1011 There follows a comprehensive list of the types of religious and magic

functionaries who were to be forbidden in Israel. The exact significance of all the
terms employed is now uncertain,1 but the emphasis of the list is to be found in its
character as a blanket prohibition of all types of divination, magic, and consultation
with the spirit world, such as would be typical of the religion of the Canaanites. 2
One who causes his son or his daughter to be burned in the fire (see 12:31 and
commentary)the context indicates that the reference is not simply to child
sacrifice, but to the offering of a child with the particular purpose of determining or
discerning the course of events. 1 That is, the sacrifice would have a magical
intention. One who practices divination,2 one who practices soothsaying, or one who
interprets omensvarious methods of divining (i.e., employing supernatural means
to discover the course of future events) are prohibited. 3 Magic was also to be
forbidden; as distinct from divination, [Page 261] magic was intended to influence
events or persons by the use of supernatural methods. The methods to be forbidden
were sorcery and the use of magic spells (v. 11), though the distinction between the
two methods is not clear in this context. Finally, various types of consultation with
the world of spirits (again with the purpose of knowing, and perhaps determining,
the future) are to be forbidden. One who inquires of a ghostthe reference is to the
kind of person who would conjure up and consult any ghost (see Sauls consultation
with the witch at Endor, 1 Sam 28:814). Familiar spiritsome practitioners
1

For useful philological comments, see S. R. Driver, Deuteronomy, pp. 22326; G. A. Smith, The Book
of Deuteronomy, pp. 231f.

The Ugaritic texts from Ras Shamra provide a few clues relating to these topics in ancient Canaan.
There may be an allusion to divining by birds in CTA 19.1.3236 (UT, 1 Aqht, 3236). Recent finds of
liver models indicate the practice of divination by hepatoscopy; see M. Dietrich and O. Loretz,
Beschriftete Lungen- und Leber-modelle aus Ugarit, Ugaritica 6 (1969), pp. 16569. Some texts
contain magical incantations. The recently discovered text RS 24.244 contains magical incantations
against snakes; see Ugaritica 5 (1968), pp. 564572, and M. C. Astour, Two Ugaritic Serpent Charms,
JNES 27 (1968), pp. 1336.

consulted only known or particular spirits. Necromancy is also a form of prediction,

by means of communicating with the dead.4
1 This seems to have been the motivation behind the Moabite kings sacrifice of his son: see 2 K. 3:26
27.
2 The root used for divine (qsm) is not always used negatively in the OT; here it is foreign forms of
divination that come in for strong condemnation. See the discussion in J. Pedersen, Israel: Its Life and
Culture (31953, repr. 1963), pp. 124f.; H. H. Rowley, Ritual and the Hebrew Prophets, Myth, Ritual
and Kingship (1958), p. 247.
3 Cf. A. Guillaume, Prophecy and Divination among the Hebrews and Other Semites (1938).

2
1

4 Peter C. Craigie, The Book of Deuteronomy, The New International Commentary on the Old
Testament, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, 1976, pp. 260-261.