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by Alexei Kondratiev <alexeik@aol.com>
(This is an excerpt from an article that appeared in Enchanté #18)
"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." This interpretation of Exodus 22:18 provided encouragement to the witch-hunters of the Renaissance, and justified their putting to death those they had identified as witches. Tens of thousands of unfortunates who, in some way or other, had earned for themselves the title "witch" had little hope of mercy when faced with the seemingly unambiguous nature of this command.
Even today, some Christian Fundamentalist zealots invoke the same passage when denouncing what they see as the Satanically-inspired success of the Neo-Pagan Craft. Not surprisingly, modern Witches throw the verse back at them as proof of the extreme and intransigent hatred that "monotheists" have had, will always have for people like themselves.
The problem of Exodus 22:18 is, however, much more complex and interesting. For one thing, the associations of the word "witch" have, as we know, changed over the centuries. To modern Neo-Pagans it has come to mean something like "benign, Goddess-worshipping, magic-using healer." But the word acquired this meaning only within the last few decades, and was obviously not the one King James's translators attached to it in 1611. It is absurd to suggest, as some naive Neo-Pagan writers have, that the passage was intended to be understood as "Thou shalt not suffer a benign, Goddess-worshipping, magic-using healer to live."
The use of the word "witch" in this verse is a translation: it is presented — rightly or wrongly — as the English-language equivalent of a term from another language, another culture, and another time. What did the term mean in its original context, and what shifts in meaning — through both language evolution and successive translations — have led to its being understood (or misunderstood) as it is today? In this article I will attempt a concise overview of the linguistic development of Exodus 22:18 through several Scriptural traditions, from its origins in a specific Near Eastern situation to current attempts at applying it in non-Western settings.
In its original Hebrew text the verse reads: M'khashephah lo tichayyah. Literally this means: "May a m'khashephah not live" or "You will not keep a m'khashephah in life." M'khashephah is the feminine form (although it also has a collective meaning) of a term which can also be used in the masculine (m'khasheph). It means someone who practices k'shaphim, a type of magic characterized by spell-working that aggressively makes changes in the environment.
K'shaphim appears to be derived from a Semitic root K-Sh-P meaning "to cut off" (it may or may not be related to the Akkadian kashshapu and its feminine kashshaptu, terms used in Babylonian culture to denote certain magic-users). Its most important trait is the application of psychic power through directed use of specific words and sounds (i.e. spell-casting), but in a completely private manner, hidden from the rest of the community.
Although it could, in theory, be applied to beneficial as well as harmful ends, the practice of k'shaphim was usually thought of in terms of its destructive possibilities (i.e., the power to "cut off" life and prosperity), since this was what inspired the most anxiety in society at large: a m'khasheph or m'khashephah could cause illness or barrenness, or even kill, without leaving any traces that would connect them to these actions. The only way to guard against their power was to discover them and neutralize them (which, more often than not, meant killing them).
Paranoia about spell-casters was not confined to ancient Israel, but has been a common trait of rural societies around the globe, including cultures untouched by Biblical monotheism. There is a large body of anthropological literature describing the fear that African and Asian peasants have of secret practitioners of baneful magic, and the often very cruel means that are used to hunt them down. The attitude of the ancient Israelites towards the m'khashephah is, in this regard, completely unremarkable.
It is interesting to note that, although later usage of the term indicates that k'shaphim could be practiced by people of either sex, Exodus 22:18 (if the -ah suffix is indeed intended as feminine) only mentions the female practitioner. Before we rush to put the blame for this on the misogyny of "patriarchal monotheists", we should recognize that this attitude, too, is widely attested in the ancient world. We find many instances, in a great variety of cultures, of women being attributed a greater natural aptitude to shape and direct psychic power — accompanied, of course, by the fear that they will put that talent to a destructive use. For example, in the famous early Irish poem called the "Deer's Cry", attributed to Saint Patrick, the speaker asks to be protected against (among a list of other magical dangers) briochta ban or "women's spells"; and lest we assume that this is Christian-inspired misogyny, an inscription on a bronze tablet from first century Gaul uses almost exactly the same term, proving that the concept was well known to pre-Christian Celts. The theory that such beliefs are rooted in patriarchy and a fear of women's rebellion is not unfounded; but the presence of such beliefs in ancient Israel is not a Judaic innovation.
The injunction against the m'khashephah in Exodus appears in the course of a long enumeration of social transgressions and their appropriate punishments. These include instances of kidnapping and assault; bodily harm caused to humans by domestic animals; and the accidental destruction of property. Apart from a reminder not to worship foreign gods (a reference to the first commandment), and a prohibition of bestiality that properly belongs to the purity code in Leviticus, all the concepts discussed involve threats to social balance and cohesion, and are developments of the principles contained in the Ten Commandments. The activity of the m'khashephah is a violation of the sixth commandment, and possibly of the tenth (since it might include destruction of cattle or crops). She is condemned here not simply because she uses magic, but because her magic jeopardizes people's lives and property, and thus imperils society as a whole. It is seen as an act of violence, and is classified with other such acts.
This is not to imply, of course, that all non-destructive uses of magic were permitted in early Hebrew society. Other magical traditions, common to many Near Eastern cultures, are singled out for prohibition in the Torah, but they are interpreted as violations of the cult due to Yahweh, and do not involve the kind of disruption caused by the m'khashephah. The practitioners of these other types of magic were seen as threats not to society in general, but to the specific identity of Israel.
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