Teks -- Exodus 22:18 (NET)

22:18 “You must not allow a sorceress to live.

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Wesley: Exo 22:18

Witchcraft not only gives that honour to the devil which is due to God alone, but bids defiance to the divine providence, wages war with God's government, puts his work into the devil's hand expecting him to do good and evil. By our law, consulting, covenanting with, invocating or employing any evil spirit to any intent whatever, and exercising any enchantment, charm, or sorcery, whereby hurt shall be done to any person, is made felony, without benefit of clergy; also pretending to tell where goods lost or stolen may be found, is an iniquity punishable by the judge, and the second offence with death. This was the case in former times.

Wesley: Exo 22:18 - But we are wiser than our fore

fathers. We believe, no witch ever did live! At least, not for these thousand years.

Clarke: Exo 22:18 - Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live

Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live - If there had been no witches, such a law as this had never been made. The existence of the law, given under the direction of the Spirit of God, proves the existence of the thing. It has been doubted whether מכשפה mecash -shephah , which we translate witch, really means a person who practiced divination or sorcery by spiritual or infernal agency. Whether the persons thus denominated only pretended to have an art which had no existence, or whether they really possessed the power commonly attributed to them, are questions which it would be improper to discuss at length in a work of this kind; but that witches, wizards, those who dealt with familiar spirits, etc., are represented in the sacred writings as actually possessing a power to evoke the dead, to perform, supernatural operations, and to discover hidden or secret things by spells, charms, incantations, etc., is evident to every unprejudiced reader of the Bible. Of Manasseh it is said: He caused his children to pass through the fire in the valley of the son of Hinnom: also he observed times [ ועונן, veonen , he used divination by clouds] and used enchantments, and used witchcraft, [ וכשף vechishsheph ], and dealt with a familiar spirit, [ ועשה אוב veasah ob , performed a variety of operations by means of what was afterwards called the πνευμα πυθωνος, the spirit of Python], and with wizards, [ ידעוני yiddeoni , the wise or knowing ones]; and he wrought much evil in the sight of the Lord; 2Ch 33:6. It is very likely that the Hebrew כשף cashaph , and the Arabic cashafa , had originally the same meaning, to uncover, to remove a veil, to manifest, reveal, make bare or naked; and mecashefat is used to signify commerce with God. See Wilmet and Giggeius. The mecashshephah or witch, therefore, was probably a person who professed to reveal hidden mysteries, by commerce with God, or the invisible world

From the severity of this law against witches, etc., we may see in what light these were viewed by Divine justice. They were seducers of the people from their allegiance to God, on whose judgment alone they should depend; and by impiously prying into futurity, assumed an attribute of God, the foretelling of future events, which implied in itself the grossest blasphemy, and tended to corrupt the minds of the people, by leading them away from God and the revelation he had made of himself. Many of the Israelites had, no doubt, learned these curious arts from their long residence with the Egyptians; and so much were the Israelites attached to them, that we find such arts in repute among them, and various practices of this kind prevailed through the whole of the Jewish history, notwithstanding the offense was capital, and in all cases punished with death.

