“ ‘Don’t turn to those who are mediums, nor to the wizards. Don’t seek them out, to be defiled by them. I am Yahweh your God.
Parallel Translations
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“ ‘Don’t turn to those who are mediums, nor to the wizards. Don’t seek them out, to be defiled by them. I am Yahweh your God.
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Regard not them that have familiar spirits, neither seek after wizards, to be defiled by them: I am the LORD your God.
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Turn ye not unto the ghosts, nor unto familiar spirits; seek them not out, to be defiled by them: I am the LORD your God.
Cross-references (20)
Passages linked to Leviticus 19:31 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Isaiah 8:19 When they tell you, “Consult with those who have familiar spirits and with the wizards, who chirp and who mutter,” shouldn’t a people consult with their God? Should they consult the dead on behalf of the living?
- Leviticus 20:27 “ ‘A man or a woman that is a medium or is a wizard shall surely be put to death. They shall be stoned with stones. Their blood shall be upon themselves.’ ”
- Leviticus 20:6-7 “ ‘The person that turns to those who are mediums and wizards, to play the prostitute after them, I will even set my face against that person, and will cut him off from among his people. “ ‘Sanctify yourselves therefore, and be holy; for I am Yahweh your God.
- 2 Chronicles 33:6 He also made his children to pass through the fire in the valley of the son of Hinnom. He practiced sorcery, divination, and witchcraft, and dealt with those who had familiar spirits and with wizards. He did much evil in Yahweh’s sight, to provoke him to anger.
- Deuteronomy 18:10-14 There shall not be found with you anyone who makes his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, one who uses divination, one who tells fortunes, or an enchanter, or a sorcerer, or a charmer, or someone who consults with a familiar spirit, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For whoever does these things is an abomination to Yahweh. Because of these abominations, Yahweh your God drives them out from before you. You shall be blameless with Yahweh your God. For these nations that you shall dispossess listen to those who practice sorcery and to diviners; but as for you, Yahweh your God has not allowed you so to do.
- 2 Kings 21:6 He made his son to pass through the fire, practiced sorcery, used enchantments, and dealt with those who had familiar spirits, and with wizards. He did much evil in Yahweh’s sight, to provoke him to anger.
- 1 Chronicles 10:13 So Saul died for his trespass which he committed against Yahweh, because of Yahweh’s word, which he didn’t keep; and also because he asked counsel of one who had a familiar spirit, to inquire,
- 1 Samuel 28:3 Now Samuel was dead, and all Israel had mourned for him, and buried him in Ramah, even in his own city. Saul had sent away those who had familiar spirits and the wizards out of the land.
- Revelation 21:8 But for the cowardly, unbelieving, sinners, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their part is in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”
- Exodus 22:18 “You shall not allow a sorceress to live.
- Isaiah 29:4 You will be brought down, and will speak out of the ground. Your speech will mumble out of the dust. Your voice will be as of one who has a familiar spirit, out of the ground, and your speech will whisper out of the dust.
- Isaiah 47:13 You are wearied in the multitude of your counsels. Now let the astrologers, the stargazers, and the monthly prognosticators, stand up and save you from the things that will happen to you.
- 2 Kings 17:17 They caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire, used divination and enchantments, and sold themselves to do that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, to provoke him to anger.
- Acts 16:16-18 As we were going to prayer, a certain girl having a spirit of divination met us, who brought her masters much gain by fortune telling. Following Paul and us, she cried out, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to us a way of salvation!” She was doing this for many days. But Paul, becoming greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her!” It came out that very hour.
- Acts 19:19-20 Many of those who practiced magical arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. They counted their price, and found it to be fifty thousand pieces of silver. So the word of the Lord was growing and becoming mighty.
- Galatians 5:20 idolatry, sorcery, hatred, strife, jealousies, outbursts of anger, rivalries, divisions, heresies,
- Leviticus 19:26 “ ‘You shall not eat any meat with the blood still in it. You shall not use enchantments, nor practice sorcery.
