Unholy Geography: Valley of Rephaim and Hinnom

Two valleys sit beside Jerusalem, and both carry a reputation.
The Valley of Rephaim takes its name from giant warriors, and the Philistines used it as a staging ground against David. The Valley of Ben Hinnom runs alongside it - the place where kings burned their children in the fire.
Joshua 15 sets them next to each other in a boundary description, which is how you learn they were neighbours. And Hinnom is the valley whose name came into Greek as gehenna, which by the New Testament period had become a designation for the fiery realm of the dead.
So the ground around Jerusalem is not neutral. The city of God sits between a valley named for giants and a valley that gave hell its name.
Scripture links:
- 2 Samuel 5:18 and 5:22 - the Philistines spread out in the Valley of Rephaim.
- Joshua 15:8 - the boundary running by the Valley of Ben Hinnom, beside the Valley of Rephaim.
In the Bible, places remember what happened in them.