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the Week of Proper 8 / Ordinary 13
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Read the Bible

New King James Version

Leviticus 19:31

"Give no regard to mediums and familiar spirits; do not seek after them, to be defiled by them: I am the LORD your God.

Bible Study Resources

Concordances:

- Nave's Topical Bible - Familiar Spirits;   Sorcery;   Witchcraft;   Thompson Chain Reference - Fortune Telling;   Magic;   Witchcraft;   The Topic Concordance - Paganism;   Seeking;   Torrey's Topical Textbook - Defilement;   Divination;  

Dictionaries:

- American Tract Society Bible Dictionary - Divination;   Magic;   Bridgeway Bible Dictionary - Weights;   Baker Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology - Clean, Unclean;   Magic;   Necromancy;   Charles Buck Theological Dictionary - Magic;   Easton Bible Dictionary - Divination;   Familiar Spirit;   Magic;   Wizard;   Fausset Bible Dictionary - Divination;   Gaal;   Law;   Saul;   Holman Bible Dictionary - Crimes and Punishments;   Ethics;   Leviticus;   Pentateuch;   Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible - Canon of the Old Testament;   Congregation, Assembly;   Crimes and Punishments;   Death;   Deuteronomy;   Hexateuch;   Holiness;   Law;   Magic, Divination, and Sorcery;   Priests and Levites;   Sanctification, Sanctify;   Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament - Peter;   People's Dictionary of the Bible - Magic;   Witch and wizard;   Smith Bible Dictionary - Law of Moses;   Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary - Magician;  

Encyclopedias:

- International Standard Bible Encyclopedia - Communion with Demons;   Decease, in the Old Testament and Apocyphra;   Divide;   Enchantment;   En-Dor, Witch of;   Familiar;   Law in the Old Testament;   Prophecy;   The Jewish Encyclopedia - AḥiḴar;   Commandments, the 613;   Divination;   Necromancy;   Witchcraft;  

Parallel Translations

Hebrew Names Version
Don't turn to those who have familiar spirits, nor to the wizards; don't seek them out, to be defiled by them: I am the LORD your God.
King James Version
Regard not them that have familiar spirits, neither seek after wizards, to be defiled by them: I am the Lord your God.
Lexham English Bible
"‘You shall not turn to the mediums and to the soothsayers; you shall not seek them to become unclean with them; I am Yahweh your God.
New Century Version
"‘Do not go to mediums or fortune-tellers for advice, or you will become unclean. I am the Lord your God.
New English Translation
Do not turn to the spirits of the dead and do not seek familiar spirits to become unclean by them. I am the Lord your God.
Amplified Bible
'Do not turn to mediums [who pretend to consult the dead] or to spiritists [who have spirits of divination]; do not seek them out to be defiled by them. I am the LORD your God.
New American Standard Bible
'Do not turn to mediums or spiritists; do not seek them out to be defiled by them. I am the LORD your God.
Geneva Bible (1587)
Ye shall not regarde them that worke with spirites, neither soothsayers: ye shall not seeke to them to be defiled by them: I am the Lorde your God.
Legacy Standard Bible
‘Do not turn to mediums or spiritists; do not seek them out to be defiled by them. I am Yahweh your God.
Contemporary English Version
Don't make yourselves disgusting to me by going to people who claim they can talk to the dead.
Complete Jewish Bible
"‘Do not turn to spirit-mediums or sorcerers; don't seek them out, to be defiled by them; I am Adonai your God.
Darby Translation
—Turn not unto necromancers and unto soothsayers; seek not after them to make yourselves unclean: I am Jehovah your God.
Easy-to-Read Version
"Do not go to mediums or wizards for advice—they will only make you unclean. I am the Lord your God.
English Standard Version
"Do not turn to mediums or necromancers; do not seek them out, and so make yourselves unclean by them: I am the Lord your God.
George Lamsa Translation
You shall not go after diviners, neither after the soothsayers, nor shall you consult them to be defiled by them; I am the LORD your God.
Good News Translation
"Do not go for advice to people who consult the spirits of the dead. If you do, you will be ritually unclean. I am the Lord your God.
Christian Standard Bible®
“Do not turn to mediums or consult spiritists, or you will be defiled by them; I am the Lord your God.
Literal Translation
You shall not turn to mediums, and you shall not seek to spirit-knowers to be defiled by them; I am Jehovah your God.
Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
Ye shal not turne yor selues to ye Soythsayers, and axe nothinge at the expounders of tokes, that ye be not defyled by them: for I am the LORDE youre God.
American Standard Version
Turn ye not unto them that have familiar spirits, nor unto the wizards; seek them not out, to be defiled by them: I am Jehovah your God.
Bible in Basic English
Do not go after those who make use of spirits, or wonder-workers; do not go in their ways or become unclean through them: I am the Lord your God.
Bishop's Bible (1568)
Ye shall not regarde them that worke with spirites, neither seeke after soothsayers to be defiled by them: I am the Lorde your God.
JPS Old Testament (1917)
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.
King James Version (1611)
Regard not them that haue familiar spirits, neither seeke after Wizards, to be defiled by them: I am the Lord your God.
Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
Ye shall not attend to those who have in them divining spirits, nor attach yourselves to enchanters, to pollute yourselves with them: I am the Lord your God.
English Revised Version
Turn ye not unto them that have familiar spirits, nor unto the wizards; seek them not out, to be defiled by them: I am the LORD your God.
Berean Standard Bible
You must not turn to mediums or spiritists; do not seek them out, or you will be defiled by them. I am the LORD your God.
Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Bowe ye not to astronomyers, nether axe ye ony thing of fals dyuynours, that ye be defoulid bi hem; Y am youre Lord God.
Young's Literal Translation
`Ye do not turn unto those having familiar spirits; and unto wizards ye do not seek, for uncleanness by them; I [am] Jehovah your God.
Update Bible Version
Do not turn to the spiritists or to the wizards; do not seek them out, to be defiled by them: I am Yahweh your God.
Webster's Bible Translation
Regard not them that have familiar spirits, neither seek after wizards, to be defiled by them: I [am] the LORD your God.
World English Bible
Don't turn to those who have familiar spirits, nor to the wizards; don't seek them out, to be defiled by them: I am Yahweh your God.
New Living Translation
"Do not defile yourselves by turning to mediums or to those who consult the spirits of the dead. I am the Lord your God.
New Life Bible
‘Do not ask what you should do from those who speak with bad spirits or talk to the dead. Do not find them or you will be unclean. I am the Lord your God.
New Revised Standard
Do not turn to mediums or wizards; do not seek them out, to be defiled by them: I am the Lord your God.
J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
Do not turn unto mediums, Nor, for oracles, make search, To render yourselves unclean with them, I - Yahweh, am your God.
Douay-Rheims Bible
Go not aside after wizards: neither ask any thing of soothsayers, to be defiled by them. I am the Lord your God.
Revised Standard Version
"Do not turn to mediums or wizards; do not seek them out, to be defiled by them: I am the LORD your God.
THE MESSAGE
"Don't dabble in the occult or traffic with mediums; you'll pollute your souls. I am God , your God.
New American Standard Bible (1995)
'Do not turn to mediums or spiritists; do not seek them out to be defiled by them. I am the LORD your God.

