창세기 31:19의 주석

לגזז את צאנו TO SHEAR HIS FLOCK which he had given into the charge of his sons at a distance of three days’ journey between himself and Jacob.

AND RACHEL STOLE THE TERAPHIM. Her intention was to wean her father from idol-worship. This is the language of Rashi.
Now it is possible that Laban used the teraphim for idol worship, as he himself said, Why hast thou stolen my gods?¹⁹³Further, Verse 30. But not all teraphim were for the purpose of worship, for how could one find idolatry in the house of our lord David.¹⁹⁴See I Samuel 19:13, where it states that there were teraphim in David’s house. That which the commentators¹⁹⁵R’dak, in his Commentary on the verse here. say seems reasonable, namely, that these are vessels to receive¹⁹⁶“Receive.” According to the Tur, “determine.” a knowledge of the hours, and they divine with them in order to gain knowledge of future events. The word teraphim is derived from the expressions: ‘rephai’ (weak) handed;¹⁹⁷II Samuel 17:2. ‘nirpim’ (idle) ye are, idle.¹⁹⁸Exodus 5:17. They are called “teraphim” in order to hint by their name that their words are like a weak prophecy, usually occurring as a prophecy for many days hence¹⁹⁹Ezekiel 12:27. and turning out to be false, just as the prophets have said, For the teraphim have spoken vanity.²⁰⁰Zechariah 10:2. People of little faith set them up for themselves as gods. They do not seek to know by the glorious name of the Eternal, nor do they offer their prayers to Him. Rather, their deeds are guided by divination revealed to them by the teraphim. Thus it is written, And the man Micah had a house of G-d, and he made an ephod, and teraphim,²⁰¹Judges 17:5. and it is further written there, Ask counsel, we pray thee, of G-d that we may know whether our way which we are going shall be prosperous,²⁰²Ibid., 18:5. for they used to ask of the teraphim. Such also was the case in Israel with the ephod, for, having been accustomed to the sacred ephod²⁰³See Exodus 25:6-12. they made something similar in form, and they would seek guidance of it, believe in its words, and blunder after it. Even in sickness they sought not G-d but only them.²⁰⁴See II Chronicles 16:12. This is the meaning of the verse, And Gideon made an ephod thereof, and put it in his city, even in Ophrah; and all Israel went astray after it there; and it became a snare unto Gideon, and to his house,²⁰⁵Judges 8:27. for they turned aside from following the Eternal. Now Laban was a diviner and an enchanter, just as he said, I have divined.²⁰⁶Above, 30:27. His country, too, was ever a land of diviners, as it is written, For they are replenished from the east, and with soothsayers like the Philistines,²⁰⁷Isaiah 2:6. Laban’s city Haran was in the land of the children of the east (above, 29:1). and Balaam the son of Beor the diviner was from his city.²⁰⁸See Numbers 23:7. And this is the meaning of, Why hast thou stolen my gods?¹⁹³Further, Verse 30.

ותגנוב רחל את התרפים, in order that Lavan should not be able to locate the whereabouts of Yaakov and his family. We know from Hoseah 3,4 that Teraphim were credited with supplying such information to people believing in their power. Zecharyah 10,2 also refers to them as speaking, though deceptively. At any rate, they were widely consulted to provide information about the future, information of a supernatural dimension.

ולבן, the place where Lavan sheared his flocks was a distance of three days from where Yaakov tended his flocks as we know from 30,36. This is why Lavan did not hear about Yaakov’s having left until this third day after he had gone. Neither Lavan nor his sons had been home at the at time when Yaakov departed The sons of Lavan had been busy tending their father’s flocks. This is why Rachel took the Teraphim. There was no one at home to stop her from doing this.

ותגנב רחל את התרפים, “Rachel stole the teraphim.” According to Rashi, she intended to wean her father from idolatry by removing the idol from him. Nachmanides admits that it is possible that Lavan had been using the teraphim in his worship of idolatry. It is however by no means certain that teraphim served only as idols. We certainly would not expect to come across idols in King David’s residence, and yet we are told in Samuel I 19,13 that Michal, David’s wife placed such teraphim in David’s bed, feigning that it was he who was sleeping in that bed. Surely, David did not keep idolatrous figures in his home. It is most likely that the teraphim were objects which enabled people to know the time of day, and in that connection they were also used to help them to predict future events. The root of the word is from רפה, “weak” as in רפי ידים, “weak-handed,” or נרפים אתם, “you are weak” (in the sense of lazy, not pulling one’s weight.) The reason people call these objects תרפים is to hint that the reliability of these objects in predicting future events is not very strong, although in the majority of instances the predictions prove more or less accurate. Only people who do not pray to the Lord, the Creator, would be foolish enough to put their trust in them. Some people argue that astrologers possess the power to summon up certain images at a time which they can accurately predict. Ibn Ezra writes that teraphim are objects made of copper which are designed to help us determine portions of an hour, such as minutes. Some people claim that some astrologers possess the skill to raise some life-like shapes at a predetermined hour, and that apparition appears to speak intelligently. Personally, I believe that teraphim are replicas of human beings, constructed in a manner designed to endow them with some divine powers. Some commentators believe that Rachel stole the teraphim in order to wean her father from practicing idolatry. If that were so indeed, why did she keep these teraphim with her instead of at least burying them? It is far more likely that Rachel, being aware that her father was an astrologer, was afraid that by a combination of astrology and the teraphim he would succeed in tracking the movements of Yaakov and his family and he would overtake them in short order. Another view is that she took the teraphim so that these would not reveal to him where Yaakov was at that time. [according to that view she did not really ”steal” them but denied him their use at a critical point in time. Ed.]