- 1 Samuel 28:7-9 Then Saul said to his servants, “Seek for me a woman who has a familiar spirit, that I may go to her, and inquire of her.” His servants said to him, “Behold, there is a woman who has a familiar spirit at Endor.” Saul disguised himself and put on other clothing, and went, he and two men with him, and they came to the woman by night. Then he said, “Please consult for me by the familiar spirit, and bring me up whomever I shall name to you.” The woman said to him, “Behold, you know what Saul has done, how he has cut off those who have familiar spirits, and the wizards, out of the land. Why then do you lay a snare for my life, to cause me to die?”
- Acts 8:11 They listened to him, because for a long time he had amazed them with his sorceries.
- Acts 13:6-8 When they had gone through the island to Paphos, they found a certain sorcerer, a false prophet, a Jew, whose name was Bar Jesus, who was with the proconsul, Sergius Paulus, a man of understanding. This man summoned Barnabas and Saul, and sought to hear the word of God. But Elymas the sorcerer (for so is his name by interpretation) withstood them, seeking to turn the proconsul away from the faith.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (16 sources)
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John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Lev 19:31 Regard not them that have familiar spirits,…
Lev 19:31 Regard not them that have familiar spirits, neither seek after wizards, to be defiled by them: I [am] the LORD your God.
Ver. 31. I am the Lord your God.] What need you then run to the devil for direction? Is it because there is no God in Israel? Every one that consults with Satan, worships him, though he bow not: neither doth that evil spirit desire any other reverence than to be sought unto.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Them that have familiar spirits; that have entered into…
Them that have familiar spirits; that have entered into covenant with the devil, by whose help they foretell many things to come, and acquaint men with secret things. See Lev 20:27; Deu 18:11; 1Sa 28:3,7,9; 2Ki 21:6.
Wizards; another name expressing the same thing for substance, to wit, persons in league with the devil, with some difference only in the manner of their operation,
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Regard not them that have familiar spirits,.... The word…
Regard not them that have familiar spirits,.... The word used signifies "bottles", and that sort of diviners here intended go by this name, either because what they sat on when they divined was in the form of a bottle, or they divined by one, or they were swelled and inflated as bottles when they delivered out their answers, or spoke as out of a bottle or hollow place; hence they are called masters or mistresses of the bottle: they seem to be the same with the ventriloquists, and so the Septuagint version here calls them; such whose voice seemed to come out of their bellies, and even the lower parts of them; and such was the Pythian prophetess at Delphos, and very probably the maid in the times of the apostles, who had a spirit of divination, or of Python, Act 16:16; and so the words may be rendered here, "look not to the Python" (n), or those who have the spirit of Python; so Jarchi from the Misnah (o) interprets the word here used, "Baal Ob" or the master of the bottle, this is Python, one that speaks from under his arm holes:
neither seek after wizards; such as pretend to a great deal of knowledge, as the word signifies; such as are called cunning men, who pretend to know where lost or stolen goods are, and to tell people their fortunes, and what will befall them hereafter:
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to be defiled by them; for by seeking to them, and believing what is said by them, and trusting thereunto, and expecting events answerable to their predictions, they would be guilty of a gross sin, and so bring pollution and guilt on them; according to the Jewish canons (p), such sort of persons as are cautioned against were to be stoned, and they that consulted them to be reproved:
I am the Lord your God; who only is to be regarded and sought unto for advice and assistance; see Isa 8:19.
