the servants of God, they conspicuously fail. Pharaoh's magicians bo\v to the divine power shown in the won- ders wrought by Moses and Aaron. Balaam, the great enchanter, comes from afar to curse Israel, and is forced to bless them.
II. Biblical Notices. — In examining the references to magic in the Bible, we must keep in view the curious inquiry whether there be any realitj' in the art. We would at the outset protest against the idea, once very prevalent, that the conviction that the seen and unseen worlds were often more manifestly in contact in the Biblical ages than now necessitates a belief in the real- ity of the magic spoken of in the Scrijitiires. We do indeed see a connection of a supernatural agency with magic in such a case as that of the damsel possessed with a spirit of divination mentioned in the Acts ; yet there the agency appears to have been involuntary in the damsel, and shrewdly made profitable In' her em- ployers. This does not establish the possibility of man being able at his will to use supernatural powers to gain his own ends, which is what magic has always pretend- ed to accomplish. Thus much we premise, lest we should be thought to hold latitudinarian opinions be- cause we treat the reality of magic as an open question. Without losing sight of the distinctions we have drawn between the magic of different races, we shall consider the notices of the subject in the Bible in the order in which they occur. It is impossible in every case to assign the magical practice spoken of to a par- ticular nation, or, when this can be done, to determine whether it be native or borrowed, and the general ab- sence of details renders any other sj'stcm of classifica- tion liable to error.
L The theft and carrj-ing away of Laban's teraphim (D'^S'^Pl) by Rachel seems to indicate the practice of magic in Padan-aram at this early time. It appears that Laban attached great value to these objects from what he said as to the theft and his determined search for them (Gen. xxxi, 19, 30, 32-35). It may be sup- posed, from the manner in which they were hidden, that these teraphim were not very small. The most impor- tant point is that Laban calls them his "gods" (ver. 30, 32), although he was not without belief in the true God (ver. 24,49-53); for this makes it almost certain that we have here, not an indication of the \vorship of strange gods, but the first notice of a superstition that after- wards obtained among those Israelites who added cor- rupt practices to the true religion. The derivation of the name "teraphim" is extremely obscure. Gesenius takes it from an " unused" root, t"^n, which he supposes, from the Arabic, probably signified ■' to live pleasantly" (T/iesanr. s. v.). It may, however, be reasonably con- jectured that such a root would have had, if not in He- brew, in the language whence the Hebrews took it or its derivative, the proper meaning " to dance" corre- sponding to this, which would then be its tropical mean- ing. AVe should prefer, if no other derivation be found, to suppose that the name teraphim might mean "dan- cers" or "causers of dancing," with reference either to primitive nature-worship or its magical rites of the character of Shamanism, rather than that it signifies, as Gesenius suggests, "givers of pleasant life." There seems, however, to be a cognate word, unconnected with the " unused" root just mentioned, in ancient I'.gyptian, whence we may obtain a conjectural derivation. We do not, of course, trace the worship of teraphim to the sojourn in Egyjit. They were probably tliose objects of the pre-Abrahamite idolatry, put away by order of Jacob (Gen. xxxv, 2^), yet retained even in Joshua's time (Josh, xxiv, 14); and, if so, notwithstanding his exhortation, abandoned onl\' for a space (Judg. xvii, xviii) ; and they were also known to the Babylonians, being used by them for divination (Ezek. xxi, 21). But there is great reason for supposing a close connection between the oldest language and religion of Chaldaja and the ancient Egyptian language and religion. The
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Egyptian word ter signifies " a shape, type, transfornia- tion," and has for its determinative a mummy : it is used in the Kitual, where the various transformations of the deceased in Hades are described (^Todtenbuch, ed. Lepsius, ch, Ixxvi sq.). Tlie small mummy-shaped fig- ure, shehti, usually made of baked clay covered with a blue vitreous varnish, representing the Egyptian as de- ceased, is of a nature connecting it with magic, since it was made with the idea that it secured benefits in Hades ; and it is connected with the word iei-, for it represents a mummy, the determinative of that word, and was considered to be of use in the state in which the de- ceased passed through transformations, teru. The dif- ficulty which forbids our doing more than conjecture a relation between ter and teraphim is the want in the former of the third radical of the latter; and in our present state of ignorance respecting the ancient Egyp- tian and the primitive language of Chaldrea in their verhal relations to the Shemitic family, it is impossible to say whether it is likely to be explained. The possi- ble connection with the Egyptian religious magic is, liowever, not to be slighted, especially as it is not im- probable that the household itlolatry of the Hebrews was ancestral worship, and the shehti was the image of a deceased man or woman, as a mummy, and therefore as an Osiris, bearing the insignia of tlmt divinity, and so ill a manner as a deified dead person, although we do not know that it was used in the ancestral worship of the Egyptians. It is important to notice that no sin- gidar is found of the word teraphim, and that the plural furra is once used where only one statue seems to be meant (1 Sam. xix, 13, IG) : in this case it may be a "plural of excellence." If the latter inference be true, this word must have become thoroughly Shemiticized. There is no description of these images; but, from the account of Michal's stratagem to deceive Saul's messen- gers, it is evident, if only one image be there meant, as is very probable, that they were at least sometimes of the size of a man, and perhaps in the head and shoul- ders, if not lower, of human shape, or of a similar form (ver. 13-16).