household gods: figured images kept for private worship and consulted for guidance
Teraphim were the small gods of the home. They were physical figures, solid enough that Rachel could steal her father's and hide them in a camel's saddle, and in one scene an image was large enough to lie in a bed and pass, at a distance, for a sleeping man. Families made them, kept them in a private shrine alongside other worship items, and carried them off when they moved. The word is plural in form but often points to a single object, much like the ordinary Hebrew word for "God" can name one deity.
Two uses of these images run through the Bible, and they are two sides of one object rather than two different words:
- As objects of private devotion, they belonged to the domestic cult, sometimes tied to a family's identity and inheritance, which is why Laban is so desperate to get his back.
- As objects of divination, they were consulted for hidden knowledge, so that a king could "inquire of" them and prophets could mock them for "speaking" empty lies.
Outside the account of Rachel and Laban, the Bible almost always names teraphim to condemn them: they stand among the forbidden things a reforming king sweeps away, and rebellion against God is branded as bad as trusting them. Their exact form and origin are not spelled out anywhere, which is why scholars still debate what they actually were.