his own words, "Wot ye not that such a man as I can certainly divine?" reveal the custom in Egypt.
The various forms of consulting evil spirits, of seeking illegitimately preternatural help and knowledge, were all practised by the Canaanites and their descendants the Phenicians. Isaiah traces the existence of such things back to the Chaldeans and the Babylonians.
The answer of the Chaldeans to Nebuchadnezzar showed that throughout the world such a class existed; for they said, "There is not a man upon the earth that can show the king's matter; therefore there is no king, lord, nor ruler that asked such things at any magician, or astrologer, or Chaldean."
THE ISRAELITES AND WITCHCRAFT
The Israelites came from a people surrounded by idolatry, and addicted to sorcery. They appear to have believed for a long time in the reality of the gods of the heathen, considering them inferior, however, to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and were continually lapsing from the true faith into paganism and sorcery. During the hundreds of years that Jacob's descendants were in Egypt their faith was greatly corrupted; when Moses tarried long in the Mount, they compelled Aaron to make a golden image to represent God. Surrounded by the Egyptians, and in the midst of the Canaanites, who were not wholly driven out for centuries, their kings and many of their people frequently relapsed into witchcraft and idolatry.
Solomon, according to all the traditions of antiquity, as well as the testimony of the Bible, turned both to idolatry and magic. In D'Israeli's " Curiosities of