Calvin: Exo 22:18 - Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live

18.Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live In these passages the punishment of those is appointed who should in any respect violate the worship of God. We have lately seen how severely God avenged apostasy from the faith; but now He touches upon certain particular points when religion is not professedly forsaken, but some corruption is introduced, whereby its purity is affected. The first passage denounces capital punishment upon witches; by which name Moses means enchantresses, or sorceresses, who devote themselves to magic arts, either to injure persons by their fascinations, or to seek revelations from the devil; such as she was whom Saul consulted, although she might be called by a different name ⁶⁵ Since such illusions carry with them a wicked renunciation of God, no wonder that He would have them punished with death. But since this pestilent crime would be no more tolerable in a man than a woman, it has been probably supposed that the law was directed against women, because their sex is more disposed to superstition. Certainly the same enactment is made respecting males in Deu 18:1, ⁶⁶ only the punishment is not there denounced, but God merely prohibits any of the people from being an enchanter or a witch. Now it is clear that all the kinds which are there recited, are here included under one; so that God would condemn to capital punishment all augurs, and magicians, and consulters with familiar spirits, and necromancers and followers of magic arts, as well as enchanters. And this will appear more plainly from the second and third passages, in which God declares that He “will set. His face against all, that shall turn after such as have familiar spirits, and after wizards,” so as to cut them off from His people; and then commands that they should be destroyed by stoning. Wherefore, since it is not just that men should escape with impunity, when the infirmity of women is not spared, nor that dissimilar sentences should be pronounced in similar cases, the same punishment which was decreed against witches and enchantresses, is now extended to either sex, and to all magical superstitions. In the words also “that turneth to go a whoring,” the atrocity of the crime is again expressed, the similitude being taken from immodest women, who seek with wandering glances for the indulgence of their lust. Moses, therefore, signifies that, as soon as we begin to cast our eyes this way and that, and do not keep them fixed on God alone so as to be content with Him, that sacred union ⁶⁷ is violated wherein He has bound us to Himself.

TSK: Exo 22:18

Lev 19:26, Lev 19:31, Lev 20:6, Lev 20:27; Deu 18:10, Deu 18:11; 1Sa 28:3, 1Sa 28:9; Isa 19:3; Act 8:9-11; Act 16:16-19, Act 19:19; Gal 5:20; Rev 22:15

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Poole: Exo 22:18

i.e. Any person that is in league with the devil, and by his help either doth any mischief, or discovers and practices things above the reach of other men or women. Of which see Exo 7:11 Lev 20:27 Deu 18:10 1Sa 28:9 . The word is of the feminine gender, partly because women are most prone to these devilish arts, and most frequently guilty of them; and partly to intimate that no pity should be showed to such offenders, though they were of the weaker sex.

Haydock: Exo 22:18 - Wizards

Wizards. Hebrew, "a witch." Women are more given to such delusions, which imply an apostacy from God to serve the devil, and disturb the republic.

Gill: Exo 22:18 - Thou shall not suffer a witch to live.

Thou shall not suffer a witch to live. Such that had familiar spirits, and conversed with them, and by means thereof got knowledge of many things relating to persons, at least pretending they did; and who did or seemed to do many strange and surprising feats, as even to raise the spirits of departed persons, to converse with them and gain knowledge by them, though in reality they did not, and could not do such things, but used some juggling tricks to deceive the people, and in which they might be assisted by evil spirits; as appears from the case of the witch of Endor, who was surprised at the appearance of Samuel, it being out of the ordinary course of her art and practice really to bring up the spirit of a man deceased, whatever pretensions might be made to it; however, such being deceivers of the people, and leading them into unwarrantable practices, and off of a dependence on God and his providence, and from seeking to him, and asking counsel of him, they are by this law condemned to death, such an one was not to be suffered to live; not that it was lawful for anybody to kill her, or that any private person might or must do it that knew her, or took her to be a witch; but she was to be had before a court of judicature and tried there, and, if found guilty, to be put to death by the civil magistrate: so Jarchi's note is,"but she shall die by the house of judgment;''or the sanhedrim; for these words are spoken to Moses the chief judge, and to those that were under him, and succeeded him and them; though the Targum of Jonathan prefaces them thus:"and my people, the children of Israel, thou shalt not, &c.''and though only a witch is mentioned, or this is only expressed in the feminine gender, because a multitude of this sort of people were found among women, as Ben Melech observes, and so Aben Ezra; yet wizards, or men that dealt with familiar spirits, are included; and it may be reasonably concluded from hence, that if women, who generally have more mercy and compassion shown them, yet were not suffered to live when found criminal in this way, then much less men: and this law is thought by some to follow upon the other, concerning enticing and lying with a virgin not betrothed; because such sort of persons were made use of to entice and decoy maids to gratify the lusts of men.