(n) "ne respiciatis ad Pythonas", Montanus; so Junius & Tremellius, Piscator. (o) Misn. Sanhedrin, c. 7. sect. 7. (p) lbid.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain Wizards - Them that have entered into covenant with…
Wizards - Them that have entered into covenant with the devil, by whose help they foretel many things to come, and acquaint men with secret things. See ver. 27 Deut. xviii, 11; 1 Sam. xxviii, 3, 7, 9; 2 Kings xxi, 6.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 31. Regard not them that have familiar spirits]…
Verse 31. Regard not them that have familiar spirits] The Hebrew word oboth probably signifies a kind of engastromuthoi or ventriloquists, or such as the Pythoness mentioned Lev 16:16; Lev 16:18; persons who, while under the influence of their demon, became greatly inflated, as the Hebrew word implies, and gave answers in a sort of phrensy. See a case of this kind in Virgil, AEneid, l. vi., ver. 46, c.: -
"----Deus ecce, Deus! cui talla fanti
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Ante fores, subito non vultus, non color unus,
Non comptae mansere comae sed pectus anhelum,
Et rabie fera corda tument; majorque videri,
Nec mortale sonans, afflata est numine quando
Jam propiore Dei."
-------------------Invoke the skies,
I feel the god, the rushing god, she cries.
While yet she spoke, enlarged her features grew,
Her colour changed, her locks dishevelled flew.
The heavenly tumult reigns in every part,
Pants in her breast, and swells her rising heart:
Still swelling to the sight, the priestess glowed,
And heaved impatient of the incumbent god.
PITT.
Neither seek after wizards] ידענים yiddeonim, the wise or knowing ones, from ידע yada, to know or understand; called wizard in Scotland, wise or cunning man in England; and hence also the wise woman, the white witch. Not only all real dealers with familiar spirits, or necromantic or magical superstitions, are here forbidden, but also all pretenders to the knowledge of futurity, fortune-tellers, astrologers, &c., &c. To attempt to know what God has not thought proper to reveal, is a sin against his wisdom, providence, and goodness. In mercy, great mercy, God has hidden the knowledge of futurity from man, and given him hope - the expectation of future good, in its place. See Clarke on Ex 22:18.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Lev 19:31. Wizards — Them that have entered into…
Lev 19:31. Wizards — Them that have entered into covenant with the devil, by whose help they foretel many things to come, and acquaint men with secret things; see Lev 20:27; Deu 18:11; 1Sa 28:3; 1Sa 28:7; 1Sa 28:9; 2Ki 21:6.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain The devotion of faith, which would manifest itself in…
The devotion of faith, which would manifest itself in obedience to the commandment to keep God’s Sabbaths and to reverence His sanctuary Lev 19:30, is the true preservative against the superstition which is forbidden in this verse. The people whose God was Yahweh were not to indulge those wayward feelings of their human nature which are gratified in magical arts and pretensions. Compare Isa 8:19.
Familiar spirits - literally, “bottles”. This application of the word is supposed to have been suggested by the tricks of ventriloquists, within whose bodies (as vessels or bottles) it was fancied that spirits used to speak. In other cases, the word is used for the familiar spirit which a man pretended to employ in order to consult, or to raise, the spirits of the dead. See 1Sa 28:7-8.
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Wizard - A word equivalent to “a knowing man”, or, “a cunning man”.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Wizards. Hebrew oboth, denotes familiar spirits, (1 Kings viii.[xxviii.?]…
Wizards. Hebrew oboth, denotes familiar spirits, (1 Kings viii.[xxviii.?] 7,) which gave answers from the belly or breast, as from a bottle; whence such wizards are called by the Greeks, engastrimuthoi; and by Sophocles, sternomanteis. (Calmet) --- Soothsayers, are properly those who will judge what will happen by inspecting victims. (Menochius) --- Hebrew yiddehonim, means connoisseurs, intelligent people, gnostics, or those who pretend that they can penetrate the secrets naturally impenetrable to the mind of man. Septuagint epaoidoi, "enchanters," who undertake to keep off all misfortunes. "Surely, (says Pliny, xxx. 1,) to learn this art, (of magic) Pythagoras....and Plato undertook long voyages by sea, or rather went into banishment. This they extolled at their return; this they kept as a secret. Hanc in arcanis habuere."
