MAGIC, DIVINATION, AND SORCERY

meaning being either that the spirits were wise and acquainted with the future, or that they were linown to the wizards and had become ' familiar spirits ' to them. The word occurs only in conjunction with 'Bb, as in Lv 1931 20», Dt 18".

(c) Divination by teraphim. — The teraphim were images Inhuman form (c{. Michal's stratagem, 1 S 19"), and they were worshipped as gods (Gn 31i»- '», Jg 18'*), but in later times they seem to have been degraded to magical uses.

Some suppose them to have been the remains of a primitive ancestor-worship, and connect the word with rephd'lm wliich means 'ghosts* (root rdphdh, 'to sink down'; 'to relax'). Some Jewish commentator (of. Moore, Judges, p. 382) have suggested that they were oiiginally the mum-mied heads of human beings, and that images of wood or metal were substituted for these in later times.

Teraphim were used tor divination by Israelites and Aramseans (Gn 31"), and Nebuchadnezzar is rep-resented as consulting them (Ezk 21^'). Josiah abolished teraphim as well as other methods of ilUcit divination (2 K 23^), but they subsequently reappeared (Zee 10'). The use of the teraphim in divination is not stated, but it was probably somewhat similar to the consulting of f amiUar spirits, namely, the diviner gave the response which he represented himself to have received from the teraphim.

B. Magic, like divination, had both legitimate and iUicit branches. The moral character of the attempt to obtain supernatural aid was determined by the purpose in view and the means used to attain it. Witch-craft, which sought to injure others by magical arts, has silways been regarded as evil and worthy of punishment among all nations. Invocation of aid from false gods (who were still regarded as having real existence and power) and from evil spirits has been generally de-nounced. But there was also a magic, which has been denominated 'white magic,' having for its object the defeat of hostile vritchcraft and the protection of in-dividuals from evil influences.

1. Magic employed to counteract the work of evil spirits or the arts of malicious magicians. — This kind of magic was extensively practised among the Assyrians and Babylonians, and was the kind professed by the wise men who were under the patronage of Nebuchad-nezzar (Dn 2'). It also appears in the ceremony of exorcism. In Babylonia illness was traced to possession by evil spirits, and exorcism was employed to expel them (see Sayce, Hibbert Lecture). Exorcism was practised by the later Jews (Ac 19>». Mt 12").

The method of a Jewish exorcist, Eleazar, in the time of Vespasian is described by Jose|>hus {Ant. viii. ii. 5). He placed a ring containing a magical root in the nostril of the demoniac; the man fell down immediately, and the exorcist, using incantations, said to have been composed by Solomon, aidjured the demon to return no more.

This kind of magic is also exemplified in the use of amulets and charms, intended to defend the wearer from evil influences. These derived their power from the spells which had been pronounced over them (thus Idchash, which began vrith the meaning of serpent-charming, came to mean the muttering of a spell, and from that it passed to the meaning of an amulet which had received its power through the spell pronounced over it), or from the words which were inscribed upon them, or the symbolic character of their form. They were used by all ancient peoples, and were opposed by the prophets only when they involved trust in other gods than Jehovah. Probably the earrings of Gn 35* and Hos 2" were amulets; so also were the moon-shaped ornaments of Jg 8"- » and Is 3"; their shape was that of the crescent moon which symbolized to the Arabs growing good fortune, and formed a protection against the evil eye (see Delitzsch on Is 3"). Perhaps the 'whoredoms' and ' adulteries ' of Hos 2* were nose-jewels and necklaces which were heathen charms. Written words were often employed t^ keep away evil. The later Jew, under-standing Dt' 6^' ' in a literal sense, used phylacteries

MAGIC, DIVINATION, AND SORCERY

(Mt 23'), to which the virtue of amulets was attributed, although their origin apparently was mistaken exegesis rather than magic. The use of such charms was very prevalent in the early centuries of the Christian era among the Alexandrian Jews and the Gnostics.

2. Uagic in forms generally denounced by the great prophets. — -(a) Magic which was apparently dependent upon the occult virtues attributed to plants and other substances. — The Hebrew term for this was kesheph. The root kOshaph means 'to cut,' and has been explained as denoting the cutting which the worshipper inflicted upon himself (as 1 K IS™), or (by W. Robertson Smith) as the cutting up of herbs shredded into the magic brew; the latter meaning is supported by the LXX tr. of kesheph by pharmaka, and also by Mic 5", where keshOpMm appear to be material things; such a decoction is perhaps referred to in Is 66*, and some Jevrish com-mentators consider the seething of a kid in its mother's milk (Ex 23") to refer to a magical broth which was sprinkled over the fields to promote their fertility; this custom is found among other Eastern peoples. A wider signification is, however, possible, as in 2 K 9", where k'eshdphim has the meaning of corrupting influences (AV 'witchcrafts'). Some derive kashaph from an Assyr. root meaning ' to bewitch ' (see Hastings' DB, art. 'Magic').

Hebrew magic came to a considerable extent from Assyria and Babylonia, where the art was practised by a class of men specially set apart for it (Dn 2*; cf . also Is 47'- ", Nah 3'). Egyptian sorcerers are also noticed (Ex 7"), but Egyptian influence in the art was most strongly felt by the Jews in post-exiUc times. The belief in the virtue of mandrakes as love-philtres appears in Gn 30" and Ca 7" (duda'lm, from the root dUd, 'to fondle ') . Sorcerers are frequentlyldenounced in the Bible (Ex 2218, Dt 18", 2 K QM, 2 Ch 33», Jer 27", Gal S^", Kev 921 21').

(6) Magic by spells or the tying of knots. — The tying of knots in a rope, accompanied by the whispered repetition of a spell, was common in Babylonia (cf . Is 47"- ") and in Arabia. This practice may he behind the word chObar, Dt 18" (Driver, Deut. p. 225), or the word may refer to the spell only as a binding together of words. chSbar is also used with the special meaning of serpent- charming (Ps 58'). This art, as now found in India and Egypt, was also denominated by the word lachash (Ps 58«, Ec 10", Jer 8"); from the muttering of the charm, the word gained the meaning of whispering (2 S 12", .Ps 41'), and it is used of a whispered prayer (Is 26", or, as some understand it in this passage, ' com-pulsion by magic'). Magical power was also held to be present in the reiteration of spells or prayers as in the case of the priests of Baal (1 K 18™), and this repetition of the same words is rebuked by our Lord (Mt 6').

In close connexion with the power of spells is the beUef in the efficacy of cursing and blessing when these were uttered by specially endowed persons (Nu 22', Jg S^)\ also there were magicians who professed to make days unlucky by cursing them (Job 3').

An authorized ceremony closely approaching the methods of magicians is found in the ritual for the trial by ordeal of a wife charged vrith unfaithfulness (Nu S'^-ai) ; the woman brought the prescribed offerings and the priest prepared a potion of water in which was put dust from the Tabernacle floor; the curse, which the woman acquiesced in as her due if guilty, was written and washed off with the water of the potion, the idea being that the curse was by this means put into the water, and the potion was afterwards drunk by the woman.

(c) Symbolic magic. — Magicians often made, in clay or other material, figures of those whom they desired to injure, and, to the accompaniment of fitting spells, inflicted upon these models the injuries they imprecated. They beUeved that in this way they sympathetically affected the persons represented. A trace of this symbolism is to be found in the placing of golden mice

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