terafim · household gods

What it means

terafim (תְּרָפִים) is a Hebrew word of the Bible that means “household gods”.

Teraphim: images of gods kept in the home. The Bible counts them among idols (1 Samuel 15:23; Zechariah 10:2).

How to say it

Approximate pronunciation. Vowels sound as in Spanish (a as in father, e as in bed, i as in machine, o as in note, u as in rule); the syllable in bold is stressed. The voice is your device's.

Its senses in the Bible

1. Images of gods kept in the home.

From Brown-Driver-Briggs (1906)

Related words

Words of the same family, by Strong’s numbering.

Where it appears

• Genesis×3
• Judges×5
• 1 Samuel×3
• 2 Kings×1
• Ezekiel×1
• Hosea×1
• Zechariah×1

• Genesis 31:19

  Now Laban had gone to shear his sheep, and Rachel stole the teraphim that belonged to her father.

• Genesis 31:34

  Now Rachel had taken the teraphim and put them in the saddle of the camel and sat on them. Laban felt through the whole tent but did not find them.

• Genesis 31:35

  She said to her father, “Do not let my lord be angry that I cannot rise before you, for the way of women is upon me.” So he searched but did not find the teraphim.

• Judges 17:5

  And the man Micah had a house of Elohim, and he made an ephod and teraphim and ordained one of his sons, and he became his priest.

• Judges 18:14

  Then the five men who had gone to spy out the land of Laish spoke up and said to their brothers, “Do you know that there are in these houses an ephod and teraphim and a carved image and a cast image? Now consider what you will do.”

• Judges 18:17

  And the five men who had gone to spy out the land went up; they came in there, took the carved image, the ephod, the teraphim, and the cast image, while the priest was standing at the entrance of the gate with the six hundred men armed with weapons of war.

• Judges 18:18

  These men went into Micah’s house and took the carved image of the ephod, the teraphim, and the cast image; and the priest said to them, “What are you doing?”

• Judges 18:20

  And the priest’s heart was glad, and he took the ephod, the teraphim, and the carved image, and went in the midst of the people.

• 1 Samuel 15:23

  For rebellion is the sin of divination, and stubbornness is wickedness and teraphim. Because you have despised the word of YHWH, he has despised you from being king.”

• 1 Samuel 19:13

  Michal took the teraphim and laid them on the bed, and a weave of goats’ hair she put at its head, and covered them with the garment.

• 1 Samuel 19:16

  The messengers came in, and look, the teraphim were on the bed, and the weave of goats’ hair at its head.

• 2 Kings 23:24

  Moreover, those who call up the dead and the spiritists, the teraphim, the idols, and all the detestable things that were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, Josiah purged, in order to confirm the words of the law written in the book that Hilkiah the priest found in the house of YHWH.

• Ezekiel 21:21

  For the king of Babylon has stopped at the crossroads, at the head of the two roads, to practice divination; he shakes the arrows, he consults the teraphim, he looks at the liver.

• Hosea 3:4

  For many days the children of Israel will stay with no king and no prince, and no sacrifice and no standing stone, and no ephod or teraphim.

• Zechariah 10:2

  For the teraphim have spoken wickedness, and the diviners have seen a lie, and they speak dreams of falsehood; they comfort with emptiness. Therefore they have set out like sheep; they wander afflicted because there is no shepherd.