Easton's Bible Dictionary 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, 18; 1 Samuel 21:9; 23:6, 9; 30:7, 8), and is thus associated with the teraphim. (see THUMMIM.) Noah Webster's Dictionary (n. pl.) Images connected with the magical rites used by those Israelites who added corrupt practices to the patriarchal religion. Teraphim were consulted by the Israelites for oracular answers. Int. Standard Bible Encyclopedia TERAPHIM ter'-a-fim. See ASTROLOGY; DIVINATION; IMAGES.

Multi-Version Concordance Teraphim (14 Occurrences) Genesis 31:19 Now Laban had gone to shear his sheep: and Rachel stole the teraphim that were her father's. (WEB JPS ASV DBY YLT) Genesis 31:34 Now Rachel had taken the teraphim, put them in the camel's saddle, and sat on them. Laban felt about all the tent, but didn't find them. (WEB JPS ASV DBY YLT) Genesis 31:35 She said to her father, "Don't let my lord be angry that I can't rise up before you; for the manner of women is on me." He searched, but didn't find the teraphim. (WEB JPS ASV DBY YLT) Judges 17:5 The man Micah had a house of gods, and he made an ephod, and teraphim, and consecrated one of his sons, who became his priest. (WEB KJV JPS ASV DBY WBS YLT RSV) Judges 18:14 Then the five men who went to spy out the country of Laish answered, and said to their brothers, "Do you know that there is in these houses an ephod, and teraphim, and an engraved image, and a molten image? Now therefore consider what you have to do." (WEB KJV JPS ASV DBY WBS YLT RSV) Judges 18:17 The five men who went to spy out the land went up, and came in there, and took the engraved image, and the ephod, and the teraphim, and the molten image: and the priest stood by the entrance of the gate with the six hundred men girt with weapons of war. (WEB KJV JPS ASV DBY WBS YLT RSV) Judges 18:18 When these went into Micah's house, and fetched the engraved image, the ephod, and the teraphim, and the molten image, the priest said to them, "What are you doing?" (WEB KJV JPS ASV DBY WBS YLT RSV) Judges 18:20 The priest's heart was glad, and he took the ephod, and the teraphim, and the engraved image, and went in the midst of the people. (WEB KJV JPS ASV DBY WBS YLT RSV) 1 Samuel 15:23 For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as idolatry and teraphim. Because you have rejected the word of Yahweh, he has also rejected you from being king." (WEB JPS ASV YLT) 1 Samuel 19:13 Michal took the teraphim, and laid it in the bed, and put a pillow of goats' hair at its head, and covered it with the clothes. (WEB JPS ASV YLT) 1 Samuel 19:16 When the messengers came in, behold, the teraphim was in the bed, with the pillow of goats' hair at its head. (WEB JPS ASV YLT) Ezekiel 21:21 For the king of Babylon stood at the parting of the way, at the head of the two ways, to use divination: he shook the arrows back and forth, he consulted the teraphim, he looked in the liver. (WEB JPS ASV DBY YLT RSV) Hosea 3:4 For the children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and without teraphim: (KJV JPS ASV DBY WBS YLT RSV) Zechariah 10:2 For the teraphim have spoken vanity, and the diviners have seen a lie; and they have told false dreams. They comfort in vain. Therefore they go their way like sheep. They are oppressed, because there is no shepherd. (WEB JPS ASV DBY YLT NAS RSV)