of their people.

The mysterious objects known as Teraphim, which are
occasionally mentioned in Judges, Samuel, and elsewhere,
however, can hardly be interpreted otherwise than as indications
of the existence both of ancestor-worship and of image-worship
in old Israel. The teraphim were certainly images of family
gods, and, as such, in all probability represented deceased
ancestors. Laban indignantly demands of his son-in-law,
"Wherefore hast thou stolen my Elohim?" which Rachel, who must
be assumed to have worshipped Jacob's God, Jahveh, had carried
off, obviously because she, like her father, believed in their
divinity. It is not suggested that Jacob was in any way
scandalised by the idolatrous practices of his favourite wife,
whatever he may have thought of her honesty when the truth came
to light; for the teraphim seem to have remained in his camp, at
least until he "hid" his strange gods "under the oak that was by
Shechem" (Gen. xxxv. 4). And indeed it is open to question if he
got rid of them then, for the subsequent history of Israel
renders it more than doubtful whether the teraphim were regarded
as "strange gods" even as late as the eighth century B.C.

The writer of the books of Samuel takes it quite as a matter of
course that Michal, daughter of one royal Jahveh worshipper and
wife of the servant of Jahveh par excellence, the pious
David, should have her teraphim handy, in her and David's
chamber, when she dresses them up in their bed into a simulation
of her husband, for the purpose of deceiving her father's
messengers. Even one of the early prophets, Hosea, when he
threatens that the children of Israel shall abide many days