Isaiah 30:33

33. Tophet This word occurs here possibly because “tabret” had just been used, from a habit of our prophet of indulging in paronomasia. Both words are from the same root, or from roots nearly identical. Originally “tophet” probably meant a music grove, or a place where the tambourine was prominent in the music. The king’s garden, near by in the deep valley, just southeast of Jerusalem, may have had some relation to the music grove or tophet. The place afterward became abominable by being made the place for consuming the offals of animals offered in sacrifice on the altar. The worshippers of Moloch are also said to have made it still more abominable by the sacrifice of children in the burning furnace into which the huge image of Moloch in that place had been constructed. The perpetual burning loathsomeness, from the consuming offal, made the place an image of eternal torture in the New Testament associations of the spot. Its name in Greek is gehenna, from the Hebrew word rendered valley of Hinnom. For a full description see SMITH’S Bible Dictionary.

The figure here is, that “tophet” has been prepared to receive the king of Assyria; that for this purpose it has been enlarged, made deep and broad, with a mouth vast enough to swallow up his whole army. Wood has been massed for a huge burning; the breath of Jehovah is to fire this mass; which, like a stream of brimstone, is to burn with an intense and inextinguishable heat. The figures of Revelation 21:8; Revelation 21:10 are hence derived, to signify the everlasting torments of hell.