Contextual Overview

30 "You shall keep My Sabbaths and reverence My sanctuary: I am the LORD. 31 "Give no regard to mediums and familiar spirits; do not seek after them, to be defiled by them: I am the LORD your God. 32 "You shall rise before the gray headed and honor the presence of an old man, and fear your God: I am the LORD. 33 "And if a stranger dwells with you in your land, you shall not mistreat him. 34 The stranger who dwells among you shall be to you as one born among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God. 35 "You shall do no injustice in judgment, in measurement of length, weight, or volume. 36 You shall have honest scales, honest weights, an honest ephah, and an honest hin: I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt. 37 "Therefore you shall observe all My statutes and all My judgments, and perform them: I am the LORD."'

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

Leviticus 19:26, Leviticus 20:6, Leviticus 20:7, Leviticus 20:27, Exodus 22:18, Deuteronomy 18:10-14, 1 Samuel 28:3, 1 Samuel 28:7-9, 2 Kings 17:17, 2 Kings 21:6, 1 Chronicles 10:13, 2 Chronicles 33:6, Isaiah 8:19, Isaiah 29:4, Isaiah 47:13, Acts 8:11, Acts 13:6-8, Acts 16:16-18, Acts 19:19, Acts 19:20, Galatians 5:20, Revelation 21:8

Reciprocal: Genesis 41:8 - the magicians of Egypt 2 Kings 23:24 - that he might Isaiah 2:6 - and are

Cross-References

Genesis 4:1
Luke 11:51; Hebrews 11:4; 12:24">[xr] Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, and said, "I have acquired a man from the LORD."
Genesis 6:4
There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.
Genesis 16:2
So Sarai said to Abram, "See now, the LORD has restrained me from bearing children. Please, go in to my maid; perhaps I shall obtain children by her." And Abram heeded the voice of Sarai.
Genesis 16:4
So he went in to Hagar, and she conceived. And when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress became despised in her eyes.
Genesis 19:8
See now, I have two daughters who have not known a man; please, let me bring them out to you, and you may do to them as you wish; only do nothing to these men, since this is the reason they have come under the shadow of my roof."
Genesis 19:9
And they said, "Stand back!" Then they said, "This one came in to stay here, and he keeps acting as a judge; now we will deal worse with you than with them." So they pressed hard against the man Lot, and came near to break down the door.
Genesis 19:14
So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who had married his daughters, and said, "Get up, get out of this place; for the LORD will destroy this city!" But to his sons-in-law he seemed to be joking.
Genesis 19:28
Then he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain; and he saw, and behold, the smoke of the land which went up like the smoke of a furnace.
Genesis 19:30
Then Lot went up out of Zoar and dwelt in the mountains, and his two daughters were with him; for he was afraid to dwell in Zoar. And he and his two daughters dwelt in a cave.
Deuteronomy 25:5
"If brothers dwell together, and one of them dies and has no son, the widow of the dead man shall not be married to a stranger outside the family; her husband's brother shall go in to her, take her as his wife, and perform the duty of a husband's brother to her.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

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,

Acts 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:

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 Isaiah 8:19.

n אל תפנו אל האבת "ne respiciatis ad Pythonas", Montanus; so Junius & Tremellius, Piscator. o Misn. Sanhedrin, c. 7. sect. 7. p lbid.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The devotion of faith, which would manifest itself in obedience to the commandment to keep God’s Sabbaths and to reverence His sanctuary Leviticus 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 Isaiah 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 1 Samuel 28:7-8.

Wizard - A word equivalent to “a knowing man”, or, “a cunning man”.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

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 Leviticus 16:16; Leviticus 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

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. Exodus 22:18.


 
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