Parashat Shoftim & Haftarah
Magic, Divination & Knowing the Future
Torah: Deuteronomy 16:18–21:9
Main Text: Deuteronomy 18:9–15
Haftarah: Isaiah 51:12–52:12
Parashat Shoftim deals with some of the central institutions of biblical society: judges and officers, kings, witnesses, warfare, priests, and prophets. But our students chose to focus this week on one particularly intriguing question: How should Israel relate to magic, divination, and the human desire to know the future?
Deuteronomy forbids a remarkable collection of practices associated with omens, sorcery, spirits, and consulting the dead. Yet immediately afterward, the Torah speaks about the prophet whom God will raise up for Israel. This creates an important distinction: the Torah does not simply reject knowledge of what is hidden. It asks who initiates revelation, where knowledge comes from, and whether human beings can accept that some things remain unknown.
Does the Torah forbid knowing the future—or does it forbid the human attempt to gain control over hidden knowledge?
Parashat Shoftim — Justice, Leadership, War & Hidden Knowledge
We began with an overview of Parashat Shoftim and its many major themes: judges and officers, the law of the king, laws of war, the call for peace, false witnesses, priests, prophets, and the responsibility of leadership.
We also reviewed the options in our weekly student poll. Among the topics not selected were “Justice, Justice You Shall Pursue,” the biblical law of the king, the Torah’s laws of war and its surprising call for peace before battle, and the extraordinary law of false witnesses.
The topic chosen for this week was: Magic, Divination & Knowing the Future. This raises a fundamental biblical question: Why does the Torah prohibit so many methods of obtaining hidden knowledge, while at the same time recognizing prophecy as a legitimate source of divine guidance?
Does the Torah prohibit knowing the future—or does it prohibit the human attempt to gain control over hidden knowledge?
Deuteronomy 18:9 — Do Not Learn Their Practices
We began our close reading with Deuteronomy 18:9. Israel is preparing to enter the land, but entering the land does not mean adopting the religious practices of the nations already living there.
We examined the participial form בָּא — ba, “coming” or “entering,” and looked at the biblical use of the active participle as a verbal form describing an action already in progress.
The central prohibition is לֹא־תִלְמַד לַעֲשׂוֹת — “you shall not learn to do.” The wording is broad: Israel must not learn these practices for the purpose of performing them.
We also discussed the important biblical term תּוֹעֵבָה — to’evah, used here to characterize the practices Israel is commanded not to imitate.
Finally, we looked at the flexible Hebrew conjunction כִּי — ki. Rather than having one fixed English equivalent, ki can introduce a cause, explanation, circumstance, or temporal setting, depending on the context.
Deuteronomy 18:10–11 — The Vocabulary of Magic & Divination
In Deuteronomy 18:10–11, the Torah presents a remarkable collection of practitioners associated with divination, magic, spirits, and attempts to obtain hidden knowledge.
We began with the expression לֹא־יִמָּצֵא בְךָ — “there shall not be found among you.” The Torah does not merely advise Israelites to avoid these practices; it describes them as something that should not be found within Israelite society.
Much of the list is built from Hebrew participles. We identified several Qal active participles: קֹסֵם (qosem), חֹבֵר (chover), שֹׁאֵל (sho’el), and דֹרֵשׁ (doresh).
We compared these with forms from other stems: מַעֲבִיר in the Hiphil, and מְעוֹנֵן, מְנַחֵשׁ, and מְכַשֵּׁף in the Piel.
A major part of our discussion focused on the etymology of the individual terms. We explored what the Hebrew roots may tell us about practices such as קֶסֶם, נַחַשׁ, עוֹנֵן, כִּשּׁוּף, חֹבֵר חָבֶר, אוֹב, יִדְּעֹנִי, and דֹרֵשׁ אֶל־הַמֵּתִים.
Some of these ancient practices can be identified with reasonable confidence, while the precise meaning of others remains debated. We therefore considered several possible explanations rather than forcing every Hebrew term into a single modern category.
Deuteronomy 18:12–13 & Genesis 17:1 — What Does “Tamim” Mean?
After the long list of forbidden practices, the Torah moves from the negative to a remarkably concise positive command: תָּמִים תִּהְיֶה עִם יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ — “You shall be wholehearted with the LORD your God.”
We first read Deuteronomy 18:12–13 together and noticed how the language links the two verses: תּוֹעֲבַת יְהֹוָה, הַתּוֹעֵבֹת הָאֵלֶּה, and the repeated expression יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ.
This kind of verbal chaining is especially familiar from biblical poetry, but here it also gives prose a carefully structured literary rhythm: the rejected practices and the positive alternative are deliberately tied together.
We examined the meaning of תָּמִים — tamim: whole, complete, wholehearted, undivided. The placement of the adjective before the verb— תָּמִים תִּהְיֶה rather than a more ordinary word order— gives the word special emphasis.
