Topheth, the Valley of the sons of Hinnom, is the subject of Jeremiah 19. This specific geographical location in Jerusalem will become known later as a metaphor for hell, and for good reason.
Because of what happened in Topheth, severe judgment is coming upon Judah. Barbaric child sacrifice was conducted there by the previous generations of Jews under King Manasseh until they were ended by the reforms of King Josiah. God did not request nor desire such sacrifices, but they were instead made to the gods of Molech and Baal.
God explains the atrocity of Topheth in verses 4 and 5: "Because the people have forsaken me, and have profaned this place by making offerings in it to other gods whom neither they nor their ancestors nor the kings of Judah have known, and because they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent, and gone on building the high places of Baal to burn their children in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal, which I did not command or decree, nor did it enter my mind..." This is a place that, quite literally, is like hell.
The punishment for these horrible acts is that Jerusalem herself will be afflicted with awe-inspiring disaster. The Valley of Hinnom will become known as the Valley of Slaughter (vs. 6). Judah will fall militarily to another nation, and the dead bodies of its citizens will be left out in the open for birds and wild animals to eat. Even cannibalism will break out during the siege of Jerusalem. "And I will make this city a horror, a thing to be hissed at; everyone who passes by it will be horrified and will hiss because of all its disasters. And I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and all shall eat the flesh of their neighbors in the siege, and in the distress with which their enemies and those who seek their life afflict them" (vs. 8-9). Where once the practiced child sacrifice, now they will have to consume one another physically to live. It is the ultimate takedown of the nation of Judah.
To demonstrate the message, Jeremiah enacts it with something he might have bought at the potter's house from chapter 18. He takes a potter's earthenware jug to Topheth and delivers the verdict of God upon the nation. Then he smashes the jug to bits. The message is that God will break the people and the city as easily as one breaks an earthenware jug, so that it can never be mended. That is what's coming for Judah, something a lot like hell.
P.S. I wonder if this is how Jeremiah got his reputation as a "crackpot"?
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