The favourite view that the ephod was also an image rests partly upon 1 Sam. xxi. 9, where Goliath’s sword is wrapped in a cloth in the sanctuary of Nob behind the ephod. But it is equally natural to suppose that it hung on a nail in the wall, and apart from the omission of the significant words in the original Septuagint, the possibility that the text read “ark” cannot be wholly ignored (see above; also G.F. Moore, Ency. Bib. col. 1307, n. 2). Again, in the story of Micah’s shrine and the removal of the sacred objects and the Levite priest by the Danites, parallel narratives have been used: the graven and molten images of Judg. xvii. 2-4 corresponding to the ephod and teraphim of ver. 5. Throughout there is confusion in the use of these terms, and the finale refers only to the graven image of Dan (xviii. 30 sq., see 1 Kings xii. 28 sq.). But the combination of ephod and teraphim (as in Hos. iii. 4) is noteworthy, since the fact that the latter were images (1 Sam. xix. 13; Gen. xxxi. 34) could be urged against the view that the former were of a similar character. Finally, according to Judg. viii. 27, Gideon made an ephod of gold, about 70 ℔ in weight, and “put” it in Ophrah. It is regarded as a departure from the worship of Yahweh, although the writer of ver. 33 (cf. also ver. 23) hardly shared this feeling; it was probably something once harmlessly associated with the cult of Yahweh (cf. [Calf, Golden]), and the term “ephod” may be due to a later hand under the influence of the prophetical teaching referred to above. The present passage is the only one which appears to prove that the ephod was an image, and several writers, including Lotz (Realencyk. f. prot. Theol. vol. v., s.v.), T.C. Foote (pp. 13-18) and A. Maecklenburg (Zeit. f. wissens. Theol., 1906, pp. 433 sqq.) find this interpretation unnecessary.
Archaeological evidence for objects of divination (see, e.g., the interesting details in Ohnefalsch-Richter, Kypros, the Bible and Homer, i. 447 sq.), and parallels from the Oriental area, can be readily cited in support of any of the explanations of the ephod which have been offered, but naturally cannot prove the form which it actually took in Palestine. Since images were clothed, it could be supposed that the diviner put on the god’s apparel (cf. Ency. Bib. col. 1141); but they were also plated, and in either case the transference from a covering to the object covered is intelligible. If the ephod was a loin-cloth, its use as a receptacle and the known evolution of the article find useful analogies (Foote, p. 43 sq., and Ency. Bib. col. 1734 [1]). Finally, if there is no decisive evidence for the view that it was an image (Judg. viii. 27), or that as a wrapping it formed the sole covering of the officiating agent (2 Sam. vi.), all that can safely be said is that it was certainly used in divination and presumably did not differ radically from the ephod of the post-exilic age.
See further, in addition to the monographs already cited, the articles in Hastings’s Dict. Bible (by S.R. Driver), Ency. Bib. (by G.F. Moore), and Jew. Encyc. (L. Ginsburg), and E. Sellin, in Oriental. Studien: Theodor Nöldeke (ed. Bezold, 1906), pp. 699 sqq.
(S. A. C.)
[1] Cf. the phrase “ephod of prophecy” (Testament of Levi, viii. 2). The priestly apparatus of the post-exilic age retains several traces of old mythological symbolism and earlier cult, the meaning of which had not altogether been forgotten. With the dress one may perhaps compare the apparel of the gods Marduk and Adad, for which see A. Jeremias, Das Alte Test. im Lichte des Alten Orients, 2nd ed., figs. 33, 46, and pp. 162, 449.
[2] The ordinary interpretation “linen ephod” (1 Sam. ii. 18, xxii. 18; 2 Sam. vi. 14) is questioned by T.C. Foote in his useful monograph, Journ. Bibl. Lit. xxi., 1902, pp. 3, 47. This writer also aptly compares the infant Samuel with the child who drew the lots at the temple of Fortuna at Praeneste (Cicero, De divin. ii. 41, 86), and with the modern practice of employing innocent instruments of chance in lotteries (op. cit. pp. 22, 27).
[3] It is not stated that the linen ephod was David’s sole covering, and it is difficult to account for the text in the parallel passage 1 Chron. xv. 27 (where he is clothed with a robe); “girt,” too, is ambiguous, since the verb is even used of a sword. On the question of nudity (cf. 1 Sam. xix. 24) see Robertson Smith, Rel. Sem.² pp. 161, 450 sq.; Ency. Bib. s.vv. “girdle,” “sackcloth”; and M. Jastrow, Journ. Am. Or. Soc. xx. 144, xxi. 23. The significant terms “uncover,” “play” (2 Sam. vi. 20 sq.), have other meanings intelligible to those acquainted with the excesses practised in Oriental cults.
EPHOR (Gr. ἔφορος), the title of the highest magistrates of the ancient Spartan state. It is uncertain when the office was created and what was its original character. That it owed its institution to Lycurgus (Herod. i. 65; cf. Xen. Respub. Lacedaem. viii. 3) is very improbable, and we may either regard it as an immemorial Dorian institution (with C.O. Müller, H. Gabriel, H.K. Stein, Ed. Meyer and others), or accept the tradition that it was founded during the first Messenian War, which necessitated a prolonged absence from Sparta on the part of both kings (Plato, Laws, iii. 692 a; Aristotle, Politics, v. 9. 1 = p. 1313 a 26; Plut. Cleomenes, 10; so G. Dum, G. Gilbert, A.H.J. Greenidge). There is no evidence for the theory that originally the ephors were market inspectors; they seem rather to have had from the outset judicial or police functions. Gradually they extended their powers, aided by the jealousy between the royal houses, which made it almost impossible for the two kings to co-operate heartily, and from the 5th to the 3rd century they exercised a growing despotism which Plato justly calls a tyrannis (Laws, 692). Cleomenes III. restored the royal power by murdering four of the ephors and abolishing the office, and though it was revived by Antigonus Doson after the battle of Sellasia, and existed at least down to Hadrian’s reign (Sparta Museum Catalogue, Introd. p. 10), it never regained its former power.