The Definition of the word 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 [627]THUMMIM.)