The worship or use of teraphim after the occupation of the Promised Land cannot be doubted as having been one of the corrupt practices of those Hebrews who leaned to idolatry, but did not abandon their belief in the God of Israel. Altliough the Scriptures draw no marked distinction between those who forsook their religion and those who added to it such corruptions, it is evident that the latter always professed to be orthodox. Tera- phim, therefore, cannot be regarded as among the He- brews necessarily connected with strange gods, what- ever may have been the case with other nations. The account of Micah's images in the book of Judges, com- pared with a passage in Hosea, shows our conclusion to be correct. In the earliest days of the occupation of the Promised Land, in the time of anarchy that followed Joshua's rule, Slicah, " a man of Mount Ephraim," made certain images and other objects of heretical worship, which were stolen from him by those Danites who took Laish and called it Dan, there setting up idolatry, where it continued the whole time that the ark was at Shiloh, the priests retaining their post " until the day of the captivity of the land" (Judg. xvii, xviii, esp. 30, 31). Probably this worship was somewhat changed, although not in its essential character, when Jeroboam set up the golden calf at Dan. Micah's idolatrous objects were a graven image, a molten image, an ephod, and teraphim (xvii, 3, 4, 5; xviii, 17, IS, '20). In Hosea there is a retrospect of this period where the jirophet takes a har- lot, and commands her to be faithful to him "many days." It is added : " For the children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and witliout an image [or " pil- lar," nnS^], and without an ephod, and teraphim : af- terward sliall the children of Israel return, and seek Je- iiovah their God, and David their king; and shall fear Jehovah and his goodness in the latter days" (iii, esp. v.— Ss
4, 5). The apostate people are long to be without their spurious king and false worship, and in the end are to return to their loyalty to the house of David and their faith in the true God. That Dan should be connected with Jeroboam "who made Israel to sin," and with the kingdom which he founded, is most natural ; and it is therefore worthy of note that the images, ephod, and teraphim made by Micah, and stolen and set up by the Danites at Dan, should so nearly correspond with the objects spoken of by the prophet. It has been imagined that the use of teraphim and the similar abominations of the heretical Israelites are not so strongly condemned in the Scriptures as the worship of strange gods. This mistake arises from the mention of pious kings who did not suppress the high places, which proves only their timidity, and not any lesser sinfuhiess in the spurious religion than in false systems borrowed from the peoples of Canaan and neighboring countries. The crael rites of the heathen are indeed especially reprobated, but the heresy of the Israelites is too emphatically denounced, by Samuel in a passage soon to be examined, and in the repeated condemnation of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, " who made Israel to sin," to render it possible that we should take a view of it consistent only with modern sophistrv.
We pass to the magical use of teraphim. By the Israelites they were consulted for oracular answers. This was apparently done by the Danites, who asked IMicah's Levite to inquire as to the success of their spying ex- pedition (Judg. xviii, 5, G). In later times this is dis- tinctly stated of the Israelites where Zechariah says, " For the teraphim have spoken vanity, and the diviners have seen a lie, and have told false dreams" (x, 2). It cannot be supposed that, as this first positive mention of the use of teraphim for divination by the Israelites is after the return from Babylon, and as that use obtained with the Babylonians in the time of Nebuchadnezzar, therefore the Israelites borrowed it from their conquer- ors; for these objects are mentioned in earlier places in such a manner that their connection with divination must be intended, if we bear in mind that this connec- tion is undoubted in a subsequent period. Samuel's re- proof of Saul for his disobedience in the matter of Ama- lek associates "divination" M-ith "vanity," or "idols" O'lX), and " teraphim," however we render the difScult passage where these words occur (1 Sam. xv, 22, 23).. (The word rendered "vanity," "I'lX, is especially used with reference to idols, and even in some places stands alone for an idol or idols.) When Saul, having put tO' death the workers in black arts, finding himself rejected of God in his extremity, sought the witch of Endor, and asked to see Samuel, the prophet's apparition denounced his doom as the pimishment of this very disobedience as to Amalek. The reproof would seem, therefore, to have been a prophecy that the self-confident king would at the last alienate himself from God, and take refuge in the very abominations he despised. This apparent reference tends to confirm the inference we have indi- cated. As to a later time, when Josiah's reform is re- lated, he is said to have put away " the wizards, and the teraphim, and the idols" (2 Kings xxiii, 24) ; where the mention of the teraphim immediately after the wizards, and as distinct from the idols, seems to favor the infer- ence that they are spoken of as objects used in divina- tion.