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 Samuel 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
(Hosea 3:4) It has been supposed by some (Cheyne's Hosea) that the
"ephod" here mentioned, and also in
(Judges 8:24-27) was not the part of
the sacerdotal dress so called
(Exodus 28:6-14) but an image of Jehovah
overlaid with gold or silver (comp.)
(Judges 17:1-18:1)ff
(1 Samuel 21:9; 23:6,9; 30:7,8) and is thus associated with the teraphim.
