SEV Biblia, Chapter 22:18
A la hechicera no dars la vida.
Clarke's Bible Commentary - Exodus 22:18
Verse 18. 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 hpkm 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, &c., 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, &c., 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 [ nw[w , veonen, he used divination by clouds] and used enchantments, and used witchcraft, [ Pkw vechishsheph,] and dealt with a familiar spirit, [ bwa h[w veasah ob, performed a variety of operations by means of what was afterwards called the pneuma puqwnov, the spirit of Python,] and with wizards, [ ynw[dy yiddeoni, the wise or knowing ones;] and he wrought much evil in the sight of the Lord; 2 Chron. xxxiii. 6. It is very likely that the Hebrew Pk 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, &c., 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.
Matthew Henry Commentary
Judicial laws.
--The people of God should ever be ready to show mildness and mercy according to the spirit of these laws. We must answer to God, not onl for what we do maliciously, but for what we do heedlessly. Therefore when we have done harm to our neighbour, we should make restitution though not compelled by law. Let these scriptures lead our souls to remember, that if the grace of God has indeed appeared to us, then i has taught us, and enabled us so to conduct ourselves by its holy power, that denying ungodliness and wordly lusts, we should liv soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world, Tit 2:12. An the grace of God teaches us, that as the Lord is our portion, there is enough in him to satisfy all the desires of our souls __________________________________________________________________
Original Hebrew
מכשׁפה 3784 לא 3808 תחיה׃ 2421