That he had given to his sons... three-days’ travel... Rashi says this because of the coming verse (v. 22): “Lavan was told on the third day...” And why didn’t Lavan know until the third day? Perforce it was because, “A distance of three-days’ travel...”

ותגנב רחל את התרפים אשר לאביה; she stole them in order that he would reconsider his actions, saying to himself that any deity which allows itself to be stolen surely cannot be much good to anyone. The same argument had been used by Yoash who told his father that if his deity, the baal, was really capable of avenging himself, he should do so himself instead of letting his human worshipper become his defender. (Judges 6,31) Similar arguments are reflected in Ezekiel 28,9 where the prophet predicts the downfall of the King of Tzor (Tyre) who had declared himself a god. He ridicules this “god” as saying to his murderer: “I am a god!” (quoted by Rabbeinu Bachya).

(19-20) Zweimal hervorgehoben, dass gestohlen wurde. Es war also möglich zu stehlen, und ward nichts anderes entwendet als: Rahel — stahl die Götzen ihres Vaters, weil — wie die Weisen bemerken — sie den Gedanken nicht ertragen konnte, ihren Vater nun ganz, ohne weitere Anregung zum Bessern, dem Götzentum verfallen zu wissen. Sie nahm darum die zum Schutze des Hauses bestimmten Götter. Musste das doch dem Laban deren Ohnmacht klar dartun, da sie sich selbst nicht schützen konnten. Die Etymologie und Bedeutung von תרפים ist dunkel. Aus שאל בתרפים (Jecheskeel 21, 26) התרפים דברו און (Sechar. 10, 2) und der Zusammenstellung אפור ותרפים ersieht man, dass es Götzenbilder gewesen, die Orakel gaben. Auch Jakob stahl — des Aramiten Herz, weil er eben ein Aramite war, weil er es ihm nicht sagen und ihm darum nicht einmal eine Ahnung davon werden lassen durfte, weil er eben entfliehen musste, wenn er überall, wozu er ja berechtigt war, fortgehen wollte.

ותגנוב רחל את התרפים, “Rachel stole the teraphim; what precisely are “teraphim”? According to Pirke de rabbi Eliezer chapter 36, they were deities that people like Lavan worshipped. How did they originate? A firstborn male human being was slaughtered; they cut off his head, salted it (to preserve it from decomposing) using both salt and oil. They inscribed on the forehead of that slain person the name of a deity such as a demon, hung it up under the tongue of the slain person on the wall, lit candles in its honour, prostrated themselves before it, and it would start speaking to the worshipper. (presumably answering questions addressed to it, like to an oracle.) These teraphim are referred to as doing this in the Book of Zecharyah 10,2: כי התרפים דברו און, “for the teraphim spoke delusions.” Rachel stole them so that they could not speak to their father and tell him that Yaakov had fled and where he was going. Not only this; she may have used the opportunity to destroy all idols in her father’s home.

ותגנוב רחל את התרפים, “Rachel stole the teraphim;” in order that Lavan would not be able to divine the route they had taken by consulting them as oracles. We have read about their uses in Hoseah 3,4 as well as in Zachariah 10,2.

ותגגב רחל את התרפים AND RACHEL STOLE THE TERAPHIM — her intention was to wean her father from idol-worship (Genesis Rabbah 74:5).

והתרפים, they are instruments made of copper used to tell time. It was also to consult them to divine future events, although the information forthcoming often proved false. Zecharyah 10,2 already remarks on the unreliability of Teraphim in this regard. The reason the word is in the plural mode, seeing that we speak about a single object, is because it consisted of multiple layers of tablets. According to Ibn Ezra each tablet had the face of a human being and was presumed to get inspiration from celestial regions. Rachel’s objective in stealing the Teraphim was to deny Lavan knowledge about the route Yaakov had taken when he left. Yaakov had no idea that Rachel had stolen the Teraphim as we have been told explicitly in verse 32. Had he known about it he would have prevented Rachel from carrying out such a theft. He would not even have allowed her to remove anything from her father’s house unless he had given his approval, much less the Teraphim.

She intended to remove her father from idol-worship. [Rashi knows this] because it is written, “That belonged to her father,” an apparent superfluous phrase. It should simply say, “His idols.” Perforce, she intended to remove her father from idolatry.

גניבת לב sich unverdient die gute Meinung eines andern zuwenden, sich durch nichtgemeinte Freundlichkeit, Gefälligkeit, Dienstleistung usw. des andern Gewogenheit gewinnen, eine Unaufrichtigkeit, die die Weisen unter dem Namen גניבת דעת bis in die äußerste Konsequenz verpönen, und selbst bis zur Vermeidung des zufälligsten Scheins verurteilen. Jakobs גניבת דעת bestand hier darin, dass er weder durch Miene noch Benehmen Laban merken ließ, ihm sei die in Laban vorgegangene Gesinnungsveränderung bekannt. Er musste aber zu dieser Selbstbeherrschung, ja bielleicht Verstellung seine Zuflucht nehmen, "weil er es ihm nicht sagte" und nicht sagen konnte, "weil er nur fliehend. fortkommen konnte". Hätte er ihm gesagt, dass er, wozu er ja vollkommen berechtigt war, seinen Dienst verlassen wollte, wie er den ,"Aramiten" kannte, so hätte er — wie er das ja ihm auch später offen sagte — erwarten müssen, dass er ihn, wie er gekommen, nackt und allein, wieder vor die Türe gesetzt haben würde.