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain Regard not them that have familiar spirits--The Hebrew word,…
Regard not them that have familiar spirits--The Hebrew word, rendered "familiar spirit," signifies the belly, and sometimes a leathern bottle, from its similarity to the belly. It was applied in the sense of this passage to ventriloquists, who pretended to have communication with the invisible world. The Hebrews were strictly forbidden to consult them as the vain but high pretensions of those impostors were derogatory to the honor of God and subversive of their covenant relations with Him as His people.
neither seek after wizards--fortunetellers, who pretended, as the Hebrew word indicates, to prognosticate by palmistry (or an inspection of the lines of the hand) the future fate of those who applied to them.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 31. Familiar spirits — The Hebrew oboth signifies skins…
31. Familiar spirits — The Hebrew oboth signifies skins used for bottles, Job_32:19. Its secondary meaning is the hollow belly of conjurers, supposed to be inflated by the spirit. Hence the obh properly denotes, not the conjurer himself but the spirit which is conjured by him, and is supposed to speak in him. See the Seventy, who render it by εγγαστριμυθοι, ventriloquists. The “familiar” is not in the Hebrew; it comes from the idea that the necromancers, soothsayers, and the like had spirits or demons whom they could summon from the unseen world to wait upon them as famuli, servants, and execute their commands. The ventriloquists “peeped and muttered,” (Isa_8:19; Isa_29:4,) to imitate the voice of the revealing “familiar.” All the descriptions of the ancient necromancy are strikingly like the practices of modern spirit-circles. The sin in such consultations of the dead is the implied abandonment of God and his word as man’s only and sufficient light on all questions respecting the future state, and the resort to unauthorized sources of revelation, whose utterances are repugnant to the Holy Scriptures, and frequently grossly immoral.
Wizards — Wizard is derived from wise and the old English termination ard — a wise man, hence a magician or sorcerer. The Hebrew and Greek terms have the same meaning, indicating those that could by any means reveal the future. The rabbins derive the Hebrew word from a certain man-shaped beast, the bones of which the diviner held in his teeth. The Greek wizard ate certain portions of beasts supposed to be endowed with the faculty of divination. “Admitting that the terms ‘witchcraft,’ ‘wizard,’ and the like were used in their modern signification, as implying the possession of supernatural or magical powers by compact with evil spirits, it would follow, upon theocratic principles, that he who so much as pretends to exercise this power, seducing the people from their allegiance to God, would be worthy of death.” The law, like that on the statute books of England against the pretence to witchcraft among the negroes of Jamaica, does not assume the real existence of any such Satanic power attainable by men, but it pronounces its penalty against him or her who assumes to exercise this nefarious art. But Sir Walter Scott observes: “The sorcery or witchcraft of the Old Testament resolves itself into a trafficking with idols and asking counsel of false deities; or, in other words, into idolatry.” R.S. Poole regards it as a distinctive characteristic of the Bible that from first to last it warrants no trust in or dread of charms and incantations as capable of producing evil consequences when used against a man. In the Psalms, the most personal of all the books of Scripture, there is no prayer to be protected against magical influences, though every other kind of evil to body or soul is mentioned. These facts prove that the modern notion of witchcraft was a superstition entirely unknown to the early Hebrews.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 31. familiar spirits … wizards] Cp. ch. Lev_20:6; Lev_20:27.…
31. familiar spirits … wizards] Cp. ch. Lev_20:6; Lev_20:27. For the difference between the two see Driver on Deu_18:11. The former expression (’ôb) may be rendered ghost. Its oracles were uttered in a twittering voice, which, through ventriloquism, appeared to rise from the ground. Accordingly the LXX. mostly renders the word by ἐγγαστρίμυθοι, ventriloquists. See the narrative of the witch of Endor (1 Samuel 28). The latter of the two appellations, lit. knowing (but Rob.-Sm. Journal of Philology, xiii. 273 ff.; xiv. 113 ff., prefers acquaintance), may fitly be rendered familiar spirit. The distinction between the two modes of divination will then be that ‘those who divine by the former profess (1Sa_28:11) to call up any ghost; those who divine by the latter consult only the particular spirit which is their familiar’ (Driver as above).