We then turned to Genesis 17:1, where God commands Abraham: הִתְהַלֵּךְ לְפָנַי וֶהְיֵה תָמִים — “Walk before Me and be wholehearted.”
We discussed the construction of Abraham’s age in Biblical Hebrew, the divine name אֵל שַׁדַּי — El Shaddai, and the command הִתְהַלֵּךְ לְפָנַי, understood as living continually before God and serving in God’s presence.
The parallel between Abraham’s וֶהְיֵה תָמִים and Deuteronomy’s תָּמִים תִּהְיֶה helps show that tamim is not intellectual naivety. It describes a complete and undivided relationship with God.
Deuteronomy 18:14–15 — Diviners vs. the Prophet
Deuteronomy 18:14–15 reveals the central contrast behind the entire passage. The nations Israel is entering listen to מְעוֹנְנִים וְקֹסְמִים — soothsayers and diviners.
Israel, however, receives the emphatic contrast: וְאַתָּה לֹא כֵן — “But as for you—not so.”
The next verse immediately provides the alternative: נָבִיא מִקִּרְבְּךָ מֵאַחֶיךָ כָּמֹנִי — “A prophet from among you, from your brothers, like me.”
This distinction is crucial. The Torah does not simply replace the supernatural world with a rationalistic one. Instead, it distinguishes between human attempts to obtain hidden knowledge and revelation that God chooses to initiate.
We examined the word נָבִיא — navi, along with מִקִּרְבְּךָ — “from your midst,” מֵאַחֶיךָ — “from your brothers,” and Moses’ striking description כָּמֹנִי — “like me.”
We also discussed תִּשְׁמָעוּן, with the expanded ־וּן ending, often called nun paragogicum, and compared it with the more familiar form תִּשְׁמְעוּ.
Finally, we considered the later history of interpretation of “a prophet like Moses,” including its important Christological interpretation in Christianity.
Prophecy: What has God chosen to reveal?
The Wider Biblical Picture — From Balaam to Saul at En-dor
In the final part of the lesson, we followed the theme of divination and hidden knowledge through several passages outside Parashat Shoftim.
We began with Numbers 23:23, where Balaam declares: כִּי לֹא־נַחַשׁ בְּיַעֲקֹב וְלֹא־קֶסֶם בְּיִשְׂרָאֵל — “There is no omen-divination in Jacob and no divination in Israel.”
This statement is particularly striking coming from Balaam, a figure deeply associated with the world of divination and supernatural knowledge. Israel’s future is not governed by the techniques through which Balaam normally attempts to manipulate events.
We then compared Leviticus 19:31 with Isaiah 8:19. Leviticus warns against turning toward אוֹבֹת וְיִדְּעֹנִים — spirits and spirit-mediums, while Isaiah deliberately echoes almost the same terminology.
Isaiah describes them as הַמְצַפְצְפִים וְהַמַּהְגִּים — “those who chirp and mutter.” We analyzed the participles מְצַפְצְפִים and מַהְגִּים and discussed the unusual sounds associated with these practices.
Isaiah then asks: הֲלוֹא־עַם אֶל־אֱלֹהָיו יִדְרֹשׁ — “Should not a people seek its God?” The word דָּרַשׁ — to seek, inquire becomes particularly important: the problem is not that people seek answers, but where they seek them.
Isaiah completes the thought with an almost sarcastic question: בְּעַד הַחַיִּים אֶל־הַמֵּתִים — “On behalf of the living, should they seek the dead?”
We then turned to the dramatic story of Saul and the medium at En-dor in 1 Samuel 28. The narrator first tells us that Samuel has died and that Saul himself has removed the אוֹבוֹת וְיִדְּעֹנִים from the land.
But when Saul faces the Philistine army, he desperately needs guidance. He inquires of the LORD, yet receives no answer: not through dreams, not through the Urim, and not through prophets.
Saul therefore finds himself confronting something perhaps even more difficult than bad news: divine silence. He knows the legitimate channels, but none of them gives him an answer.
Unable to accept that uncertainty, Saul asks his servants to find אֵשֶׁת בַּעֲלַת־אוֹב — a woman who is a medium, and they direct him to En-dor.
The story becomes a narrative counterpart to Deuteronomy 18. The Torah had contrasted forbidden attempts to contact hidden powers with legitimate revelation. Saul turns to the forbidden method precisely when God refuses to give him the revelation he wants.
Can we remain faithful when we desperately want to know what comes next— and God has chosen not to tell us?
Knowing the Future—or Trusting Without Knowing?
Deuteronomy does not portray prophecy and divination as identical ways of obtaining supernatural information. The difference lies partly in who controls the encounter.
In divination, human beings employ techniques in an attempt to uncover what is hidden. In biblical prophecy, God chooses whether, when, and what to reveal.
Between the prohibition of divination and the promise of a prophet, the Torah places one short but demanding command: תָּמִים תִּהְיֶה עִם יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ — “You shall be wholehearted with the LORD your God.”