the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
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Bible Dictionaries
Witch and Wizard
People's Dictionary of the Bible
or Witch and Wizard. Exodus 22:18, in the R. V., "sorceress." Leviticus 19:31; Leviticus 20:6; Leviticus 20:27; Deuteronomy 18:11; 1 Samuel 28:3; 1 Samuel 28:9; 2 Kings 23:24; 2 Chronicles 33:6; Isaiah 8:19; Isaiah 19:3. The witch of Endor was widely known as "one that had a familiar spirit," and was thereby professedly able to consult souls from the spirit world. Witchcraft was therefore a pretended converse with demons and the spirits of the departed. To this the ancient witches joined the arts of fortune-telling and divining. Their unlawful arts were akin to the others forbidden in Deuteronomy 18:10-11 : "There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times or an enchanter or a witch [R. V. "sorcerer"] or a charmer or a consulter with familiar spirits or a wizard or a necromancer." Superstition was prevalent in the East in the days of Moses, and continues to be so now.
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Rice, Edwin Wilbur, DD. Entry for 'Witch and Wizard'. People's Dictionary of the Bible. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/rpd/w/witch-and-wizard.html. 1893.
