Literary notes about Teraphim (AI summary)
Literary usage of the term teraphim encompasses a range of functions from household idols to divinatory instruments. In many writings, these objects are portrayed as portable images—often in human form—that served as talismans for familial or ancestral worship, sometimes even being attributed with the power to communicate or predict events [1, 2]. Their association with practices of magic, astrology, and oracular consultation is frequently noted, with narratives describing their use by figures who sought hidden knowledge or attempted to divine the future [3, 4, 5]. Moreover, teraphim often appear in discussions contrasting divine worship with idolatrous or superstitious acts, highlighting a tension between traditional religious observance and folk practices [6, 7].
- [1357] Stade points out that this is the only passage of the Old Testament in which the Teraphim are said to speak.
— from The Expositor's Bible: The Book of the Twelve Prophets, Vol. 2 Commonly Called the Minor by George Adam Smith - Page 151 {151} The teraphim were certainly images of family gods, and, as such, in all probability represented deceased ancestors.
— from Essays Upon Some Controverted Questions by Thomas Henry Huxley - But the key to ceremonial or ritualistic Astrology, with the teraphim and the urim and thummim of Magic, is lost to Europe.
— from The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 3 of 4 by H. P. (Helena Petrovna) Blavatsky - At all events the teraphim were means of divination among believers and unbelievers; they were known among the Egyptians and among Syrians.
— from Myths & Legends of Babylonia & Assyria by Lewis Spence - The Teraphim are intermediate deities, by means of which the future is to be disclosed (compare the remarks on Zech.
— from Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, Vol. 1 by Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg - It is an injunction to bring the request for rain to Jehovah and to put no faith in teraphim and diviners.]
— from Introduction to the Old Testament by John Edgar McFadyen - “Their use,” says Kuenen, speaking of the teraphim, “was very general, and was by no means considered incompatible with the worship of Jahweh.”
— from The Evolution of the Idea of God: An Inquiry Into the Origins of Religions by Grant Allen
