Divination

The subject of divination brings to mind the phrase, "guard your heart". People are often superstitious and think that finding a feather may be a sign of coming good things or having a charm will bring them good luck. Divination is a higher order of this sort of thing based in appealing to the decipherment of a sheep's liver by consulting a diviner schooled in reading it. The Bible forbids this practice along with other forms of circumventing God's revelation. There is a great difference between an astrologer and an astronomer. The rub lies in practicing something that replaces God with a counterfeit for Him and it involves the person in becoming subject to the power of another person or something we commonly refer to as a spirit.

One of the more popular forms of becoming subject to spiritual counterfeits is fertility religion. Closely associated with this is sun worship. Converts into the practice of witchcraft or one of its forms known by other names is the promise of new calves in the spring or a healthy baby to be born to a woman. Closely following this idea is the promise of an abundant harvest by appealing to the sun god. Crops may wither under a blistering sun or yield an abundant harvest under its warming rays accompanied by rain. Sooner or later people realize that they are beholden to deities that they were formerly unaware of that Christians term as demons. Every society that has practiced divination has ended up with a pantheon of gods and goddesses with voluntary or involuntary demon possession. People who have left modern religions that depend upon spiritism and divination report that they often lose the things gained through such practices.

Ancient religions often devolved into the practice of infant, child, and human sacrifice in one form or another. When the early explorers came to North America they found tribes of Indians that sacrificed their firstborn to the chief of the tribe by bashing the baby's head with a mallet on a tree stump. Those who worshipped Bel and Molech in the area of the modern-day Middle East would cause their children to be sacrificed by making them walk through a fire or roasting the children on a brasen altar heated as hot as possible. One of the oldest settlements of mankind found in Anatolia is Catal Hüyük dating back 8,200 years. Notably worship of a deity involved the recognition of fertility as important evidenced by the altars found adorned by bull's horns, a common symbol of fertility. Interestingly, the town was not as primitive as might be imagined due to its antiquity. Art, tapestries, indoor plumbing, and finished walls in the houses compete favorably with living conditions of just a few hundred years ago in places such as Europe.

Modern pagans who practice animist and polytheistic religion claim that their religions are more ancient than either Judaism or Christianity. They are right as far as religions go! The covenant with the Gentiles that the LORD made with Noah is older than the animist and polytheistic religions, which sprouted up after the Great Flood. It might be good to note that the practices of people before the Great Flood are what caused the destruction of the earth by water in the first place though. The God of Noah and Abraham and Moses made the first covenant with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden before casting them out into this world. Abram was called from Ur of the Chaldees and then Haran to go into Canaan. The city of Ur was a major seaport that likely traded with North and South America as well as the South Pacific. Ancient Sumerian records note the maritime prowess of Ur. The ancient city of Eridu was built on an island in the Persian Gulf that received incoming ships. Sedimentation of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers filled in the gulf over the last 3,000 years so that Ur is now over 100 miles from the Persian Gulf. Ur may have built the city of Eridu as a seaport due to sedimentation from the Euphrates choking the harbor that once was at Ur.

Abram was called from Ur to establish a people that would worship the one God, Yahweh, putting an end to worship of the different spirits of the universe. God made a covenant with Abram and changed his name to Abraham. God initiated the covenant with him and chose animals as the sacrifice for the covenant. Instead of Abraham going through with the sacrifice of his son, God provided a ram and stopped the sacrifice of his son. It is significant that God initiated the covenant and made it plain that human sacrifice was to be a thing of the past for the progeny of Abraham.

Abram's wife Sarai was barren and a prime candidate for using the office of a fertility goddess to become pregnant. Significantly she did not do this as her kin back in Ur or the people in Haran or Canaan would have done. The fact that she waited on God in faith, even to the point that she laughed at the idea of bearing a child because she thought that she was too old is meaningful. Like Abram, Sarai's name was changed after she became pregnant due to Yahweh. They both had their names changed from that of the pagan world they were born into to the names Yahweh chose for them. God promised that He would provide a sacrifice and He promised that He would provide a child to the old couple. His covenant involved a break with human sacrifice and dependence upon fertility gods and goddesses. Not only this, but God promised them a great portion of their known world to their progeny who would be many in number. Perhaps it was because Sarai and Abram noticed that Yahweh was different from what they knew that they reckoned that a child would be provided by them enlisting the slave-girl Hagar to produce a son. That decision proved to be a wrong assumption if that was the case. The poor slave-girl from Egypt and her son were banished from the camp due to jealousy on the part of Sarah, but God promised Hagar through her son Ishmael she would have descendants as prolific as those promised to Abraham. In both cases, their offspring ended up rejecting human sacrifice and practicing the worship of the gods and goddesses to fulfill their needs.

