Commentaire sur Le Lévitique 19:31

אל תפנו DO NOT TURN [TO THE אבת NOR TO THE ידענים] — This is a warning addressed to the necromancers and the charmers themselves (not to the people who consult these tricksters). The בעל אוב, the controller of the spirit אוב, as the necromancer is called (cf. I Samuel 28:7), is identical with the פיתום (in Greek: πύξωυ); he is one who speaks out of his arm-pit; ידעני is one who puts a bone of an animal the name of which is ידוע into his mouth and the bone speaks (Sanhedrin 65b).

Seeing that the seeking out of oracles such as the ov or yidoni for the gentiles is something akin to enquiring about their fate from G’d, and it involves instead of consulting the living G’d consulting the dead or their remains, the Torah prohibits this in the strongest terms saying אל תפנו אל האובות, meaning not only must you not turn toward them, but you must turn your back on them and on any other phenomena similar to them. The Torah does not need to add that no respect or deference must be shown to such phenomena.

אל תפנו אל האובות, “do not turn to the sorceries that follow, etc.” [if I understood the author correctly. Ed.] “Do not have social intercourse with these sorcerers even on the Sabbath, thinking that since they do not practice their art on the Sabbath that this is harmless. Ibn Ezra writes that this is a warning not to do what King Sha-ul did near the end of his reign in desperation, when he asked a sorcerer to conjure up the deceased prophet Samuel’s image (Samuel I 28,7) The word אובות is derived from Job 32,19 וכאובות חדשים יבקע, describing skins filled with wine that are full to bursting. בעלי אובות, those soothsayers are like people who cannot wait to reveal the knowledge they believe that they possess. The word ידעוני, is related to דעת, knowledge, and also describes these supposedly knowledgeable people who foretell future events. The Torah adds that the result of turning to such soothsayers will be