The main and certain results of this review are that the teraphim were rude human images ; that the use of them was an antique Aramaic custom ; that there is reason to suppose them to have been images of deceased ancestors ; that they were con sulted oracularly ; that they were not confined to Jews ; that their use continued down to the latest period of Jewish history ; and lastly, that although the more enlightened prophets and strictest later kings regarded them as idolatrous, the priests were much less averse to such images, and their cult was not considered in any way repugnant to the pious worship of Elohim, nay even to the worship of him ` under the awful title of Jehovah.' t In fact they involved a monotheistic idolatry ve7 dijfirent indeed from polytheism ; and the tolerance of them by priests, as compared with the denunciation of them by the keener insight and more vivid inspiration of the prophets, offers a close analogy to the views of the Roman Catholics respecting pictures and images as compared with the views of Protestants. It was against this use of idolatrous symbols and embleras in a monotheistic worship, that the second command ment was directed, whereas the first is aimed against the graver sin of direct polytheism. But the whole history of Israel shows how early and how utterly the law must have fallen into desuetude. The worship of the golden calf, and of the calves at Dan and Bethel, against which, so far as we know, neither Elijah nor Elisha said a single word ; the tolerance of high places, teraphim and bmtytia ; the offering of incense for centuries to the brazen serpent destroyed by II ezekiah ; the occasional glimpses of the most startling irregularities, sanc tioned apparently even in the temple-worship itself ; prove most decisively that a pure monotheism, and an independence of symbols, was the result of a slow and painful course of God's disciplinal deal ings among the noblest thinkers of a single nation, and not, as is so constantly and erroneously urged, the instinct of the whole Semitic race ; in other words, one single branch of the Semites was under God's prwidence educated into pure monotheism only by centuries of misfortune and series of in spired men.
After the time of Zechariah we hear no more of teraphim, but our treatment of the subject would be incomplete if we did not very briefly allude to the vast mass of theory respecting them. Besides
Spencer's theory, to which we have already alluded, we may mention four others, utterly valueless in deed, yet curious as bearing on the history of the question. r. It has been a very general belief I derived from Rabbi Eleazar, that a teraph was the I head of a first-born infant torn from its shoulders I and placed against the wall with a gold plate under it, on which was written the name of an unclean spirit, by means of which the head uttered oracles. This notion has been adopted by Southey in his Thalaba (canto ii.) 2. Others believe that tera Mint were astrological figures made of metal under certain planetary aspects ; amulets, in fact, like the tilsemath of the Sabxans, and the telefin of modern Persians. 3. Michaelis, Lengerke, etc., adopted the vamter etymological fable that they were Sileni or 'Satyrs, because Pausanias (vi. 24) says /1, yap 'Efipahop 20.6pce Liklivou expiLica,, and this tomb of Silenus may allude to the teraphim buried by Jacob ; and because the devils (n4-17-w, hairy ones') of Lev. xvii. 7* must allude to tera phim, which word may be derived front an Arabic root of the same meaning as the verb rpucbcico, I delicately I No satisfactory derivation of the word has ever been offered. The one just mentioned, from the Arabic tarapha, to abound,' is perhaps as tenable as any, and is adopted by Schultens, Eichhorn, Gesenius, etc. If it be correct, Teraphim would mean givers of abundance.' Castelli suggests a Syriac verb to inquire ;' Hofmann, Spencer, etc., connect it with Seraphim ; Meier with au Ethiopic root meaning relics ;' rpciyos, Olpawcs, turpis, etc., have all been pressed into the service of despairing etymologists.
The literature of the subject is very copious. Among the chief authorities (nearly all of which I have consulted), are Michaelis, De Theraphis (ubi supr.) ; Ugolini, Thes. xxiii. 7; Buxtorf, Lex. Taint. pp.266o-2664; Pfeiffer, Exerc. Bibl. pp. 1-28 ; Hot tinger, Hist. Orient. p. 296 ; Selden, De Dis Syr. Syntagm. i. 2; Spencer, De Legg. Hedr. pp. 920 1038 ; Bochart, Ilieraz. p. 623 ; Carpzov, Appar. Crit. 537-546 ; Jurieu, Hist. Crit. des Dogines,ii. 3 ; Gesenius, Thes. ii. Besides these nearly every commentator of importance has some dissertation on them ; and in general it may be said gum' viri, tot sententia'. But there is no real ground for this wide diversity of opinion.—F. W. F.