Inquiring of the Dead

In the ancient world it was common practice to spend the night in a temple or shrine and to make a sacrifice with the hope of receiving a message from a god through a dream — a phenomenon known as incubation. Similarly, in the Hebrew Bible we read that Jacob/Israel stops off in Beer Sheba on his way to Egypt and offers sacrifices, after which the LORD appears to him in a vision at night (Gen. 46:1-4). Solomon went to Gibeon, the site of the great high place, where he offered a thousand animals on the altar there, and the LORD appeared to him in a dream at night (I Kgs. 3:4-15). In Isaiah 65:4 we read that people slept in the cemetery and ate unclean food. We will demonstrate that this verse from Isaiah has traces of incubation, referring to some form of witchcraft that came to create contact with the dead ancestors in order to know the future.

The Prohibition of Necromancy

The pair ovot and yiddeonim often appear together (Lev. 19:31; 20:6, 27; Deut. 18:11; I Sam. 28:3, 9; II Kgs. 21:6; 23:24; II Chr. 33:6; Isa. 8:19; 19:3). In several passages ovot and yiddeonim seem to refer to the spirits of the dead themselves, rather than to the medium who communicated with them. Leviticus 19:31 and 20:6 both employ the expression “turn to” with ov and yiddeoni as the object, which can clearly be understood as consulting the spirit directly. Similarly, the list of practitioners of the black arts in Deuteronomy 18:10-11 includes shoel ov veyiddeoni, “one who inquires of the spirits,” rather than a person who is merely the possessor of some technical means. Another possibility is that ovot and yiddeonim are technical implements employed for ritual purposes. This is supported by the statement that, after Samuel’s death, Saul removed the ovot and yiddeonim from the land (I Sam. 28:3); his request to the woman is to “divine for me by an ov” (I Sam. 28:8). According to the account in Chronicles, Saul was punished for asking “by means of an ov.” These verses may imply that the ov was some object used to facilitate communication with the spirit of the dead. This is bolstered by the report that Josiah destroyed “the ovot and the yiddeonim and the teraphim and the idols and all the abominations that were to be seen in the land of Judah and Jerusalem” (II Kgs. 23:24).

The Israelites were specifically forbidden to inquire of ovot and yiddeonim: “Do not turn to ovot and do not inquire of yiddeonim, to be defiled by them: I the LORD am your God” (Lev. 19:31). Those who are involved with ov and yiddeoni are outlawed in Leviticus 20:6-7. The LORD is God, and the Israelites must put their faith exclusively in Him; inquiring of an ov or yiddeoni indicates that they are trusting in idols rather than in the LORD. The prohibition in Leviticus is reiterated and expanded in Deuteronomy: “These shall not be found among you any one who consigns his son or daughter to the fire, any one who practices divination, a soothsayer, or an augur, or sorcerer, or charmer, or an ov or a yiddeoni, or one who inquires of the dead” (Deut. 18:10-11). Tigay believes that the differences among these nine practices are sometimes negligible, and that some may even be identical; the Bible enumerates all of them in order to make it clear and unambiguous that they are categorically forbidden.¹

Leviticus and Deuteronomy prohibit magic and necromancy because these abominations were practiced by the Canaanites whom the Israelites were about to dispossess. Fortune-telling is illegitimate because it is an attempt to know God’s actions by means of powers that do not depend on Him and that actually work against Him and without His consent. As Rabbi Jonathan said of witches, they endeavor “to lessen the power of the divine agencies,” thereby contravening the biblical tenet that “the LORD alone is God; there is none beside Him” (Deut. 4:35).² Inquiring of the dead is forbidden because the spirits of the dead were equated with “other gods.” The pagan nations consulted ovot and yiddeonim, but the Israelites must inquire of their God through His prophets and the Torah. The Talmud, too, outlaws magic, which it compares to idolatry (M. Sanhedrin 7:7); magical formulas are considered to be among the “ways of the Amorites” (M. Shabbat 6:10), and according to M. Sanhedrin 10:1, a person who employs a magical formula to heal a wound loses his share of the world to come.

