet, without place. 33. And the carcase of this people hath been for food To a fowl of the heavens, and to a beast of the earth, And there is none troubling." (Jeremiah 7:29-33, YLT)

Setting

Speaker: Jeremiah son of Hilkiah, delivering Yahweh's direct discourse
Audience: the people of Judah at the Temple gate
Location: Jerusalem, at the entrance to the Temple; the cult site is in the Valley of Ben-Hinnom just south of the city
Time period: Jeremiah's ministry c. 627-587 BC; this oracle likely from the reign of Jehoiakim, before the 586 BC fall of Jerusalem

Theological reading

Patristic and rabbinic exegesis converge on the doctrinal weight of "nor did it come into My mind" (Hebrew welo aletah al libbi, literally "nor did it go up onto My heart"). Rashi reads it as God excluding the practice from anything He ever willed, foresaw favorably, or sanctioned. Jerome's Commentariorum in Jeremiam takes the phrase as positive proof that the Akedah of Genesis 22 was never intended as a precedent for child sacrifice; the angel's intervention there expresses what Jeremiah 7:31 here states explicitly. Calvin (Commentary on Jeremiah, ad loc.) extends this: when God denies that the cult "came into His mind," He is denying not only the act but the very category of approval ever attaching to it.

The Valley of Ben-Hinnom (later Gehenna) becomes, by the New Testament period, Jesus' standing image for final judgment (Mark 9.43-48, Matthew 5:22, 18:9). The location's history is the reason: it was the place where Israelites had burned their children in fire to false gods, so Jesus' use of Gehenna for the eschatological fate of the unrepentant trades on this thick canonical memory. The same valley that had hosted human sacrifice in defiance of Yahweh becomes the image for the fire reserved for those who set themselves against Him.

For apologetic engagement, three moves follow. First, the verse functions as Scripture's own internal rebuttal of the "the OT god commanded child sacrifice" claim: the most explicit category-denial of divine sanction for the practice is in the OT itself. Second, it grounds the Christian reading that fire-imagery in OT and NT does not endorse what it depicts; the same fire-language is used both for the sin (Topheth) and for the judgment of that sin (Gehenna), with God's relation to the two opposite. Third, it sharpens the Akedah reading: God provides the substitute ram because the point was never to receive Isaac, the point was to reveal Yahweh as the God who supplies the sacrifice He requires - a structural pattern fulfilled at the cross, where the Father does not require the Son's death from outside but offers Himself.

Key words

Topheth (Strong's H8612). The cult site name; etymology likely from Aramaic tepat ("fireplace" / "hearth") repointed by the Masoretes with the vowels of bosheth ("shame") as a deliberate scribal slur.
gay (Strong's H1516). "Valley"; the Valley of Ben-Hinnom (gey ben-Hinnom) becomes Greek Gehenna, the NT word for hell.
tsavah (Strong's H6680). "Command"; the verb God denies of Himself here. Yahweh has not commanded this; whatever Judah claims, the practice has no divine warrant.
H3820 - lev, lev (Strong's H3820). "Heart" / "mind"; the seat of will and thought in Hebrew anthropology. "Did not come up upon My heart" denies the practice was ever even contemplated favorably.

Theological themes

Divine self-distancing from pagan child sacrifice. Yahweh's denial is categorical and double: not commanded, and not even entertained.
Topheth as theological geography. The valley that hosted child sacrifice becomes the canonical image for final judgment; the place Israel defiled becomes the type of the place where defilement is judged.
Internal Old Testament critique. Israel's own prophets condemn fellow Israelites for assimilating to pagan cults; the Hebrew canon does not present itself as continuous with ANE child-sacrificing religion but as its judge.
Christological pattern. God's refusal of child sacrifice in Jeremiah 7:31 and the Akedah's substitute ram together prepare the gospel pattern: God supplies the sacrifice rather than demanding it from us, fulfilled in the Father giving the Son.

Cross-references

Leviticus 18.21, "you shall not give any of your offspring to offer them to Molech"; the foundational legal prohibition.
Deuteronomy 12.31, "every abominable act which the LORD hates they have done for their gods; for they even burn their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods"; the practice marked as the pagan signature.
Jeremiah 19.5-6, a near-doublet of 7:31; Topheth and the Valley of Hinnom re-condemned with the same "which I did not command, nor did it come into My mind" formula.
2 Kings 23.10, Josiah defiles Topheth so it can no longer be used for the cult.
Mark 9.43-48, Jesus uses Gehenna (the geography of this verse) for the fate of the unrepentant.

Quoted in

Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.