To "Permit a Sorceress" (Exodus 22:18 ESV)

"You shall not permit a sorceress to live" (Exodus 22:18 ESV).

KJV famously states: "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live."

Elizabeth Sloane claims: "The original Hebrew word used in Exodus, translated as 'witch,' is mekhashepha. But what that word actually meant when Exodus was written thousands of years ago, we cannot know, leaving us with only modern interpretations."

To say that we cannot know what mekhashepha denotes, full stop, seems wrong-headed. Maybe we cannot know with absolute certainty what the word means, but scholars can approximate what it might have denoted when the text was written. We likely have enough data to approximate the meaning.

Exodus 22:18 (LXX): φαρμακοὺς οὐ περιποιήσετε

Brenton Translation: "Ye shall not save the lives of sorcerers."

Targum Jonathan on Exodus 22: "Sons of My people Israel, whosoever practiseth witchcraft you shall not suffer to live."

Compare King Saul's prohibition against "witches" in 1 Samuel 28.

Notice also the LXX connection between the Hebrew word and the Greek, pharmakeia, which is usually translated "spiritism" in the GNT. Besides, Sloane points out, Deut. 18:10-12 issues a similar warning. So it seems clear that witchcraft explicitly conflicts with the Bible's counsel to ancient Israel and the Christian ecclesia. Yet one could reject magic/witches on purely logical grounds as well (i.e., by the light of natural reason). On the other hand, Christians have not been given authority to kill witches/sorceresses.

Victor Hamilton, Exodus: An Exegetical Commentary: "The feminine word mĕkaššēpâ ('sorceress') is the feminine counterpart of masculine mĕkaššēp in Deut. 18:10 (NIV, '[one who] engages in witchcraft'). The difference between the two scriptural references, apart from gender, is that Deut. 18 only condemns the practice of sorcery, while Exod. 22 punishes its practice with death."

Joe M. Sprinkle, The Book of the Covenant, 163:

"In including the case of the sorceress, the author is possibly indirectly condemning the 'sorcerers' of Pharaoh in Egypt who in the narrative had imitated the miracles of Moses (Exod. 7.11) and contributed to Pharaoh's obstinacy. The fact that a feminine form, 'sorceress', was chosen here has struck interpreters as curious. Phillips speculates that Exod. 22.17 is meant to fill a loophole in existing legislation where the prohibition of sorcery previously applied only to men.2 That divination of this type—the exact activities of this kind of divination are not well defined—was more commonly practiced by the female than the male in Canaan is likewise speculative: Deut. 18.10 confirms that men practiced this kind of divination. Interestingly, one of the most prominent diviners in the Bible (under the term 2i«) is the female medium of Endor (1 Sam. 28.7). It is at least possible that an author/ editor of this regulation, being aware of the story of the medium of Endor to come later in the Bible, condemned her by making the form here feminine."

None of the information presented here is meant to justify witch hunting or the Salem witch trials.