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Read the Bible
King James Version
Exodus 22:18
Bible Study Resources
Concordances:
- Nave'sDictionaries:
- AmericanEncyclopedias:
- CondensedParallel Translations
—Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.
"You must not allow any woman to do evil magic. If she does magic, you must not let her live.
"You shall not allow a sorceress to live.
Whosoever lieth with a beast shall surely be put to death.
Any woman using unnatural powers or secret arts is to be put to death.
Thou shalt not suffer a witche to lyue.
Thou shalt not suffer a witch to liue.
You shall not suffer a witch to live.
"Put to death any woman who practices magic.
Ye shall not save the lives of sorcerers.
Thou shalt not suffer a sorceress to live.
You must not allow a sorceress to live.
"You shall not allow a woman who practices sorcery to live.
Death is the punishment for witchcraft.
A sorceress, shalt thou not suffer to live.
"‘You will not let a witch live.
Thou shalt not suffer a sorceress to live.
Thou shalt not suffer a witch to liue.
"Don't let a sorceress live.
"Do not allow a sorceress to live.
"You shall not allow a sorceress to live.
"You must not allow a sorceress to live.
"Do not allow a sorceress to live.
"You shall not permit a sorceress to live.
"You must not allow a sorceress to live.
You shall not allow a sorceress to live.
Thou shalt not suffre a witch to lyue.
Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.
"You shall not allow a sorceress to live.
Wizards thou shalt not suffer to live.
"You shall not permit a sorceress to live.
You shall not allow a witch to live.
"Do not allow a woman to live who does witchcraft.
You shall not permit a female sorcerer to live.
"Put to death any woman who does evil magic.
"Whoever has sexual relations with an animal must be put to death.
"You must not allow a sorceress to live.
"You shall not permit a sorceress to live.
Thou schalt not suffre witchis to lyue.
`A witch thou dost not keep alive.
"You shall not allow a sorceress to live.
Contextual Overview
Bible Verse Review
from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge
Leviticus 19:26, Leviticus 19:31, Leviticus 20:6, Leviticus 20:27, Deuteronomy 18:10, Deuteronomy 18:11, 1 Samuel 28:3, 1 Samuel 28:9, Isaiah 19:3, Acts 8:9-11, Acts 16:16-19, Acts 19:19, Galatians 5:20, Revelation 22:15
Reciprocal: 1 Samuel 15:23 - witchcraft 1 Chronicles 10:13 - a familiar Isaiah 2:6 - and are Acts 13:6 - certain
Cross-References
Seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him?
And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am.
And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him.
Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off.
And Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the ass; and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you.
And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together.
And they came to the place which God had told him of; and Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood.
And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son.
Wherefore the Lord God of Israel saith, I said indeed that thy house, and the house of thy father, should walk before me for ever: but now the Lord saith, Be it far from me; for them that honour me I will honour, and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed.
His name shall endure for ever: his name shall be continued as long as the sun: and men shall be blessed in him: all nations shall call him blessed.
Gill's Notes on the Bible
Thou shall not suffer a witch to live. Such that had familiar spirits, and conversed with them, and by means thereof got knowledge of many things relating to persons, at least pretending they did; and who did or seemed to do many strange and surprising feats, as even to raise the spirits of departed persons, to converse with them and gain knowledge by them, though in reality they did not, and could not do such things, but used some juggling tricks to deceive the people, and in which they might be assisted by evil spirits; as appears from the case of the witch of Endor, who was surprised at the appearance of Samuel, it being out of the ordinary course of her art and practice really to bring up the spirit of a man deceased, whatever pretensions might be made to it; however, such being deceivers of the people, and leading them into unwarrantable practices, and off of a dependence on God and his providence, and from seeking to him, and asking counsel of him, they are by this law condemned to death, such an one was not to be suffered to live; not that it was lawful for anybody to kill her, or that any private person might or must do it that knew her, or took her to be a witch; but she was to be had before a court of judicature and tried there, and, if found guilty, to be put to death by the civil magistrate: so Jarchi's note is,
"but she shall die by the house of judgment;''
or the sanhedrim; for these words are spoken to Moses the chief judge, and to those that were under him, and succeeded him and them; though the Targum of Jonathan prefaces them thus:
"and my people, the children of Israel, thou shalt not, c.''