Moses came along and had a showdown with the wizards, seers, and magicians of the court of Pharaoh. God proved His superiority to the best the spirit world has to offer. Here again, Yahweh provided the initiation of contact and the promises of the covenant with the people He chose to change the world. Not only was the Pharaoh defeated along with the most powerful practitioners of magic and witchcraft, but Yahweh established a new order of things completely divorced from the pagan world. The people spent 40 years in the desert until all but a few remained that had left Egypt and even Moses did not enter into the land promised to them by Yahweh. They did not leave the desert where they were to have learned to forsake dependence upon the former things of the pagan world, but died there. The younger generation promised to serve Yahweh and to be faithful to Him and not go back to the way they had formerly done things. Not only this but they agreed to abstain from the practices of the pagans in Canaan who were still worshipping gods and goddesses. Among the things still practiced were divination, human sacrifice, bestiality, cult prostitution, and all of the normal pagan practices. They worshipped the creation and not the creator. The Children of Israel were distinct in having a set of laws given by God and the direct revelation from God as to His will for mankind. Although there are seeming parallels with the creation and flood stories of other cultures, the first five books of the Christian Bible and the Hebrew Torah are very different. The code of laws are different than that of Hammaraubi as the story of creation and the story of the flood are distinct from the Sumerian stories. The Torah is stated to have been given by the inspiration of Yahweh, the Savior and Deliverer. The Torah is centered upon the revelation of God, His perspective, and His will. The Law was given to Moses directly by Yahweh. Yahweh revealed Himself to Moses in the bush that burned without being consumed. Yahweh revealed His name to Moses as well as His attributes. The encounter with Yahweh was such that Moses' face glowed and he had to wear a veil over his face when he came down from the mountain. Yahweh claims to Moses that He is the only God, the one true God.

The story of the revelation of Yahweh also encompasses the fact that He created everything and that He is eternal. He was not only at the beginning but He also was existent before the beginning of time, space, and matter. He foreknew all that would happen and will happen until the end of time. He says that He alone tells the end of things from the beginning. The worship of elemental spirits, rocks, idols, and wood are repeatedly said to be vain. It is interesting that a sun worship center in Egypt that was quite famous was called On, a derivation of the Hebrew word for vanity, ayin, and the English word aven. It measn literally "nothingness". It is comforting to consider that with God nothing is impossible. Without God nothing is possible perhaps. In any event, the fact that pagan religion was shown to be lacking in the eyes of God more than makes up for the fact that when God chose the proper time to reveal Himself to mankind in a powerful way that it was after pagan religions had flourished for a time. God had revealed Himself to Adam and Eve and had daily contact with them, walking with them and interacting on a normative basis. God revealed Himself to Noah as well as Enoch before He called Abram from Ur. Religion is not the thing, it is fellowship and friendship with God that is important, not religion, pagan or otherwise.

Divination, sorcery, magic, astrology, necromancy, and the other forms of pagan religion put a gulf between us and God. Our attention is on things that are not gods, but created beings as we are, though they seem spiritual on the order of God. God is above even His angels, the Heavenly Host. The pagan practices concentrate attention on the creation, the natural world, and the worship of the creation, even its creatures such as animals and people. The golden calf was taken to be a god, mistaken for Yahweh perhaps and Moses destroyed the image. In fact he gave the people a choice of whom they would worship and some chose the false god and were immediately swallowed up by a fissure in the earth that opened and then closed after they fell into it. We still have the choice of whom we will worship.

When thou art come into the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not learn to do after the abominations of those nations. There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For all that do these things are an abomination unto the LORD: and because of these abominations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee.

Deuteronomy 18:9-12

And the soul that turneth after such as have familiar spirits, and after wizards, to go a whoring after them, I will even set my face against that soul, and will cut him off from among his people. Sanctify yourselves therefore, and be ye holy: for I am the LORD your God. And ye shall keep my statutes, and do them: I am the LORD which sanctify you.

