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801 RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA Tennent Teraphim the head, his sway over the four corners of the earth. At the putting on of the tephillin for the head, the benediction, " Blessed art thou Yahweh, our God, king of the universe, who hast hallowed us by thy commandments and hast commanded us to wear the tephillin," is pronounced. When assuming the hand-tephillin the benediction is only slightly dif ferent. There are minute injunctions as to who may wear them, where and when they may be worn, etc. They are first put on by boys at confirmation at the age of thirteen, but are not worn on the Sab bath or on holidays. The Talmud lays great stress on the tephillin ceremonial, and carries its prescriptions into the minutest details, which are assumed to be Mosaic. The practise of the ceremony was looked upon as a kind of altar service. Whoever puts on the tephillin and reads the Shema (Deut. vi. 4-5) may be con sidered as one who has built an altar and laid a sacrifice upon it (Rosh ha-shanah 3, 15a). God him self is said to wear them. He himself revealed them to Moses and taught him how to place the knot be hind the head. The tephillin were supposed to guard their wearer from witchcraft and sin, and were worn as amulets. Some teachers went beyond the Bib lical injunction and wore them all day. Neverthe less, there were persons and sects who discarded or made light of the articles, especially in later cen turies. Minute directions are given for the preparation of these articles. They must be made by Jews. The words on the parchment may be written from mem ory, but no letter may run into another or stand out more than another. No erasures or corrections may be made. The name of God must be written by the scribe with reverence and full appreciation of its significance. (AUGUST Wi?rrscaE.) BIBLIOGRAPHY: M. MaTgO110Uth, Fundamental Principles of Modern Judaism, pp. 1-49, London, 1843; Z. Frankel, Ueber den EinfGuaa der Pal&stinischen Exegese auf die alez andrdnische Hermeneutik, pp. 90 sqq., Leipsic, 1551; L. Zunz, Gesammelte Schriften, ii. 172-176, Berlin, 1878; G. Klein, in JPT, 1581, pp. 86889; M. L. Rodkinaon, Ursprung and Entwickelung des Phylacterien-Riten, Press burg, 1583; idem, Hist. of Amulets, Charms, and Tal%s mans, New York, 1893; M. Friedlander, Jewish Religion, pp. 331-334, London, 1900; idem, Der Antichrist in den vorchristlichen jiidischen Quellen, pp. 155-185, GSttingen, 1901; M. Grunbaum, Geaammelte Aufadtze, pp. 208 sqq., Berlin, 1901; Schiirer, Geschichte, ii. 484 sqq., Eng. transl., IL, ii., iii. sqq.; Benzinger, Arch6ologie, p. 387; DB, iii. SG9-874; EB, ii. 1566-67; JE, x. 21-28; Vigouroux, Dictionnaire, fasc. zsxi. 349-353; and the commentaries on the Scriptural passages cited. TERAPHIM: The name of an image or object apparently used specifically for divination. The term occurs in nine passages in the Old Testament. Though plural in form, the usage in I Sam. xix. 13 16 shows that it was, at any rate, at times singular in meaning, just as was (for the most part) Elohim, " God," though the use of the plural " gods " by Laban when speaking of the teraphim suggests a real plural. Some explain the use of the word as a plural of majesty; others, however, regard it in the same way as they do Elohim, the linguistic evidence being that the object connoted was at one time plural. In Gen. xxxi.19, 34, 35 (E) the size was evidently not great, since it could be hidden in the camel's litter, and the context (verse 30) suggests that it was an

image or idol (" my gods ". as above). I Sam. xix. 13-16, on the other hand, gives the impression that it might be as large as a man, and both passages seem to involve use in the household, not in a temple. From Judges xvii. 4-5, xviii. 17, 18, 20, 30, it evidently differed from both a "graven"and a"molten "image, and does not appear to have been an object of worship, since Judges xviii. reports again and again that the Danites set up (for worship) the graven image which Micah had made, but of the teraphim it alleges only that they took it from Micah and carried it with them. The use of the object as a means of divination is settled by Ezek. xxi. 21, where it is described as employed by the king of Babylon among other means for determining the future; and by Zech. x. 2, where the parallelism is: " teraphim have spoken vanity, diviners have seen a lie."

In I Sam. av. 23 (R. V.; the A. V. obscures the original), one of the later (Deuteronomistic) portions of the book, the teraphim is implicitly condemned; according to II Kings xxiii. 24 it was among the things which were abolished in the reformation of Josiah. It is not improbable that in Gen. xxxv. 2, 4 (by E, the writer of Gen. xxxi. 19 sqq.) the teraphim are included in the " strange gods" which were to be put away (see Dz';nsorr, § 4). On the other hand, in Hos. iii. 4, it is among the things (which may be classed as official) deprivation of which was to be a part of the punishment of unfaithful Israel, viz., king, priest, sacrifice, pillar, and ephod, and it was therefore by that prophet not regarded as inconsistent with the worship of Yahweh. Consequently, the total effect of all the Old-Testament passages is to indicate that the size of the teraphim was variable; that it might be kept in a house or a temple or shrine; that it is to be distinguished both from a molten and a graven image, but that its form is not known; * that it was probably an importation from abroad (Gen. xxxi.), both Laban and the king of Babylon making use of it; that its employment came under condemnation at least as early as 621 s.c., possibly considerably earlier, if Gen. xxxv. 2 intends to include it among the " strange . gods," though in the time of David and probably of Hoses its use was regarded as legitimate; and, finally, it does not appear, except from the mention by Hoses, to have belonged to the public official cult, but rather to have been employed in private or household practise in divining. To be noted is the fact that there is no statement outside of the Genesis passages or even necessary implication that the teraphim was an object of worship, although the contrary hypothesis has ruled in exegesis.

By the best authorities the derivation of the word is still regarded as doubtful (Brown-Driver-Briggs, Hebrew and English Lexicon, s.v.); many connect the word with repha'im, " shades " (cf. Isa. xiv. 9, R. V. margin), and regard the thing itself as associated with ancestor worship. It is impossible to say whether the translators of the Septuagint were entirely unacquainted with the object or knew so

* It does not follow from I Sam. xix. that the form was more than approximately human, thcugh its size in that case must have corresponded to that of a man.