(32)
Till there be no place.--Better,
because there is no room--i.e., for want of space the dead should be buried even in the spot which the worshippers of Molech looked on as sacred, and the worshippers of Jehovah as accursed, and which both therefore would willingly avoid using as a place of sepulture.
Verse 32. -
The valley of slaughter; with reference to the great slaughter reserved for the unbelieving Jews. The scene of their sin shall be that of their punishment.
Till there be no place; rather,
for want of room (elsewhere).
7:29-34 In token both of sorrow and of slavery, Jerusalem must be degraded, and separated from God, as she had been separated to him. The heart is the place in which God has chosen to put his name; but if sin has the innermost and uppermost place there, we pollute the temple of the Lord. The destruction of Jerusalem appears here very terrible. The slain shall be many; they having made it the place of their sin. Evil pursues sinners, even after death. Those who will not, by the grace of God, be cured of vain mirth, shall, by the justice of God, be deprived of all mirth. How many ruin their health and property without complaining, when engaged in Satan's service! May we learn to relish holy joys, and to sit loose to all others though lawful.
Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the Lord,.... And they were coming on apace; a little longer, and they would be come; for it was but a few years after this ere Jerusalem was besieged and taken by the army of the Chaldeans, and the slaughter made after mentioned:
that it shall no more be called Tophet: no more be used for such barbarous and idolatrous worship; and no more have its name from such a shocking circumstance:
nor the valley of the son of Hinnom; as it had been from the times of Joshua:
but the valley of slaughter: or, "of the slain"; as the Targum, Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic versions; because of the multitude of men that should be killed there, or brought there to be buried; as follows:
for they shall bury in Tophet till there be no place: till there be no more room to bury there; or, "because there was no place" (a) elsewhere; the number of the slain being so many: this was in righteous judgment, that where they had sacrificed their children, there they should be slain, at least buried.
(a) "quod, vel eo quod nullus (alius. sit) locus", Munster; "ideo quod non (erie) locus", Schmidt.