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (31) Regard not.—Better, Turn ye not unto, as the…
(31) Regard not.—Better, Turn ye not unto, as the Authorised Version renders this very phrase in Lev_19:4.
Them that have familiar spirits.—This phrase represents the single word oboth in the original, and the translators of our Authorised Version by adopting it implied that those who practised this craft were supposed to be attended by an invisible spirit who was subject to their call to supply them with supernatural information. According to the authorities during the second Temple it denotes one who has a spirit speaking from under his arm-holes, or chest, with a hollow voice, as if it came out of a bottle, which is the meaning of ob in Job_32:19. They identified it with the spirit of Python, by which the ancient Chaldee Version renders it.
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Neither seek after wizards.—The expression “wizard,” which in old English denotes “wise man,” “sage,” is almost the exact equivalent of the word in the original. These cunning men pretended to tell people their fortunes, where their lost property was to be found, &c. According to ancient tradition, these wizards took in their mouth a bone of a certain bird called yaduâ, burned incense, thus producing fumes which sent them off into an ecstacy, and then foretold future events. Hence their name, yidonee, as it is in the original. It occurs eleven times in the Bible, and always together with the word translated “familiar spirit.”
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain This verse contains a prohibition of all dealings with…
This verse contains a prohibition of all dealings with those that have familiar spirits or are wizards. The punishment of such persons is appointed in the next chapter. Both in the Old and the New Testament, the real existence of evil spirits and their power of communicating with the human spirit is assumed.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain Them that have familiar spirits.
Lev_19:31
Them that have familiar spirits.
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Prohibition of traffic with familiar spirits
This verse prohibits all inquiring of them that have familiar spirits, and of wizards, who pretend to make relevations through the help of supernatural powers. According to 1Sa_28:7-11, and Isa_8:19, the familiar spirit is a supposed spirit of a dead man, from whom one professes to be able to give communications to the living. This pretended commerce with the spirits of the dead has been common enough in heathenism always, and it is not strange to find it mentioned here, when Israel was to be in so intimate relations with heathen peoples. But it is truly must extraordinary that in Christian lands, as especially in the United States of America, and that in the full light, religious and intellectual, of the last half of the nineteenth century, such a prohibition should be fully as pertinent as in Israe! For no words could more precisely describe the pretensions of the so-called modern spiritualism, which within the last half century has led away hum]reds of thousands of deluded souls, and those, in many cases, not from the ignorant and degraded, but from circles which boast of more than average culture and intellectual enlightenment. And inasmuch as experience sadly shows that even those who profess to be disciples of Christ are in danger of being led away by our modern wizards and traffickers with familiar spirits, it is by no means unnecessary to observe that there is not the slightest reason to believe that this which was rigidly forbidden by God in the fifteenth century B.C., can now be well-pleasing to Him in the nineteenth century A.D. And those who have most carefully watched the moral developments of this latter-day delusion will most appreciate the added phrase which speaks of this as defiling a man. (S. H. Kellogg, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 the dead or with spirits
the dead or with spirits
Possible meanings are 1) that "the dead" and "spirits" are two different things or 2) that this is a doublet that means "the spirits of dead people." (See: Doublet)
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Do not seek them out, or they will defile you
"Do not seek those people out. If you do, they will defile you"
translationWords
turn
die
defile
Yahweh
God
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 19:31 mediums: Cp. 1 Sam 28:7-25. • The Hebrew…
19:31 mediums: Cp. 1 Sam 28:7-25. • The Hebrew term for consult the spirits (yidde‘oni) is derived from a root meaning “to know.” It describes those who claim to have special occult knowledge and use it to communicate with the dead.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.