Meaning of “Teraphim”
Teraphim — givers of prosperity, idols in human shape, large or small, analogous to the images of ancestors which were revered by the Romans. In order to deceive the guards sent by Saul to seize David, Michal his wife prepared one of the household teraphim, putting on it the goat's-hair cap worn by sleepers and invalids, and laid it in a bed, covering it with a mantle. She pointed it out to the soldiers, and alleged that David was confined to his bed by a sudden illness (1 Sam. 19:13-16). Thus she gained time for David's escape. It seems strange to read of teraphim, images of ancestors, preserved for superstitious purposes, being in the house of David. Probably they had been stealthily brought by Michal from her father's house. "Perhaps," says Bishop Wordsworth, "Saul, forsaken by God and possessed by the evil spirit, had resorted to teraphim (as he afterwards resorted to witchcraft); and God overruled evil for good, and made his very teraphim (by the hand of his own daughter) to be an instrument for David's escape.", Deane's David, p. 32. Josiah attempted to suppress this form of idolatry (2 Kings 23:24). The ephod and teraphim are mentioned together in Hos. 3:4. It has been supposed by some (Cheyne's Hosea) that the "ephod" here mentioned, and also in Judg. 8:24-27, was not the part of the sacerdotal dress so called (Ex. 28:6-14), but an image of Jehovah overlaid with gold or silver (comp. Judg. 17, 18; 1 Sam. 21:9; 23:6, 9; 30:7, 8), and is thus associated with the teraphim. (See THUMMIM »T0003648.)
1 result from Easton's Bible Dictionary You may wish to look at these similar words...
Teraphim Terebinth Trophimus Tryphena and Tryphosa Tyropoeon Valley
|
Bible Search for “Teraphim”
Judges Chapter 17 Verse 5 — And the man Micah had an house of gods, and made an ephod, and teraphim, and consecrated one of his sons, who became his priest. Judges Chapter 18 Verse 20 — And the priest's heart was glad, and he took the ephod, and the teraphim, and the graven image, and went in the midst of the people. Judges Chapter 18 Verse 18 — And these went into Micah's house, and fetched the carved image, the ephod, and the teraphim, and the molten image. Then said the priest unto them, What do ye? Judges Chapter 18 Verse 17 — And the five men that went to spy out the land went up, and came in thither, and took the graven image, and the ephod, and the teraphim, and the molten image: and the priest stood in the entering of the gate with the six hundred men that were appointed with weapons of war. Judges Chapter 18 Verse 14 — Then answered the five men that went to spy out the country of Laish, and said unto their brethren, Do ye know that there is in these houses an ephod, and teraphim, and a graven image, and a molten image? now therefore consider what ye have to do. Hosea Chapter 3 Verse 4 — For the children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and without teraphim:
6 results from Bible Search
|