We can learn more about the proscription of ovot and yiddeonim from the story of Saul at Endor. In his distress, Saul seeks a woman to bring up the spirit of the dead Samuel. When the disguised monarch arrives at the woman’s house, she tells him that Saul has purged the country of ovot and yiddeonim (I Sam. 28:9) — in v. 3 the narrator says he “removed” them, while in v. 9 the woman says he “destroyed” them, a harsher and more frightening term. The entire incident is set at night: Saul departs the camp after dark and returns before morning (v. 25). It is not clear what rites the medium employed to raise Samuel; it is possible that she was a fraud, but the LORD worked a miracle and Samuel really did rise from his grave. When Samuel was brought up, the woman describes him as an old man wrapped in a cloak (v. 14), indicating that the dead in the underworld have the same appearance as they did in the world of the living. The very fact of Saul’s request reflects his sincere belief that the dead know what will happen in the world of the living, and indeed, as Samuel told Saul, “Tomorrow your sons and you will be with me” (v. 19), and so it happened.

Isaiah refers to the pagan practice of consulting ovot and yiddeonim on behalf of the living (Isa. 8:19). The prophet does not say the practice is foolish, because it is impossible to commune with the dead — but it is prohibited nonetheless. The ovot and yiddeonim “chirp” and “mutter” (Isa. 8:19; 29:4). Rashi says that “this is a derogatory expression, for they do not even have speech, but are like those birds that chirp with their voice.” Spronk noted that in ancient Near Eastern literature the dead are often described as birds.³ The Egyptian Coffin Texts speak of the dead cackling like geese; in the myth of Nergal and Ereshkigal the dead moan like doves.⁴

Sacrifices for the Dead

Providing food for the dead, or honoring them with a meal, was a common practice in the ancient world. People believed that the dead could influence the world of the living — that they could help the living if the latter attended to their needs, or harm them if they neglected them. Scholars cite Deuteronomy 26:12-14 in this context.⁵ These verses are part of the declaration to be made when a person finished removing all the tithes from his house, concluding with a prayer that the LORD bless His nation and His land. As part of this declaration the household must state that “I have not eaten of the tithe while I was mourning, or removed any of it while I was unclean, or offered any of it to the dead” (v. 14).⁶ Some understand this clause to mean that the tithed produce may not be used as an offering to the dead — a common practice among pagans, whether by leaving it at their tombs or eating it at a feast in their honor. Ibn Ezra says it means “giving food to the dead — that is, to satisfy their needs. Some say for idolatry.”

Tigay notes that niches similar to those found in tombs in Ugarit have been found in tombs excavated in Samaria, the capital of the Northern Kingdom, used to hold food and drink for the dead. He maintains that the Torah does not ban this practice, but only forbids using tithe for it, because contact with the dead is defiling.⁷ Bloch-Smith likewise believes the prohibition refers to tithes but not to the actual practice of offering food to the dead.⁸ Lewis conjectures that the ban may refer to “offerings made periodically as part of the continuing death cult as well as those offerings presented after the initial interment.”⁹ It is possible, however, that “to the dead” does not refer to leaving food for the dead but to eating the funeral meal — this is the view of S.D. Luzzatto, who says the householder is declaring that he did not employ the second tithe to prepare food for a funeral repast for the mourners, even though comforting mourners in this fashion is a precept.

An explicit reference to offerings to the dead is found in the retelling of Israelite history in Psalm 106: “They attached themselves to Baal Peor and ate sacrifices of the dead” (Ps. 106:28), apparently expanding on Numbers 25:2. The expression zivḥei metim, “sacrifices of the dead,” is a biblical hapax and can be interpreted in two different ways: it may refer to offerings made to idols, who are “dead” as opposed to the living God, or it may mean offerings to the shades of dead ancestors.¹⁰ According to the primary account in Numbers (25:1-5), the Moabite women invited the Israelite men to the “sacrifice of their gods,” which the verse in Psalms modifies to “sacrifice of the dead” — there are a number of passages in which “gods” and “the dead” are parallel terms.¹¹ According to Radak, “They ate sacrifices of the dead, as is written [in Numbers], ‘they invited the people to sacrifices of their gods.’ Their gods are dead.” As noted above, providing food and drink to the dead in the underworld was a practice widespread in the ancient world; it was believed that the spirits of ancestors could influence the future of the living, but in the Hebrew Bible God is the God of the living, not of the dead, and contact with the dead is ritually defiling.

