Mark 9:43

offend thee or, as in margin, cause thee to offend, lead thee into sin. Our Lord makes special mention of the Hand, the Foot, the Eye, those members, whereby we doamiss, or walkastray, or gaze onwhat is sinful.

into hell Literally, the Gehenna, or the Gehenna of fire (Mark 9:47). The "Ravine of Hinnom," also called "Topheth" (2 Kings 23:10; Isaiah 30:33), is described in Josh, Joshua 18:16, as on the south of Mount Zion. Its total length is a mile and a half. It is a deep retired glen, shut in by rugged cliffs, with the bleak mountain sides rising over all. It became notorious in the times of Ahaz and Manasseh as the scene of the barbarous rites of Molech and Chemosh, when the idolatrous inhabitants of Jerusalem cast their sons and daughters into the red-hot arms of a monster idol of brass placed at the opening of the ravine (2 Kings 16:3; 1 Chronicles 28:3; Jeremiah 7:31). To put an end to these abominations the place was polluted by Josiah, who spread over it human bones and other corruptions (2 Kings 23:10; 2 Kings 23:13-14), from which time it seems to have become the common cesspool of the city. These inhuman rites and subsequent ceremonial defilement caused the later Jews to regard it with horror and detestation, and they applied the name given to the valley to the place of torment.