Science and scepticism having made Christians ashamed of this biblical doctrine, as usual they have sought a new interpretation. They say it is a mistranslation; that _poisoners_ are meant, and not _witches_. Now, in the first place, poisoners were really dealt with by the command, "Thou shalt not kill." In the second place, not a single Hebrew scholar of repute would venture to so render the word of our text. Its root, translated "witch," is given by Gesenius as "to use enchantment." Fuerst, Parkhurst, Frey, Newman, Buxtorf, in short, all Hebrew lexicographers, agree. Not one suggests that "poisoner" could be considered an equivalent. The derivatives of this word are translated with this meaning wherever they occur. Thus Exodus vii. 11, "the wise men and the sorcerers." Deuteronomy xviii., 10,11, "There shalt not be found among you anyone that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard or a necromancer." 2 Kings ix. 22, "her witchcrafts." 2 Chronicles xxxiii. 6, Manesseh "used enchantments, and used witchcraft, and dealt with a familiar spirit and with wizards." Isaiah xlvii. 9 and 12, "thy sorceries." Jeremiah xxvii. 9, "your sorcerers." Daniel ii. 2, "the magicians, and the astrologers, and the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans." Micah v. 12, "And I will cut off witchcrafts, and thou shalt have no soothsayers." Nahum iii. 4, "witchcrafts." Malachi iii. 5, "I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers." The only pretence for this rendering of _poisoner_ is the fact that Josephus (_Antiquities_, bk. iv., ch. viii., sec. 34) gives a law against keeping poisons. As there is no such law in the Pentateuch, Whiston tried to kill two difficulties with one note, by saying that what we render a _witch_ meant a poisoner. The Septuagint has also been appealed to, but Sir Charles Lee Brenton, in his translation of the Septuagint, has not thought proper to render our text other than, "Ye shall not save the lives of sorcerers." But apart from texts (of which I have only given those in which occurs one word out of the many implying the belief), the _thing_ itself is woven into the structure of the Bible. Not only do the Egyptian enchanters work miracles and the witch of Endor raise Samuel, but the power of evil spirits over men is the occasion of most of the miracles of Jesus. The very doctrine of the inspiration of the Bible, so cherished by Protestant Christians, is but a part of that doctrine of men being possessed by spirits, good and evil, which is the substratum of belief in witchcraft.