And the whole valley of the dead bodies, and of the ashes, and all the fields unto the brook of Kidron, unto the corner of the horse gate toward the east, shall be holy unto the LORD; it shall not be plucked up, nor thrown down any more forever.
All Commentaries on Jeremiah 31:40 Go To Jeremiah 31
Jerome
AD 420
Those who accept the reign of the Messiah for one thousand years in the land of Judea—clearly the Jews and our Judaizers—strive to claim and to demonstrate that the sanctuary of the Lord, that is, the temple, must be maintained forever in one location, specifically that of the tower of Hananel and the corner gate and the hill Gareb and Goah and the entire valley of corpses and ashes and the river Kidron and the corner of the eastern Gate of Horses. Because they are unable to show that it was completed after their captivity in the times of Zerubbabel and Ezra, they pass to the times of the Messiah, whom they say is coming at the consummation of the world, so that a golden and bejeweled Jerusalem can descend, according to the Apocalypse of John, and be built within this space of land, that is, beginning at one place and ending at another. And they receive this whiff of a suspicion that the foundation of the city is to be laid from the tower at Anathoth, which today is called Jeremiah’s and is separated from Jerusalem by three thousand [sic], to the river Kidron, where there is a garden in which Judas the traitor betrayed the Savior, as written in the Gospel.
“We are about to read in what follows,” they say, “that Hanamel the son of Shallum was Jeremiah’s uncle and that Jeremiah bought Hanamel’s field and that this is the tower of Hanamel.” Yet, they did not know the truth of the Hebrew, for this is what is written: “from the tower of Hananel,” with an n clearly as the fifth letter, whereas the name in the other phrase has an m as the fifth letter: “Behold, Hanamel, son of Shallum, your uncle, will come to you.”
