What Does Jeremiah 7:31 Mean?
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 did not command, nor did it rise up into my heart.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
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.THE KEY
The fire is built into a high place by human hands, but this burning never rises from God’s heart.
THE MEANING
This verse names the burning of children plainly and refuses to hide it behind religious language. It speaks now: this violence is not commanded by God, and the idea does not rise from God’s heart.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that God desires or commands the destruction of children as a religious offering.
THE ROOT
עָלְתָה עַל־לִבִּי
ʿāletāh ʿal-libbî
GROWS FROM
עלה
to go up, ascend, rise
“rise up into my heart” in this verse is ʿāletāh ʿal-libbî. The Hebrew idiom is literally “it did not rise upon my heart,” picturing the deed as something that never ascends from God’s inward intention. The same root forms עֹלָה (ʿōlāh, burnt offering), an offering that “goes up”; in a verse about children burned in fire, that echo makes the denial especially sharp.
ALSO GROWS
ʿōlāh: burnt offering; an offering that goes up
עֹלָה
Its shared root gives “rise” a concrete echo in a verse that names burning, while the sentence denies that this act rises from God’s heart.
maʿalah: ascent; an upward step or stairway
מַעֲלָה
It preserves the root’s sense of upward movement and clarifies the verse’s image of a thought rising upon the heart.
THE PATTERN
God rejects the destruction of children even when it is framed as a religious offering.
Do not give any of your seed to pass through the fire to Molech, and do not pierce the nature of your God. I am the LORD.You shall not do so to the LORD your God, for every recoiling thing to the LORD, which he hates, they have done to their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burned in the fire to their gods.Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of streams of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my rebellion, the fruit of my belly for the falling short of my living soul?THE THREAD
They have built also the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire for ascending offerings to Baal, which I did not command, nor speak, nor did it rise upon my heart.Jeremiah 19:5 repeats the phrase עָלְתָה עַל־לִבִּי (ʿāletāh ʿal-libbî, “rose upon my heart”), though the KJV renders it “came into my mind.” The repeated wording makes the denial unmistakable: the practice is neither commanded nor something that rises in God’s heart.
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