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In Genesis 31, Rachel hides her father’s household idols in her camel’s saddle to evade Laban. 1 Samuel 19 echoes this moment when Michal places the same kind of idol under a goat-hair cover in David’s bed to deceive Saul’s messengers.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Genesis 31:19
Hebrew Bible
18 He took away all the livestock he had acquired in Paddan Aram and all his moveable property that he had accumulated. Then he set out toward the land of Canaan to return to his father Isaac. 19 While Laban had gone to shear his sheep, Rachel stole the household idols that belonged to her father. 20 Jacob also deceived Laban the Aramean by not telling him that he was leaving.
1 Samuel 19:13
Hebrew Bible
12 So Michal lowered David through the window, and he ran away and escaped. 13 Then Michal took a household idol and put it on the bed. She put a quilt made of goats’ hair over its head and then covered the idol with a garment. 14 When Saul sent messengers to arrest David, she said, “He’s sick.”
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Notes and References
... The term tĕrāpîm itself appears 15 times in the Old Testament. Genesis 31:19, 34, and 35 speak clearly of tĕrāpîm as small-scale cultic objects: Rachel steals and hides her father’s tĕrāpîm in her saddlebag or under the saddle-cloth. In Judges 17:4-5, Micah makes two ritual objects for the newly founded sanctuary. The first is the ʾepōd, the second the tĕrāpîm. Both belong together with the pesel ūmassēkāh as objects necessary for the sanctuary (see also Judges 18:14, 17, 18, and 20). 1 Samuel 15:23 is a Deuteronomistic polemic against certain forms of religious practice. The tĕrāpîm are here mentioned in the context of qōsēm "divination." 1 Samuel 19:8-24 describes David’s escape from Saul’s men. To help her husband to escape, Michal, in 1 Samuel 19:13, 16, puts a cloth-covered tĕrāpîm in the bed, along with a wig of goat’s hair, saying her husband is lying sick in bed ...
Albertz, Rainer and Rüdiger Schmitt
Family and Household Religion in Ancient Israel and the Levant
(pp. 60-61) Eisenbrauns, 2012
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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