Teraphim

“ But the heathenism of the portion of the family living at or near Haran is clearly proved by the matter of the teraphim, which Rachel stole from her father Laban. It is true that they are generally regarded as figures used for the purpose of magic, but as Laban himself calls them his “gods,” there is every probability that they were worshipped as such. It is to be regarded as simply an indication of the difficulty which most dwellers in the midst of polytheism in those days must have found in dissociating themselves from the practices of those with whom they came daily into contact. ”

“ They are associated with the ephod, which in this connexion seems to mean a plated image, and Hosea speaks of ephod and teraphim as essential elements in the religious usages of northern Israel. Like the ephod, they were specially associated with divination, and in particular with the sacred lot (Zech. x. 2; Ezek. xxi. 21 [26] ) . ”

“ These idols generally rest on a horizontal beam fastened to two uprights—a custom which is followed in Dahomé when a human sacrifice has been made. The medicine men tell their clients that by their ministrations they can force the teraphim to speak, and that thus they are acquainted with the future. They are chiefly brought into requisition in war-time, when they are supposed to give notice of the enemy’s approach. ”

“ He searched, but didn't find the teraphim. 031:036 Jacob was angry, and argued with Laban. Jacob answered Laban, "What is my trespass? What is my sin, that you have hotly pursued after me? 031:037 Now that you have felt around in all my stuff, what have you found of all your household stuff? Set it here before my relatives and your relatives, that they may judge between us two. 031:038 These twenty years I have been with you. Your ewes and your female goats have not cast their young, and I haven't eaten the rams of your flocks. ”

“ These singular idols are to be seen in most Balonda villages. They are supposed to represent the deities who have dominion over disease; and when any inhabitant of the village is ill, his friends go to the lion idol, and pray all night before it, beating their drums, and producing that amount of noise which seems to be an essential accompaniment of religious rites among Africans. Some idols may be perhaps more properly called teraphim, as by their means the medicine men foretell future events. ”

“ Nabor married Milcha, and Abram married Sarai. Now Terah hating Chaldea, on account of his mourning for Ilaran, they all removed to Haran of Mesopotamia, where Terah died, and was buried, when he had lived to be two hundred and five years old; for the life of man was already, by degrees, diminished, and became shorter than before, till the birth of Moses; after whom the term of human life was one hundred and twenty years, God determining it to the length that Moses happened to live. ”

“ And the days of Terah were two hundred and five years: and Terah died in Haran.
Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee: and I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: and I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. ”

“ Now tell me truly, how didst thou; and if thou shalt speak truth thou shalt be acquitted.
13 And seeing that the king's anger was so much kindled, Terah said to the king, My lord and king, thou hast heard the truth, and what the sages have spoken is right. And the king said, How couldst thou do this thing, to transgress my orders and to give me a child that thou didst not beget, and to take value for him? ”

“ For it explains there the holy Zohar's statement "In Teruah which is the spirit that drives away El Acher/ Foreign gods, Kefirut/ apostasy etc., whereby one attains clapping and dancing, which is the aspect of that spirit that bloweth in the six sections of the arms and six sections of the legs" — see there the whole Torah. Hence it explains there that Teruah which is the shofar voice is the aspect of hand clapping and dancing. And Rabbeinu obm nodded his head. ”

“ A more exact and more lofty name is to be found in the form known as the Tetragrammaton. This is a proper noun, which can only be indicated by attributes, but has no location, and was formerly unknown. If He was commonly styled 'Elōhim,' the Tetragrammaton was used as special name. This is as if one asked: Which God is to be worshipped, the sun, the moon, the heaven, the signs of the zodiac, any star, fire, a spirit, or celestial angels, etc.; each of these, taken singly, has an activity and force, and causes growth and decay? ”

“ In the mean time Abraham took a hammer, broke the idols in pieces, all excepting the largest, in whose hands he placed the instrument of destruction. Terah returned, and with the utmost surprise and consternation beheld- the havoc among his favorite gods. "What is all this, Abraham! What profane wretch has dared to use our gods in this manner?" exclaimed the infatuated and indignant Terah. "Why should I conceal anything from my father," replied the pious son. "During thine absence there came a woman with yonder offering for the gods. ”

“ Possibly then Terah may have been induced to move northwards by a desire to shake himself free from customs he disapproved. The Hebrews themselves seem always to have considered that his migration had a religious motive. “This people,” says one of their old writings, “is descended from the Chaldeans, and they sojourned heretofore in Mesopotamia because they would not follow the gods of their fathers which were in the land of Chaldea. ”

“ Ethiopia and Assyria were contending, partly for military pre-eminence, partly for the prey that lay between them, inviting a master—the rich and now weak Egyptian kingdom. Tehrak's success, communicated to the Assyrian Court by the dispossessed governors, drew forth almost immediately a counter effort on the part of Assyria, which did not intend to relinquish without a struggle the important addition that Esarhaddon had made to the empire. ”

“ This only betokens that the child that hath been born unto Terah this night will grow up and be fruitful, and he will multiply and possess all the earth, he and his children forever, and he and his seed will slay great kings and inherit their lands. ”

“ And again: “Neither do thou forget the Lord thy God, who brought thee forth from the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, and serve Him only, and cleave to Him, and swear by His name. Ye shall not go after strange gods, and the gods of the nations which are round about you, because the Lord thy God is also a jealous God among you, and lest His anger should be kindled against thee, and destroy thee from off the face of the earth.” ”

