Genesis 31:19

The images] Heb. teraphim. These were figures of metal, wood, or clay of varying sizes, apparently in human form. They probably answered to the 'Lares and Penates,' or household gods of the Romans, which were supposed to ward off danger from the home and to bring luck. This would explain Rachel's reason for stealing them. Laban speaks of them as 'my gods' in Genesis 31:30. There is an, interesting reference to them in 1 Samuel 19:13; 1 Samuel 19:16. From Ezekiel 21:21; RV it is clear they were connected with magic and soothsaying. It has been suggested that in some cases the teraphim were mummied human heads, perhaps of ancestors, and were consulted in some way as an oracle. Whatever they were, it is not probable that their possession by the Jews interfered seriously with belief in and worship of God, though we find their use rightly denounced as superstitious. The following passages refer to the teraphim: Judges 17:5; 1 Samuel 15:23; RV 2 Kings 23:24; RV Hosea 3:4; Zechariah 10:2 RV. Payne Smith remarks on 'the tendency of uneducated minds, even when their religion is in the main true, to add to it some superstitions, especially in the way of fashioning for themselves some lower mediator.'