The same Rabbi adds, that to make the Teraphim they kill’d a first-born Child, clove his Head, season’d it with Salt and Oil; that they wrote on a Plate of Gold the Name of some impure Spirit, laid it under the Tongue of the Dead, placed the Head against the Wall, lighted Lamps before it, prayed to it, and it talk’d with them.
Others hold, that the Teraphim were brazen Instruments which pointed out the Hours of future Events, as directed by the Stars.—Some think that the Teraphim were Figures or Images of a Star engraven on a sympathetic Stone, or Metal corresponding to the Star, in order to receive its Influences: To these Figures, under certain Aspects of the Stars, they ascribe extraordinary Effects.
This Talismanical Opinion, says a Learned Pen[[371]], appears the most probable.... All the Eastern People are still much addicted to this Superstition of Talismans. The Persians call them Telesin, a Word approaching to Teraphim. In those Countries no Man is seen without them, and some are even loaded with them. They hang them to the Necks of Animals, and Cages of Birds, as Preservatives against Evils. Such were the Samothracian Talismans, which were pieces of Iron, formed into certain Images and set in Rings....
[371]. Father Dom. Calmet.
The Labanic Images are supposed to be the most antient, if not the first religious Images, made of some precious Metal, and had their Birth in Laban’s Country, that is, Chaldea, or Mesopotamia.
From Laban’s History, it seems as if these Teraphim were Pictures or Images of certain Persons deceased; that is, they were a sort of Idols, or superstitious Figures venerated by them as Demy-Gods. That they were such artificial Portraitures of Men, is evident from that Instance in Michal, who, to deliver David her Husband from bloody Assassins that threaten’d his Life, laid an Image in his Bed, a Teraphim, says the Hebrew, that is, a material Image, probably a Figure of Wood, or Sticks hastily made up, drest in Man’s Clothes, to make those sent by King Saul to apprehend him, believe he was sick.
Why does Laban call them his Gods? Very probably because he believed they retain’d their Affection for Mankind in the invisible World, and being rank’d among the Gods, might be serviceable to his Family, therefore adopted them to be Guardians of his House. They were only his domestick Gods, and not the established Gods of the Country; and ’tis very likely they might be the Images of Noah and his Sons; or some other illustrious Ancestors, whom he had chosen for his Tutelary Gods.
The Scripture mentions another sort of Teraphim, sometimes consulted by the Jews as an Oracle, not imagining that thereby they abandon’d the Worship of the true God. Such was the Teraphim that Micha made and set up in his House, and to which he appointed a Priest of the Levitical Race, with an Ephod or Sacramental Garment, by the Influence of which he flatter’d himself that God would bless his House. This probably might be some Hieroglyphical Figure, to which the superstitious Jews attributed the Virtue of an Oracle, and the Power of foretelling Things to come: Hence speaking Teraphims.
From these Teraphim came the Lares, or the Household Gods of the old Romans, who before the Laws of the Twelve Tables, used to bury the Dead in their Houses; from whence arose that great Veneration they had for their Lares and Penates, a kind of domestick Divinities, worship’d in Houses, and esteem’d Protectors of Families, which were nothing else but the supposed Ghosts of those who formerly had belonged to the Family, whom they represented by Images, which they placed in the Chimney-Corner, or near their Doors.
These were also look’d upon as Guardians of the Highways, near to which their Images were fix’d for the Benefit of Travellers, therefore call’d Dii Viales, Gods of the Roads. ’Tis said by the Prophet, The King of Babylon stood at the parting of the Way, and consulted with the Images; with the Teraphim, says the Hebrew, Ezek. xxi. 21. which the Jewish Interpreters say were prophetick Images, endued with the Gift of Prediction; so far from being mere Idols, that they gave out Oracles, and foretold Things to come.