- The valley of Hinnom, near Jerusalem, where some of the
Israelites sacrificed their children to Moloch, which, on this account,
was afterward regarded as a place of abomination, and made a receptacle
for all the refuse of the city, perpetual fires being kept up in order
to prevent pestilential effluvia. In the New Testament the name is
transferred, by an easy metaphor, to Hell.
Definition
[ n.]