and though only a witch is mentioned, or this is only expressed in the feminine gender, because a multitude of this sort of people were found among women, as Ben Melech observes, and so Aben Ezra yet wizards, or men that dealt with familiar spirits, are included; and it may be reasonably concluded from hence, that if women, who generally have more mercy and compassion shown them, yet were not suffered to live when found criminal in this way, then much less men: and this law is thought by some to follow upon the other, concerning enticing and lying with a virgin not betrothed; because such sort of persons were made use of to entice and decoy maids to gratify the lusts of men.
Barnes' Notes on the Bible
Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live - See the marginal references. and Leviticus 20:27. The witch is here named to represent the class. This is the earliest denunciation of witchcraft in the law. In every form of witchcraft there is an appeal to a power not acting in subordination to the divine law. From all such notions and tendencies true worship is designed to deliver us. The practice of witchcraft was therefore an act of rebellion against Yahweh, and, as such, was a capital crime. The passages bearing on the subject in the Prophets, as well as those in the law, carry a lesson for all ages. Isaiah 8:19; Isaiah 19:3; Isaiah 44:25; Isaiah 47:12-13; Micah 5:12, etc.
Clarke's Notes on the Bible
Verse Exodus 22:18. Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. — If there had been no witches, such a law as this had never been made. The existence of the law, given under the direction of the Spirit of God, proves the existence of the thing. It has been doubted whether מכשפה mecash-shephah, which we translate witch, really means a person who practised divination or sorcery by spiritual or infernal agency. Whether the persons thus denominated only pretended to have an art which had no existence, or whether they really possessed the power commonly attributed to them, are questions which it would be improper to discuss at length in a work of this kind; but that witches, wizards, those who dealt with familiar spirits, c., are represented in the sacred writings as actually possessing a power to evoke the dead, to perform, supernatural operations, and to discover hidden or secret things by spells, charms, incantations, c., is evident to every unprejudiced reader of the Bible. Of Manasseh it is said: He caused his children to pass through the fire in the valley of the son of Hinnom: also he observed times [ועונן, veonen, he used divination by clouds] and used enchantments, and used witchcraft, [וכשף vechishsheph,] and dealt with a familiar spirit, [ועשה אוב veasah ob, performed a variety of operations by means of what was afterwards called the πνευμα πυθωνος, the spirit of Python,] and with wizards, [ידעוני yiddeoni, the wise or knowing ones] and he wrought much evil in the sight of the Lord 2 Chronicles 33:6. It is very likely that the Hebrew כשף cashaph, and the Arabic [Arabic] cashafa, had originally the same meaning, to uncover, to remove a veil, to manifest, reveal, make bare or naked; and [Arabic] mecashefat is used to signify commerce with God. See Wilmet and Giggeius. The mecashshephah or witch, therefore, was probably a person who professed to reveal hidden mysteries, by commerce with God, or the invisible world.
From the severity of this law against witches, c., we may see in what light these were viewed by Divine justice. They were seducers of the people from their allegiance to God, on whose judgment alone they should depend and by impiously prying into futurity, assumed an attribute of God, the foretelling of future events, which implied in itself the grossest blasphemy, and tended to corrupt the minds of the people, by leading them away from God and the revelation he had made of himself. Many of the Israelites had, no doubt, learned these curious arts from their long residence with the Egyptians; and so much were the Israelites attached to them, that we find such arts in repute among them, and various practices of this kind prevailed through the whole of the Jewish history, notwithstanding the offence was capital, and in all cases punished with death.
