Deuteronomy 18:10

Hebrew Bible

8 He must eat the same share they do, despite any profits he may gain from the sale of his family’s inheritance. 9 When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, you must not learn the abhorrent practices of those nations. 10 There must never be found among you anyone who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, anyone who practices divination, an omen reader, a soothsayer, a sorcerer, 11 one who casts spells, one who conjures up spirits, a practitioner of the occult, or a necromancer. 12 Whoever does these things is abhorrent to the Lord, and because of these detestable things the Lord your God is about to drive them out from before you.

2 Kings 21:6

Hebrew Bible

4 He built altars in the Lord’s temple, about which the Lord had said, “Jerusalem will be my home.” 5 In the two courtyards of the Lord’s temple he built altars for all the stars in the sky. 6 He passed his son through the fire and practiced divination and omen reading. He set up a ritual pit to conjure up underworld spirits and appointed magicians to supervise it. He did a great amount of evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger. 7 He put an idol of Asherah he had made in the temple, about which the Lord had said to David and to his son Solomon, “This temple in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, will be my permanent home. 8 I will not make Israel again leave the land I gave to their ancestors, provided that they carefully obey all I commanded them, the whole law my servant Moses ordered them to obey.”

 Notes and References

"... The verb ('divination') is used only twice in the present Deuteronomistic history, here and 2 Kings 21:6. In this latter passage is also found the rare expression which is repeated in the account of Josiah's reform at 23:24, a secondary passage about which more will be said below. This latter phrase is also found in 1 Samuel 28:3 and 9, where it is noted that Saul expelled diviners. Verse 9 is an integral part of the historian's source, the Saul story, while verse 3 is an editorial introduction dependent upon it, probably by the historian himself. Thus this expression is not really characteristic of the historian at all, only copied for a limited editorial purpose. The exilic editor, on the other hand, seems to have been deeply impressed by Deuteronomy 18:10, perhaps because of the popularity of divination among the neo-Babylonians. Upon this passage is based both the general accusation against Israel in 2 Kings 17:17 and the more specific one against Manasseh in 21:6 ..."

Nelson, Richard D. The Double Redaction of the Deuteronomistic History (pp. 59-60) JSOT Press, 1981

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