🔼The name Ben-hinnom: Summary
- Meaning
- Son Of Wailing or Son Of Muffled Groaning
- Etymology
- From (1) the noun בן (ben), son, and (2) נהם (naham), muffled groan.
🔼The names Hinnom and Ben-hinnom in the Bible
The name Ben-hinnom belongs to a notorious valley close to Jerusalem — more specifically, by the entrance of what later would be called the שער החרסות (sha'ar haharsit), which means Hairy Itch, Horrible Engraving, Deaf Goat and Potsherd Gate (Jeremiah 19:2).
Ben-hinnom is first mentioned among the border markers of the territory of Judah (Joshua 15:8), and subsequently again among the border markers of the neighboring territory of Benjamin (Joshua 18:16). These same verses also mention a valley of Hinnom, which seems to indicate that there were two adjacent valleys: one valley of Hinnom and one valley of Ben-hinnom.
In later centuries, and much to the horror of the prophet Jeremiah (Jeremiah 7:31-32, 32:35), the valley of Ben-hinnom became the proverbial host to the worship of Topheth and Molech, which compelled people to sacrifice their children by burning them alive. King Ahaz, the eleventh king of Judah, burned his sons in the valley of Ben-hinnom (2 Chronicles 28:3), and so did Manasseh, the thirteenth king (2 Chronicles 33:6). The religious complex in the valley of Ben Hinnom (or rather Benay-hinnom: בני־הנם) was among those targeted during the reforms of king Josiah, the fifteenth king of Judah (2 Kings 23:10).
Together with the noun גיא (gai'), meaning valley, the term Gai Hinnom became the Greek term Gehenna, commonly translated with hell. Through Jeremiah, YHWH declared that the Valley of Ben-Hinnom would be called גיא ההרגה (gai haharega), or the Valley of Killing (Jeremiah 19:6).
Upon their return from the exile in Babylon, some of the Jews settled the villages around Jerusalem, from Beersheba to the valley of Hinnom (Nehemiah 11:30).
🔼Etymology of the name Ben-hinnom
The name Ben-hinnom obviously consists of two elements, the first one being the familiar noun בן (ben), meaning son:
בן
The noun בן (ben) means son, or more general: a member of one particular social or economic node — called a "house", which is built upon the instructions of one אב ('ab), or "father" — within in a larger economy (hence: the "sons of the prophet" are the members of the prophet-class; the prophets). This noun obviously resembles the verb בנה (bana), to build, and the noun אבן ('eben), stone.
Our noun's feminine version, namely בת (bat), means daughter, which resembles the noun בית (bayit), meaning house. Sometimes our noun is contracted into a single letter ב, whose name beth comes from בית (bayit) and means "house" as well. As a prefix, the letter ב (be) means "in." The word for mother, אם ('em), is highly similar to that of tribe or people, אמה ('umma).
The second part of our name is harder to place, because there is nothing in Hebrew that looks like it. Traditionally, however, the name Hinnom has always been interpreted as part of the cluster of onomatopoeic words that also contain the verbs נהה (naha), to wail or lament, and noun נהם (naham), a suppressed or muffled cry or groan:
המה
The masculine pronouns הם (hem) and המה (hemma) mean "they." The feminine versions are הנה (henna) and הן (hen). The singular versions (meaning he and she) are הוא (hu) and היא (hi).
The similar verb המה (hama) means to be noisy, and that particularly of a "them". The derived masculine noun המון (hamon) denotes a noisy multitude.
נהה
The verb נהה (naha) means to wail or lament, and is probably onomatopoeic, after the sound of crying. Nouns נהי (nehi), נהיה (nihya), ני (ni) and הי (hi) all describe forms of wailing.
נהם
The verb נהם (naham) describes a muffled groaning. Nouns נהם (naham) and נהמה (nehama) mean a growling.
נאם
The noun נאם (ne'um) describes a labored utterance of a prophet in trance. Denominative verb נאם (na'am), means to utter a prophetic utterance.
Late in the second temple period, the valley of Hinnom began to be associated with the Underworld. And since all things spiritual were associated with one's upper body (off the ground, containing air-breathing lungs, one's embracing arms and pondering brain), the lower body was associated with all things physical: one's feelings, emotions, beastly drives and digestive system. This appears to have caused an association between the much discussed Gate to the Underworld, and a woman's vagina: which only on occasion yields resurrected life (all births are resurrections), and most other times causes the demise of whoever longs for it and the bloodshed of whoever tried in vain to be born out of it.
It also caused an unfortunate association between hell and all things pleasurable. In Aramaic (the language of the Targum and Talmud), our name Hinnom and the valley of Hinnom (and thus Gehenna) because synonymous for "the valley which all enter for affairs of vanity (worldly lusts)" (quoting Jastrow's Aramaic Dictionary), and the word הנם (hinom) began to denote purposelessness, then gratuitousness, and so yielded a whole root full of words like the verb הנא (hena'), to please, profit or enjoy, and the noun הנאה (hena'a), enjoyment, pleasure.
Note that the name Gehenna answers to Greek and other pagan traditions who imagined hell, the underworld, and the realm of the dead, a rather lively place. The Jewish tradition, on the other hand, imagined the afterlife to be mostly a place of sleep (Psalm 6:5, Isaiah 38:18), and called it Sheol, which means Desired or Asked For (hence the name Saul, of Israel's first king).
🔼Ben-hinnom meaning
The meaning of name Hinnom and thus Ben-hinnom is lost in time, and most commentators refrain from translating it. Undeterred as always, Jones' Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names reads Lamentation for Hinnom. BDB Theological Dictionary growls that our name's derivation and meaning are dubious, but also lists a small army of colleagues who translated our name with Wailing, and related it to an Arabic noun conveniently meaning "cries of children", and further declares "this improbable" (albeit without argumentation).
The name Ben-hinnom probably means Son Of Wailing or Son Of Muffled Groaning. See our article on Gehenna for a lengthy look at the reality of this grim place.