With regard to the teraphim which Rachel took with her when Jacob fled from her father, there is not much that can be said. Figures so called were in common use among the Jews and other nations for purposes of magic, and to all appearance they were statues of deities (as indicated in the passage now under consideration) which were consulted by some means when anything of importance was about to be undertaken. To all appearance they were the household gods, like the Lares and Penates of the Romans, though they were also used when on expeditions, as when Nebuchadnezzar is represented (Ezekiel xxi. 21-26 in the Heb.) standing at the parting of the ways to use divination, shaking arrows to and fro, consulting the teraphim, and looking at a liver to decide what his success in the operations which he was about to undertake against Jerusalem would be. In Zechariah x. 2 also, there is a reference to the teraphim, which, as oracles, had “spoken vanity,” and the diviners had “seen a lie.” Little doubt exists, therefore, as to what these things were used for. With regard to their form, it is supposed that they were similar to the small figures found in the ruins of the ancient palaces of Assyria, generally under the pavement, in all probability images of the gods of Assyria who, by their effigies, were supposed to protect the palace and its inhabitants. Some of these are four-winged figures similar to those found on the bas-reliefs, whilst others are representations of a deity, probably the god Êa or Aê, the god of the sea, who is represented clothed with a fish’s skin, etc. The size of these teraphim must have differed greatly; that which was placed in David’s bed by Michal, his wife, to deceive Saul’s messengers, must necessarily have been of considerable height—probably not much under that of a man. Those hidden by Rachel when her father came to look for them, however, must have been comparatively small, and the figures found in the foundations of the Assyrian palaces rarely measure more than six inches in height. In the light of what this incident of the teraphim reveals, it is not to be wondered at that Jacob, when about to go up to Bethel from Shechem, after the treacherous spoiling of the city by his sons, should have said, “Put away the strange gods that are among you,” and it shows also a considerable amount of tolerance on the part of the patriarch. Did he, too, believe that the gods which his relatives and dependents worshipped were in any sense divine beings? In any case, it is to be noted that, after they were given to him, he did not destroy them, but hid them, with the trinkets which they possessed—in all probability in many cases heathen emblems—under the terebinth-tree which was by Shechem. To all appearance they were allowed to keep these strange gods and heathen emblems until they set out on the journey to make the commanded sacrifices to the God who had revealed Himself to Jacob at Bethel.