“Who Sit Inside Tombs . . .” (Isaiah 65:4)

“Inquiring of the dead” appears in the list of magical practices condemned by the Bible (Deut. 18:11). Rashi, citing the Sifrei, explains that this refers to raising the shades of the dead by means of a form of magic or by inquiring of a skull. Ibn Ezra provides further information: “He goes to the cemetery and takes the bone of a dead person; in his wild imagination, whether dreaming or awake, he sees shapes and figures.” Nahmanides says that “inquiring of the dead” covers “one who performs necromancy by any other means” than those already listed in the verse.

Isaiah may be referring to this practice when he condemns those “who sit inside tombs and pass the night in secret places” (Isa. 65:4). Apparently sitting inside a tomb was part of a rite to raise the spirits of the dead by means of an ov. The purpose, according to Rashi, was to enable “the defiling spirit of demons to rest upon them.” Similarly, Ibn Ezra glosses the phrase as meaning “to inquire of the dead and to listen to the spirits.” As for “passing the night in secret places” (banetzurim), the Septuagint reads ben-tzurim, “between the rocks,” and the nouns bakevarim and banetzurim appear in parallelism; taking ben as “inside” rather than “between,” the reading would be “who sit in tombs and spend the night inside the mountains.”¹² According to Jerome’s commentary on Isaiah, the reference is to the practice of incubation — sleeping in a tomb or temple in order to obtain an oracular dream — and the Septuagint likewise understands the verse as a reference to incubation, interpolating “for the sake of dreams,” that is, seeking to commune with the dead in dreams.

The second half of the verse refers to those “who eat the flesh of swine, with broth of unclean things in their bowls.” This may refer to some form of totemism — a rite in which the people of Judah sometimes ate the flesh of prohibited animals in order to establish a link with the chthonian powers, deities of the underworld associated with sacrificial rituals of throwing animals into an underground pit and pouring liquid into it. The consumption of a totem animal links the eater with the ancestors symbolized by the totem.¹³ The pig was sacred to many peoples: the Egyptians, for example, sacrificed pigs to the moon god and later to Dionysus, eating the flesh of an animal otherwise considered impure;¹⁴ among the Greeks too, the Argives and Cyprians sacrificed pigs.¹⁵ The Bible prohibits eating swine (Lev. 11:7; Deut. 14:8), denigrated as an abomination practiced by the nations, and Isaiah is mocking people who eat pigs that were sacrificed to idols — the prophet condemns the practice of sitting at a gravesite at night and eating unclean food, a practice of idol worshippers.

The Talmud explains that “inquiring of the dead” refers to a person who fasts and then goes to spend the night in the cemetery, “so that an unclean spirit [a demon] may rest upon him” and tell him the future.¹⁶ Significantly, according to Maimonides (Laws of Idolatry 11:13), the punishment for communicating with the dead in the cemetery is flogging only, whereas one who divines by means of human remains is liable to capital punishment. There were two principal modes of communicating with the dead: calling up a dead person by name, and inquiring by means of a skull. Sometimes incantations were recited by the tomb; others went to the tomb by night, burned incense, and waited for a voice from the grave to answer their questions.¹⁷

Conclusion

The Hebrew Bible prohibits the use of an ov or yiddeoni as a form of inquiring of the dead, intended to arouse supernatural forces. Because it was believed that the dead could tell of future events and influence the world of the living, providing food for the dead or honoring them with a meal was a common practice in the ancient world. Examination of Isaiah 65:4 reveals that sitting inside a tomb was part of the rite to raise the spirits of the dead, while eating unclean food came to establish a link with the chthonian powers. It was a form of sacrifice; the consumption of a totem animal links the eater with the ancestors symbolized by the totem. The purpose of these customs was to gain knowledge of the future.