Name of the valley to the south and south-west of Jerusalem (Joshua 15:8, 18:16; Nehemiah 11:30; 2 Kings 23:10; 2 Chronicles 33:6; Jeremiah 7:31 et seq., 19:2, 32:35). Its modern name is "Wadi al-Rababah." The southwestern gate of the city, overlooking the valley, came to be known as "the gate of the valley." The valley was notorious for the worship of Moloch carried on there (comp. Jeremiah 2:23). According to Jeremiah 7:31 et seq., 19:6 et seq., it was to be turned into a place of burial; hence "the accursed valley Ge-hinnom" ("Gehenna" in the N. T.) came to be synonymous with a place of punishment, and thus with hell (comp. Isaiah 66:24; Enoch, et seq.; and the rabbinical Hebrew equivalent). See GEHENNA; PARADISE.
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The contents of the 12-volume Jewish Encyclopedia, which was originally published between 1901-1906. The Jewish Encyclopedia, which recently became part of the public domain, contains over 15,000 articles and illustrations.
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