The only account of the act of divining by teraphim is in a remarkable passage of Ezekiel relatmg to Nebu- chadnezzar's advance against Jerusalem. "Also, thou son of man, appoint thee two ways, that the sword of the king of Babylon may come: both twain [two swords] shall come forth out of one land : and choose thou a place, choose [it] at the head of the way to the city. A]ipoint a way, that the sword may come to Ealibath of the Ammonites, and to Judah in Jerusalem the de- fenced. For the king of Babylon stood at the parting of the way, at the head of the two ways, to use divina-
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tion : he shuffled arrows, he consulted with teraphim, he looked in the liver. At his right hand was the div- ination for Jerusalem" (xxi, 19-22). The mention to- gether of consulting teraphim and looking into the liv- er may not indicate that the victim was offered to ter- aphim and its liver then looked into, but may mean two separate acts of divuiing. The former explanation s*cms, however, to have been adopted by the Sept. in its rendering of the account of Michal's stratagem, as if Michal had been divining, and on the coming of the messengers seized the image and liver and hastilj' put them in the bed. The accounts which the Rabbins give of divining by teraphim are worthless. See Terafhiji. 2. Joseph, when his brethren left after their second visit to buy corn, ordered his steward to hide his silver cup in Benjamin's sack, and afterwards sent him after them, ordering him to claim it, thus : " [Is] not this [it] in which my lord drinketh, and whereby indeed he di- vinetli '?" (Gen. xliv, 5). The meaning of the latter clause has been contested, Gesenius translating "he could surely foresee it" (ap. BarTett, Synojjsis, ad loc), but the other rendering seems far more probable, espe- cially as we read that Joseph afterwards said to his brethren, " Wot ye not that such a man as I can cer- tauily divine?" (xliv, 15)— the same word being used. If so, the reference woidd probably be to the use of the cup in divining, and we slioidd have to infer that here Joseph was acting on his own judgment [see Joseph], divination being not alone doubtless a forbidden act, but one of -(vhich he, when called before Pharaoh, had dis- tinctly disclaimed the practice. Two uses of cups or the like for magical purjwses have obtained in the East from ancient times. In one use either the cup itself bears engraved inscriptions, supposed to have a magical influence (see D'Herbelot, Bibilolheque Orientak, s. v. Giam), or it is plain, and such inscriptions are written on its inner surface in ink. In both cases water poured into the cup is drunk by those wishing to derive bene- fit, as, for instance, the cure of diseases, from the inscrip- tions, which, if -ttTitten, are dissolved (Lane, Mod. Eg. ch. xi). This use, in both its forms, obtains among the Arabs in the present day. and cups bearing Chaktean inscriptions in ink have been discovered by Mr. Lay- ard, and probablj^ show that this practice existed among the Jews in Babylonia in about the 7th centiu-y of the Christian asra {Nineveh and Babylon, p. 509, etc. There is an excellent paper on these bowls by Dr. Levy, of Breslau, in the Zeitschrift der Deiitsch. Morgenldnd. Ge- sellschaft, ix, 465, etc.). In the other use the cup or bowl was of very secondary' importance. It was mere- ly the receptacle for water, in which, after the perform- ance of magical rites, ai boy looked to see what the ma- gician desired. This is precisely the same as the prac- tice of the modern Egyptian magicians, where the dif- ference that ink is employed and is poured into the palm of the boy's hand is merely accidental. A Gnostic papy- rus in Greek, ^mtten in Egypt in the earlier centuries of the Christian oera, now preserved in the British JIu- seum, describes the practice of the boy with a bowl, and alleges residts strikingly similar to the alleged results of the well-known modern Egyptian magician, whose divination would seem, therefore, to be a relic of the fa- mous magic of ancient Egypt. (See Lane, Mod. Egyp- tians, ch. xii, for an accoimt of the performances of this magician, and Mr. Lane's o)iinion as to the causes of their occasional apparent success.) As this latter use only is of the nature of divination, it is probable that to it Joseph referred. The practice may have been prev- alent in his time, and hieroglyphic inscriptions upon the bowl may have given color to the idea that it had magical properties, and perhaps even that It had thus led to the discovery of its place of concealn^ent, a dis- covery which must have st-ruck Joseph'^ brethren with the utmost astonishment. See Cri".
3. The magicians of Egypt arc spoken of as a class in the histories of Joseph and Moses. When Pharaoh's officers were troubled by their dreams, being in prison
they were at a loss for an interpreter. Before Joseph explained the dreams he disclaimed the power of inter- ])reting save by the divine aid, saying, " [Do] not inter- pretations [belong] to God ? tell me [them], I j)ray you" (Gen. xl, 8). In like manner, when Pharaoh had his two dreams, we find that he had recourse to those who professed to interjiret dreams. We read : " He sent and called for all the scribes of Egypt, and all the wise men thereof: and Pharaoh told them his dream; but [there was] none that could interpret them unto Pharaoh" (xli, 8 ; comp. ver. 24). Joseph, being sent for on the report of the chief of the cup-bearers, was told by Pharaoh that he had heard that he could interpret a dream. Joseph said, " [It is] not in me : God shall give Pharaoh an an- swer of peace" (ver. IG). Thus, from the expectations of the Egyptians and Joseph's disavowals, we see that the interpretation of dreams was a branch of the knowl- edge to which the ancient Egyptian magicians pretend- ed. The failure of the Egyptians in the case of Phara- oh's dreams must probably be regarded as the result of their inability to give a satisfactory explanation, for it is unlikely that they refused to attempt to interpret. The two words used to designate the interpreters sent for by Pharaoh are d"i^l3^!n, "scribes" (?) and D'^B^rij " wise men."