Leviticus 20:6-8

They have seen vanity and lying divination, saying, The LORD saith: and the LORD hath not sent them: and they have made others to hope that they would confirm the word. Have ye not seen a vain vision, and have ye not spoken a lying divination, whereas ye say, The LORD saith it; albeit I have not spoken? Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Because ye have spoken vanity, and seen lies, therefore, behold, I am against you, saith the Lord GOD. And mine hand shall be upon the prophets that see vanity, and that divine lies: they shall not be in the assembly of my people, neither shall they be written in the writing of the house of Israel, neither shall they enter into the land of Israel; and ye shall know that I am the Lord GOD.

Ezekiel 13:6-9

Genesis 31:19 The "household idols" (teraphim, Heb.) appear to have been figurines, usually constructed of wood, but sometimes of silver (compare Judges 17:4). Believed to be the custodians of human happiness, they were often worshiped as gods and consulted as mediums (Ezekiel 21:21; Zechariah 10:2). The worship of teraphim was later denounced as idolatry (I Samuel 15:23). The significance of the teraphim to Rachel and her family is unclear. They may have been relied upon in divination, for protection, as a claim to inheritance, or they may have simply represented loyalty and devotion to one’s family. Jacob, whose theological understanding would have been more advanced than that of his wives, later removed them (Genesis 35:2–4).

Ezra 9:1 "Abominations" included all things and practices abhorred by Yahweh: idols; anything offered to an idol; everything associated with idol worship, magic and divination; all sexual transgressions or deviations; and intermarriage with anyone who was not a worshiper of Yahweh. The abominations of the Canaanites precipitated the institution of prophecy, to warn Israel against these things (Deut. 18:9–14). The prophets as an institution were to do henceforth for all the people what Moses and Joshua could do only for a limited number.

Isaiah 8:19 People through the ages have turned away from God during times of great distress, when actually they need Him most, and consulted those who offered false hope. The Lord strictly forbids any kind of divination, fortune-telling, astrology, or necromancy (Deuteronomy 18:10; I Samuel 28:7–20; II Kings 21:6). The phrase "wizards who whisper" is a reference to ventriloquists who sought to disguise their voices as representations of ghosts or spirits from another world.

Ezekiel 13:17 There are a few noteworthy women who prophesied in Scripture—Miriam, Deborah, Huldah, Anna, and Philip’s daughters. But there were also women who were practicingwitchcraft or sorcery in the name of the Lord and calling this "prophecy." Ezekiel’s condemnation is the same one directed to their male counterparts, i.e., that they "prophesy out of their own heart."

Ezekiel 13:18 The "magic charms" were bands or amulets which were supposed to be worn to transmit the power of the sorceress to her client. Ezekiel questioned the motive behind their religious activities: Is it for selfish gain, or is it to support them so they can minister to the people of God (v. 19)? Is the prophetess concerned about souls for herself, or souls for God (v. 18)?

Ezekiel 13:19 "Barley" and "bread" are materials which they used in divination. Any troubled individual who received an unfavorable forecast would not only be subject to discouragement and despair, but also would perhaps contemplate suicide.

Ezekiel 14:3 The sin of the inquirers who came to Ezekiel was not open idolatry, but the setting up of "idols in their hearts." They were influenced by pagan thoughts and practices, and no longer gave primary allegiance to Yahweh. These "elders of Israel" (v. 1) were largely responsible for the widespread success and acceptance of the false prophets.

Ezekiel 21:21 There are three methods of divination mentioned: (1) belomancy or shaking of arrows, a practice used among Arabs for determining the future, in which a man used three arrows: one with an affirmative mark, another with a negative response, and one blank, which if drawn caused him to draw again; (2) a consultation of the "images" or teraphim (Heb.), which were small household ancestral gods (3) hepatoscopy, or the examination of the liver of a sacrificial animal, which was commonly practiced in Babylon.

Daniel 2:2 Nebuchadnezzar’s second year as monarch was the setting for the strange dream. The king demonstrated his unreasonableness by demanding that the wise men produce the content of the dream as well as its interpretation, or else face execution as the fraudulent characters that he probably suspected them to be. Among those enlisted in the enterprise were four separate groups—magicians, astrologers, sorcerers, and Chaldeans. "Magicians" is a translation of hartummim (Heb.), referring to those involved in various kinds of divination. Originally an Egyptian word (Genesis 41:8, 24; Exodus 7:11), the term was used in Babylon of those skilled in dream interpretation. "Astrologers" translates the Hebrew <ashaphim, known in Babylon as those skilled at performing incantations, especially for healing (a related word is translated "heal" in II Kings 5:3, 6). "Sorcerers" renders mekashephim (Heb.), a more common word for those who used incantations in the practice of sorcery or witchcraft. "Chaldeans" translates kasdim (Heb.), the most distinguished priestly caste of wise men in Babylon, who probably served as custodians of the mysteries of ancient Babylonian religion. In v. 27, a fifth group, the "soothsayers" (gozrin, Aram.), is included. The five classes constituted a college of wisdom, and as such exercised considerable influence on the affairs of state. Daniel and his three friends had been thoroughly trained in the wisdom of all these groups. This makes the contrast between Daniel’s religion of revelation and the ludicrous expressions of superstition in Babylon even more amazing. Daniel had obviously learned their ways and methods without gullibly accepting their doctrines.