“ Abram, Nahor, and Haran were born to Terah. They lived there many years, serving the gods of Shinar. The idolatry of Terah's family appears from the testimony of God Himself, who said to Israel, "Your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood (the Euphrates) in old time, even Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nachor: and they served. other gods." When Joshua reported this to the people, he admonished them, saying, "Put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt, and serve ye the Lord. ”

“ Therefore, on the contrary, it holds, unblessed is he who has entered any council of wicked men, and has stood in any way of sinners, and has sat in any chair of scorners. We may understand a thing as spoken generally, even when it requires a certain special interpretation to be given to it. For some things spoken with a special reference contain in them general truth. When God admonishes the Israelites of their duty, or sharply reproves them, He has surely a reference to all men; when He threatens destruction to Egypt and Ethiopia, He surely pre-condemns every sinning nation, whatever. ”

“ Surely when his spirit knocks at the door, it will be opened to him, and the warriors of our tribe will welcome him, while his foes will be driven away with the awful sentence, Quachet! [2] Yes, Terah, the wise in counsel, and the fearless in war, shall surely dwell in the fields of happiness, and again strike the prey with the renewed strength and skill of his youth. ”

“ Not even a human being would care to have unwilling homage rendered him; and so the very Egyptians have been permitted the legal use of their ridiculous superstition, liberty to make gods of birds and beasts, nay, to condemn to death any one who kills a god of their sort. Every province even, and every city, has its god. Syria has Astarte, Arabia has Dusares, the Norici have Belenus, Africa has its Cælestis, Mauritania has its own princes. I have spoken, I think, of Roman provinces, and yet I have not said their gods are Roman ”

“ It is not at all likely that he would call men away from Judaism without showing them at the same time what was the god in whom he invited them to believe; because nobody could possibly pass from allegiance to the Creator without knowing to whom he had to cross over. ”

“ I treated them all as booty. I rebuilt Tel-Garimmi; I had it entirely occupied by some archers from the country of Khammanua, which my hand had conquered, and I added it to the boundaries of this country. I put it in the hands of my Lieutenant, and I restituted the surface of the dominion, as it had been in the time of Gunzinan, the preceding King.
31 Tarhular, of Gamgum, had a son Muttallu, who had murdered his father by the arms, and sat on the throne against my will, and to whom they had intrusted their country. ”

“ He explained to the fellaheen laborers and the soldiers that we were digging in the exact locality where Fathma, favorite wife of Ali, the Lion of Allah, was buried. She is a Moslem saint, and to disturb her bones, he assured my men, would let loose upon the desecrators a horde of djinni and afrits and similar Oriental hobgoblins who would torture them to death and then burn their souls.
Don't laugh. It isn't a joke. Or if it is my natives don't know it. To a man, they knocked off work. ”

“ And Terah answered his son Abram and said, Behold those who created us are all with us in the house.
20 And Abram said to his father, My lord, shew them to me I pray thee; and Terah brought Abram into the chamber of the inner court, and Abram saw, and behold the whole room was full of gods of wood and stone, twelve great images and others less than they without number. ”

“ After the account of the creation of the beasts of the field, the Tigris and the Euphrates, vegetation, lands, marshes, thickets, plantations and forests, which are named, to all appearance, without any attempt at any kind of order, “The lord Merodach” is represented as creating those things which, at first, he had not made, namely, the great and ancient shrines in whose antiquity and glorious memories the Babylonian—and the Assyrian too—took such delight. ”

“ But Terah could not be convinced, and in reply to Abraham's question, who the God was that had created heaven and earth and the children of men, he took him to the hall wherein stood twelve great idols and a large number of little idols, and pointing to them he said, "Here are they who have made all thou seest on earth, they who have created also me and thee and all men on the earth," and he bowed down before his gods, and left the hall with his son. ”

“ For instance, the twelfth chapter of II Chronicles begins, “And it came to pass when Rehoboam had established the kingdom, and had strengthened himself, he forsook the law of the Lord, and all Israel with him.” Here is a bleak, unvarnished record of apostasy. The price of a man in his own position and standing has led him to debauch a nation spiritually and morally. Therefore, the second verse follows as a natural consequence: “And it came to pass, that in the fifth year of king Rehoboam, Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem, because they had transgressed against the Lord.” ”

“ Terah was one of the Pinces, or Pnieses—a dignity conferred only on men of approved courage and wisdom—and many a successful incursion had he led into the great plains of Saskatchawan, where dwelt the Stone Indians, with whom the Crees had long been at enmity—and many a prisoner had he brought back to his village, and slain as an offering to Maatche-Mahneto, while he hung the scalp that he had torn from the quivering victim on the walls of his lodge, as its proudest ornament. ”

“ After his murder, his son, Esar-haddon, came to the throne and continued the story of conquest and intrigue.
In the meantime, the defeated Tirhakah 282 was unquestionably chagrined to learn that little Judah had been delivered from the power that had defeated him. To apologize for his own failure to support Judah, Tirhakah claimed credit for the defeat of the Assyrian horde by claiming that his god, Amon, had caused the camp of the Assyrians to be invaded by millions of field mice. ”

“ Sometimes a man would interrupt the prophet to seek an answer to some deeply perplexing problem. But no one yet had spoken openly of the Tetrarch’s presence among them.
Then a tall, narrow-faced Jew, unkempt, ill-clothed, evidently a man of the earth, stepped forward and held up his hand. “This repentance of which you speak,” he questioned, “is it necessary for the rich man in the same manner as it is for the poor and dispossessed, for the man of authority as well as for the servant? ”