The learned Cornelius à Lapide glossing on Genesis xxxi writes: “Idola, _teraphim_ quod significat statuæ humanæ siue humaneas formas habentes ut patet, I. Reg. xix.” The allusion is to the deception practised by Michal on Saul’s messengers, when putting one of the teraphim in bed and covering it with quilts she pretended it was David who lay sick. “Secundo,” continues à Lapide, “nomen _theraphim_ non appropriatum est in eas statuas, quæ opera dæmonorum deposci debent, ut patet Judicum, xviii, 18,” the reference being to the history of Micas. Calvin very absurdly says: “Theraphim sunt imagines quales habent papistæ.” Spencer[34] is of opinion that these teraphim were small images or figures, and the point seems conclusively settled by S. Jerome, who in his twenty-ninth Epistle, _De Ephod et Teraphim_, quotes 1 Kings xix. 15, and uses “figuras siue figurationes” to translate μορφώματα of Aquila of Pontus. This writer was the author of a Greek version of the Old Testament published _circa_ A.D. 128. About eight years before he seems to have been expelled from the Christian community, by whom he was regarded as an adept in magic. The work of Aquila, who studied in the school of Rabbi Akiba, the founder of Rabbinical Judaism, is said by S. Jerome to have attained such exactitude that it was a good dictionary to furnish the meaning of the obscurer Hebrew words. The Targum of Jonathan commenting upon Genesis xxxi. 19, puts forward the singular view that the teraphim, concealed by Rachel, consisted of a mummified human head.