Divination

Divination, the practice of discerning hidden knowledge or future events through occult means, is consistently condemned in Scripture. The Mosaic law explicitly prohibits augury, soothsaying, necromancy, consulting mediums, and interpreting omens, designating these as abominations of the nations Israel was dispossessing (Deut. 18:10–14). Forms of divination attested in the Old Testament include hydromancy (divining by water; Gen. 44:5), hepatoscopy (examining animal livers; Ezek. 21:21), casting arrows (belomancy; Ezek. 21:21), and consulting the dead (1 Sam. 28:8–20). Micah condemns prophets who divine for pay (Mic. 3:6–7, 11).

The theological ground for the prohibition is stated in Deuteronomy 18:15: God provides his own authorized spokesman—the prophet—making occult inquiry unnecessary and a sign of distrust. In the New Testament, Paul cast a spirit of divination (pneuma python) out of a slave girl at Philippi whose fortune-telling had been a lucrative business for her owners (Acts 16:16–18). The contrast between genuine prophetic revelation by the Spirit of God and divinatory inquiry through demonic means is a persistent thread in both Testaments.