Jeremiah was constantly ojijioscd by false projihets, who pretended to sjieak in the name of the Lord, saying that they had dreamed, when they told false visions, and who practiced various magical arts (xiv, 14 ; xxiii, 2.5, ad fin. ; xxvii, 0, 10 — where the several designations a])plied to those who counselled the people not to serve the king of Babylon may be used in contempt of the false prophets — xxix, 8, 9).
MAGIC
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MAGIC
Ezekicl, as we should have expected, affords some remarkable details of the magic of his time, in the clear and forcible descriptions of his visions. From liim we learn that fetishism was among tlie idolatries which the Hebrews, in the latest days of the kingdom of Judah, had adopted from their neighbors, like the Eomans in the age of general corruption that caused the decline of their empire. In a vision, in wliich the prophet saw the abominations of Jerusalem, he entered the chambers of imagery in the Temple itself: "I went in and saw, and behold, every form of creeping things, and abomi- nable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel, portrayed upon the wall round about." Here seventy elders were offering incense in the dark (viii, 7-12). This idolatry was probably borrowed from Egypt, for the description perfectly answers to that of the dark sanctuaries of Egyptian temples, with the sacred ani- mals portrayed upon their walls, and does not accord v.ith the character of the Assyrian sculptures, where creeping thuigs are not represented as objects of wor- ship. With this low form of idolatry an equally low kind of magic obtained, practiced by prophetesses who for small rewards made amulets by Avhich the people were deceived (xiii, 17, ad fin.). The passage must be allowed to be very difficult, but it can scarcely be doubt- ed that amulets are referred to which were made and sold by these -women, and perhaps also Avorn by them. We may probably read: "Woe to the [women] that sew pillows upon all joints of the hands [elbows or arm- holes?], and make kerchicts upon the head of ever}' stature to hunt souls !" (xiii, 18). If so, we have a prac- tice analogous to that of the modern Egyptians, who hang amulets of the kind called hegab upon the right side, and of the Nubians, who hang them on the upper part of the arm. We cannot, in any case, see ho\v tlie passage can be explained as simply referring to the lux- urious dress of the women of that time, since the prophet distinctly alludes to pretended visions and to divinations (ver. 23). using almost the same expressions that he ap- plies in another place to the practices of the false proph- ets (xxii, 28). The notice of Nebuchadnezzar's divina- tion by arrows, where it is said " he shutHed arrows" (xxi, 21), must refer to a practice the same or similar to the kind of divination by arrows called El-lNIeysar, in use among the pagan Arabs, and forbidden in the Koran. See Ajmulet.
8. The references to magic in the book of Daniel re- late wholly to that of Babylon, and not so much to the art as to those who used it. Daniel, when taken cap- tive, was instructed in the learning of the Chaldreans, and placed among the wise men of Babylon (ii, 18), by whom we are to understand the magi (b'2'2 ■^p'^Stl), for the term is used as including magicians (QiBlJ'iri), sorcerers (CiEli'X), enchanters (C^BIi-'w^), astrologers C]"!"!]!?!), and Chakteans, the last being apparently the most ^important class (ii, 2, 4, 5, 10, 12, U, 18, 24, 27; comp. i, 20). As in other cases, the true prophet was put to the test with the magicians, and he succeeded where they utterly failed. The case resembled Pha- raoh's, excepting that Nebuchadnezzar asked a harder thing of the wise men. Having forgotten his dream, he not only required of them an interpretation, but that they should make known the dream itself. They were perfectly ready to tell the interpretation if only they heard the dream. The king at once saw that they were impostors, and that if they truly had supernatural pow- ers they could as well tell him his dream as its meaning. Therefore he decreed the death of all the wise men of Babylon; but Daniel, praying that he and his fellows might escape this destruction, had a vision in which the matter was revealed to him. He was accordingly brought before the king. Like Joseph, he disavowed any knowledge of his own. "The secret which the king hath demanded, the wise men, the sorcerers, the magicians, the astrologers, cannot show unto the king; but there is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets"
(vef. 27, 28). " But as for me, this secret is not reveal- ed to me for [any] wisdom that I have more than any living" (ver. 30). He then related the dream and its interpretation, and wa's set over the province as well as over all the wise men of Babylon. Again the kiiyj dreamed; and, though he told them the dream, the wise men coidd not interiiret it, and Daniel again showed the meaning (iv, 4 sq.). In the relation of this event we read that the king called him " chief of the scribes," the second part of the title being the same as that applied to the Egyptian magicians (iv, 9 [Chald. 6]). A third time, when Belshazzar saw the writing on the wall, the wise men were sent for, and, on their failing, Daniel A\as brought before the king and the interpretation given (chap. v). These events are perfectly consistent with what always occurred in all other cases recorded in Scripture when the practicers of magic were placed in opposition to true prophets. It may be asked by some how Daniel could take the post of chief of the wise men when he had himself proved their imposture. If, how- ever, as we cannot doubt, the class were one of the learned generally, among whom some practiced magical arts, the case is very different from what it would have been had these wise men been magicians only. Besides, it seems almost certain that Daniel was providentially thus placed that, like another Joseph, he might further the welfare and ultimate return of his people. See Magi.