History of teraphim

[tonychanyt]

Wiki:

Teraphim is a Hebrew word from the Bible, found only in the plural, of uncertain etymology. Despite being plural, Teraphim may refer to singular objects, using the Hebrew plural of excellence.

American Standard Version, Genesis 31:

19 Now Laban was gone to shear his sheep: and Rachel stole the teraphim [H8655] that were her father's.

Why did Rachel steal the teraphim?

Probably because she believed in it.

What did she believe?

Probably what her father Laban believed. Laban said to Jacob in Genesis 31:

30 "now you have gone away because you longed greatly for your father’s house, but why did you steal my gods [elohim]?”

Laban equated teraphim to elohim. (This was centuries before Moses gave the Ten Commandments.)

Centuries later, after Moes gave the Ten Commandments, American Standard Version, Judges 17:

5a the man Micah had a house of gods, and he made an ephod, and teraphim.

The ephod was paired with the teraphim household idol.

12 And Micah ordained the Levite, and the young man became his priest and was in the house of Micah. 13 Then Micah said, “Now I know that the LORD will prosper me because I have a Levite as a priest.”

Micah did not properly understand the LORD, ephod, and teraphim.

Some days later, 500 armed Danites visited Micah's place in Judges 18:

20 the priest’s heart was glad. He took the ephod and the household gods and the carved image and went along with the people [Danites].

30 And the people of Dan set up the carved image for themselves, and Jonathan the son of Gershom, son of Moses, and his sons were priests to the tribe of the Danites until the day of the captivity of the land. 31 So They set up Micah’s carved image that he made as long as the house of God was at Shiloh.

Some decades later, Samuel said to Saul, American Standard Version, 1 Samuel 15:

23 "For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as idolatry and teraphim. Because thou hast rejected the word of Jehovah, he hath also rejected thee from being king."

Samuel differentiated the LORD from the teraphim.

Still, there was a teraphim in David and Michal's house. Michal used it to fool Saul's messengers, American Standard Version 1 Samuel 19:

13 Michal took the teraphim, and laid it in the bed, and put a pillow of goats' hair at the head thereof, and covered it with the clothes. 14 And when Saul sent messengers to take David, she said, “He is sick”

on bed, that is. Even David allowed his wife to have a teraphim at home.

A few centuries later, NASB 1995, 2 Kings 23:

24 Moreover, Josiah removed the mediums and the spiritists and the teraphim and the idols and all the abominations that were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, that he might confirm the words of the law which were written in the book that Hilkiah the priest found in the house of the LORD.

Josiah understood that teraphim are abominations.

A hundred years later, Zechariah 10:

2 For the teraphim utter nonsense, and the diviners see lies; the dreamers tell false dreams, and give empty consolation. Therefore the people wander like sheep; they are afflicted for want of a shepherd.

It seems that before the time of Moses, some people thought they were worshipping the true god/gods represented by household teraphim. Even after the Law was revealed, some Israelites were confused about the LORD and teraphim. By the time of the exile, the majority of the Jews knew that teraphim was idolatry worship.