IT may be regarded as certain, from the testimony of Scripture itself, that the calf of Aaron and those by which the rebel king

"Doubled that sin in Bethel and in Dan,

Likening his Maker to the grazed ox,"

were not idols in the ordinary sense of the word, but were intended as symbols of the one God. The calfworship was a violation not of the first, but of the second commandment. The main element of the fourfold cherub was certainly an ox, as is clear from the comparison of Ezek. x. 14 with chap. i. 7, 8; and the knowledge of this cherubic emblem was not confined to the Jews, but was spread at least through all Semitic races. That the calf was intended to be an emblem of God seems to be the opinion of Josephus, who in such a matter would represent creditable Jewish tradi

tions (Antt. viii. 8, § 4). Aaron in proclaiming the feast at the inauguration of his golden calf distinctly calls it a feast to Jehovah (Exod. xxxii. 5). It was the well-understood purpose of Jeroboam not to introduce a new worship, but to provide a convenient modification of the old; and it appears from 1 Kings xxii. 16 that the prophets of the calf-worship still regarded themselves, and were regarded, as the prophets of Jehovah; but the fate of Amos is sufficient to show that they must have sanctioned, or at least tolerated, the use of these unauthorised symbols, against which, so far as we are informed, not even Elijah or Elisha ever raised their voices, though the former was so implacable a foe to all idolatry, and the latter lived on terms of close friendship with at least one of the northern kings. (See the article "Calf," by the present writer, in Smith's Dictionary of the Bible.)

THE Hebrew word Teraphim is always simply transliterated as in our version, or rendered by "images," with "teraphim" in the margin, except in 1 Sam. xv. 23, Zech. x. 2, where it is represented by "idolatry," "idols." The singular of the word, "a teraph," does not occur in Scripture, although it is clear that only one can have been put into David's bed (1 Sam. xix. 13-16). The LXX. adopt many different renderings, as does the Vulg., but they all point to idolatrous images or the implements of necromancy,

as do the two renderings of the Targums, images and (Hosea iii. 4)" announcers."

1. Teraphim are first mentioned in Gen. xxxi. 19, where Rachel steals her father's "images," and successfully hides them from his search under the hiran on which she was sitting-the coarse carpet used to cover the wicker-work pack-saddle of her camel. Josephus supposes that she was actuated by idolatrous reverence; Iben Ezra that she expected oracular guidance from them; others that she stole them because of their

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intrinsic value. She probably shared the superstitions of her father, and regarded them as sacred (Gen. xxx. 14, xxxi. 30), as being the figures of ancestral divinities (Gen. xxxi. 53). It is not impossible that they were among the "strange gods " which Jacob ordered his family to bury under the sorcerer's oak"-Allon Meonenim (chap. ix. 37). But that Jacob's right feeling in the matter was not permanent is proved only too clearly by the conduct of Micah (chap. xvii. 5) and the Danites (chap. xviii. 3), although, unlike Jeroboam, they could not even plead the poor palliation of political

motives.

2. The next definite notice of teraphim occurs in 1 Sam. xix. 13-16, where Michal, in the dark eastern chamber, conceals her husband's absence by putting the teraphim in his bed, with a bolster of goat's hair for a pillow. The use of the article shows that even in David's family the use of the "teraphim was perfectly well known. Nor can we rely on the vague conjecture of Thenius, that barren women (Rachel and Michal) were especially addicted to their worship, or on that of Michaelis, that Michal may have possessed them unknown to David. The passage seems to show that they had at least some rude resemblance to the human shape, whence Aquila renders the word by protomai (“busts”), which is used of figures like the ancient Hermae. This is not the place to enter into the curious reading of the LXX. on this verse, by which they seem to connect the worship of teraphim with what the ancients called extispicium-i.e., divination by means of the liver of sacrifices, as in Ezek. xxi. 21. Josephus follows the same reading, and dishonestly suppresses all mention of the teraphim.

3. The next important passage is Hosea iii. 4, where the prima facie view of every unbiassed reader would be that the "image" (matsêbah) and the teraphim are mentioned without blame as ordinary adjuncts to religious

worship. Hence, perhaps, arose the notion that the teraphim were in some way connected with the Urim and Thummim, which led to the rendering of the word in this passage by dñλo (LXX., "bright gems"), and by PwTIOμoùs (enlightenments," Aquila), and by "implements of priestly dress" (St. Jerome). This is the theory maintained most unconvincingly, though with great learning, by Spencer in his De Legibus Hebræorum, lib. iii., pp. 920-1038.

But if these passages show that even in religious families teraphim were sometimes tolerated as material adjuncts to an Elohistic worship, on the other hand we find them unequivocally condemned by Samuel (1 Sam. xv. 23), by Josiah (2 Kings xxiii. 24), and by the prophet Zechariah (Zech. x. 2); and in Ezek. xxi. 21 the use of them is attributed to the heathen Nebuchadnezzar.

The general inference seems to be that the use of the teraphim involved a violation of the second commandment, but that this use of symbols, this monotheistic idolatry, which is very different from polytheism, arises from a tendency very deeply ingrained in human nature, and which it took many years to eradicate. If centuries elapsed before the Jews were cured of their propensity to worship "other gods," we can feel no surprise that "image worship" continued to linger among them, in spite of the condemnation of it by the stricter prophets. The calf-worship, the toleration of teraphim and consecrated stones (baetylia) and high places, the offering of incense to the brazen serpent, the glimpses of grave irregularities even in the worship of the sanctuary, show that it was only by centuries of misfortune and a succession of prophets that Israel was at last educated into the spiritual worship of the true God.

The reader will find further remarks on this subject in the article on "Teraphim," by the present writer, in Kitto's Biblical Cyclopædia.