Acts 8:9 This is Christianity’s first sharp confrontation with the occult. Moses had listed no fewer than 10 "abominations" of the nations, particularly of Canaan. He strongly warned the Israelites just before crossing the Jordan into the Promised Land (Deuteronomy 18:9–14). Sorcery is literally "magic arts," from mageuoµg (Gk.), the root for the English word "magic." Moses warned the Israelites that Canaan would be filled with the practitioners of wizardry, necromancy, and divination. He then indicated to the chosen people that God was instituting prophecy precisely to teach and warn the Israelites about such things. Sorcery and its like were wholly unacceptable to the God of Israel (Leviticus 20:6, 27; Deuteronomy 17:2–5). Moses indicated that the prophets God would send, apparently beginning with Joshua, would teach the people to resist such practices. Prophecy would be established alongside the priesthood (Deuteronomy 18:15). This may be an instance of double futuristic application of prophecy because Peter treated this prediction as having been fulfilled by the coming of Christ (Acts 2:22–24). In Christianity’s first encounter with the Samaritan culture, Simon stubbornly resisted and apparently never actually became a Christian (Acts 8:18–24). Just as Christianity was victorious in its first confrontation with sorcery in the spread of the gospel into Judea and Samaria, so in the final segment of the Great Commission (compare Acts 1:8), the sorcerer Elymas vigorously tried to stop Paul and Barnabas from witnessing to the proconsul Sergius Paulus (13:8, 12). The missionaries demonstrated that the victory of the infant faith in its homeland would be repeated abroad.

W. A. Criswell, Believer’s Study Bible [computer file], electronic ed. , Logos Library System, (Nashville: Thomas Nelson) 1997, c1991 by the Criswell Center for Biblical Studies.

Texts dealing with divination represent the second largest single category of the cuneiform literature of Mesopotamia (after economic texts). At its most elementary level, divination is an attempt to decipher the will of the gods through the use of magical techniques. The pagans believed they could use human skill and ingenuity to acquire from the gods knowledge about certain situations. In the words of Yehezkel Kaufmann, a diviner is "a scientist who can dispense with divine revelation."

Divination usually followed either the inductive or intuitive method. In the former, the diviner observes events and then draws conclusions from them. The most common method was to observe the inner parts of slaughtered sheep or goats. Diviners usually studied the liver (a technique called hepatoscopy). A typical divination formula might run something like this: "If the liver has the shape X, then the outcome of the battle/sickness/journey will be as follows...."

This particular system was fine for the king and the wealthy, but for average citizens a variety of cheaper techniques was needed. There were at least a half dozen of these, such as lecanomancy (letting drops of oil fall into a cup of water and observing the patterns that appear) or libanomancy (watching the various shapes from the smoke of incense).

In the intuitive type of divination, the diviner is less active; he is more of an observer and interpreter. The best-known type of intuitive divination was dream interpretation (oneiromancy). This method produced a body of dream interpretation literature that said, "If you dream such and such, it means. ..." Other means of divination were the texts known as menologies and hemerologies. The first type listed the months of the year and told which months were favorable for certain kinds of tasks. The latter listed activities that a person should engage in or avoid for each day of the month. From all of this, astrology was born.

The Old Testament forbids all techniques of divination (compare Deuteronomy 18:10; Leviticus 20:6; Ezekiel 13:6–8). The Bible calls divination an "abomination"; for that reason, there were no professional diviners in Israel. The confidence that divination put in human wisdom was an insult to God, for it reflected unwillingness to trust His revelation of truth.

James I. Packer, Merrill C. Tenney and William White, Jr., editors, Nelson’s Illustrated Manners and Customs of the Bible [computer file], electronic ed., Logos Library System, (Nashville: Thomas Nelson) 1997, Ó 1995.