(19) Now Laban was gone to shear his sheep. And Rachel stole the teraphim that were her father’s.
(לד) וְרָחֵ֞ל לָקְחָ֣ה אֶת־הַתְּרָפִ֗ים וַתְּשִׂמֵ֛ם בְּכַ֥ר הַגָּמָ֖ל וַתֵּ֣שֶׁב עֲלֵיהֶ֑ם וַיְמַשֵּׁ֥שׁ לָבָ֛ן אֶת־כָּל־הָאֹ֖הֶל וְלֹ֥א מָצָֽא׃ (לה) וַתֹּ֣אמֶר אֶל־אָבִ֗יהָ אַל־יִ֙חַר֙ בְּעֵינֵ֣י אֲדֹנִ֔י כִּ֣י ל֤וֹא אוּכַל֙ לָק֣וּם מִפָּנֶ֔יךָ כִּי־דֶ֥רֶךְ נָשִׁ֖ים לִ֑י וַיְחַפֵּ֕שׂ וְלֹ֥א מָצָ֖א אֶת־הַתְּרָפִֽים׃
(34) Now Rachel had taken the teraphim, and put them in the saddle of the camel, and sat upon them. And Laban felt about all the tent, but found them not. (35) And she said to her father: ‘Let not my lord be angry that I cannot rise up before thee; for the manner of women is upon me.’ And he searched, but found not the teraphim.
(ב) והתרפים הם כלי הנחשת שרואין בו שעות היום ויראו בו את העתידות ופעמים רבות יכזב, וכן אמר כי התרפים דברו און (זכריה י') ונקראו בלשון רבים לפי שהוא עשוי לוחות לוחות. והחכם ראב"ע כתב כי התרפים עשוים על צורת בן אדם והיא עשויה לקבל כח עליונים וגנבה אותם רחל כדי שלא יראה בהם אביה אנה הלכו; ויעקב לא ידע בזה הדבר כמו שאמר ולא ידע יעקב, כי אם היה יודע לא היה מניח אותה לקחת מבית אביה דבר שלא מדעתו כל שכן התרפים:
(2) והתרפים, they are instruments made of copper used to tell time. It was also to consult them to divine future events, although the information forthcoming often proved false. Zecharyah 10,2 already remarks on the unreliability of Teraphim in this regard. The reason the word is in the plural mode, seeing that we speak about a single object, is because it consisted of multiple layers of tablets. According to Ibn Ezra each tablet had the face of a human being and was presumed to get inspiration from celestial regions. Rachel’s objective in stealing the Teraphim was to deny Lavan knowledge about the route Yaakov had taken when he left. Yaakov had no idea that Rachel had stolen the Teraphim as we have been told explicitly in verse 32. Had he known about it he would have prevented Rachel from carrying out such a theft. He would not even have allowed her to remove anything from her father’s house unless he had given his approval, much less the Teraphim.
(א) ותגנוב רחל את התרפים. אומר בפרקי רבי אליעזר מהו תרפים היו שוחטין אדם בכור וחותכין אותו ומולחין אותו במלח ובשמים וכותבין על טס של זהב שם רוח טומאה ומניחין אותו תחת כלי לשונו ונותנין אותו בקיר ומדליקין לפניו נר ומשתחוים לו והוא מדבר כדכתיב התרפים דברו און. ולכך גנבה אותן שלא יגידו ללבן כי ברח יעקב. א"נ נתכוונה לעקור ע"ז מבית אביה:
(1) ותגנוב רחל את התרפים, “Rachel stole the teraphim; what precisely are “teraphim”? According to Pirke de rabbi Eliezer chapter 36, they were deities that people like Lavan worshipped. How did they originate? A firstborn male human being was slaughtered; they cut off his head, salted it (to preserve it from decomposing) using both salt and oil. They inscribed on the forehead of that slain person the name of a deity such as a demon, hung it up under the tongue of the slain person on the wall, lit candles in its honour, prostrated themselves before it, and it would start speaking to the worshipper. (presumably answering questions addressed to it, like to an oracle.) These teraphim are referred to as doing this in the Book of Zecharyah 10,2: כי התרפים דברו און, “for the teraphim spoke delusions.” Rachel stole them so that they could not speak to their father and tell him that Yaakov had fled and where he was going. Not only this; she may have used the opportunity to destroy all idols in her father’s home.
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Gadd 51 (publ.1926) reads: When Nashwi [the adopter] dies, Wullu [the adoptee] shall become the ewuru [irregular heir]. If Nashwi should have a son of his own, he shall divide the estate equally with Wullu, but the son of Nashwi shall take the (house) gods of Nashwi. And if Nashwi has no son of his own, then Wullu shall take the (house) gods of Nashwi. Furthermore,he gave his daughter Nul:tuya to Wullu in marriage (II. 7-19). |
According to Moshe Greenberg (publ. 1962, "Rachel Theft of the Teraphim")
What Gadd 51 (and related documents) signifies is that bequeathal of the household gods determines somethingnamely, the paterfamilias. Possession is legally significant only to the extent that it
may create a presumption in favor of the possessor that he has gotten the gods by
bequest; but that presumption would appear to depend entirely on the circumstances of
the possession.
The precise connection of the gods with the paterfamilias is not stated in our documents. It is reasonable to suppose that, as in classical antiquity, the paterfamilias was the head of the domestic cult; hence it was he who "too)c" - i. e., was charged with the service of - the house gods. To be sure this is never said in our sources, but that may be due to the socio-economic and legal character of the Nuzi texts; they shed only oblique light (as here) on the inner religious life of the Nuzians.
Josephus - Ant. 18,9,5, [The passage is part of the account of the adventures of the brothers Asineus and Anileus, Babylonian Jewish soldiers of fortune, who, with a band of desperadoes, terrorized the Babylonian countryside for some fifteen years (about 18-33 C.E.). The brothers eventually fell out over a woman: here is the beginning of that story:]
The trouble arose when they met a certain Parthian, who had arrived as commander
in those regions. . .. He was accompanied by his wife, whose praises were sung beyond all other women for other qualities, yet it was her marvellous beauty that gave her most effective control over him.... Anilaeus became at once her lover. . .. Therefore, her husband was at once declared an enemy and forced into a battle, in which he fell. After he had been slain, his widow was captured and became the wife of her passionate wooer. Nevertheless, she did not enter the family without a train of great disasters, of which I shall relate the occasion ... When, after the death of her husband, she had been taken captive, she took along the ancestral images of the gods belonging to her husband and to herself - for it is the custom among all the people in that country to have objects of worship in their house and to take them along when going abroad. She too therefore secretly carried them off in observance of her national custom in these matters.