Do Not Practice Sorcery (Kishuf)
Kishuf — Active Sorcery and Its Nature
Exodus 22:18 (Hebrew verse 17): “Thou shalt not suffer a witch (mekashefah) to live.” The verse uses the feminine form — mekashefah — but the law applies to all practitioners. The root k-sh-f appears throughout the Hebrew Bible in descriptions of occult practitioners: the Egyptian “chartumim ve-mekashefim” (Gen 41:8, Ex 7:11), the Babylonian “mekashefim” Daniel encounters (Dan 2:2). Kishuf is active and intentional — the practitioner is not reading signs (nachash, #342) or consulting spirits (#344) but is attempting to directly manipulate reality through occult means.
Rambam in Mishneh Torah, Laws of Idolatry 11:1 defines the core of the prohibition: “Anyone who performs an act of sorcery, whether the act causes harm or benefit, violates a negative commandment.” The critical phrase is “whether the act causes harm or benefit.” The violation is not in the outcome — whether the sorcery worked or harmed someone. The violation is in the practice itself. Even benevolent sorcery — using occult means to heal, to help, to protect — is forbidden, because the means are unauthorized. The channel through which the action flows is the issue, not the intention behind it.
The Egyptian Magicians and the Exodus Test
The Torah’s most sustained engagement with sorcery as a concept is the Exodus narrative. Exodus 7:11–12: “Then Pharaoh also called the wise men and the sorcerers (mekashefim): now the magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner with their enchantments. For they cast down every man his rod, and they became serpents: but Aaron’s rod swallowed up their rods.” The Egyptian mekashefim could replicate the first signs. They failed at the third plague — lice — and said: “This is the finger of God” (Ex 8:15).
The narrative structure is deliberate. The Torah does not dismiss the Egyptian sorcerers as frauds. It acknowledges that their kishuf produced results — real serpents, real blood, real frogs. But at the decisive point, the limit of occult power becomes clear: it can counterfeit divine action, but it cannot sustain the imitation when genuine divine power is operating at full force. The Egyptian sorcerers themselves recognize this and withdraw. The Exodus is the Torah’s demonstration, embedded in narrative, of why commandment #343 exists: no occult power operates outside the boundary God sets for it.
Capital Punishment and the Logic of Community Holiness
Deuteronomy 18:9–12 groups kishuf with nine other prohibited occult practices and calls all of them to'evah — abomination — to God. “For all that do these things are an abomination unto the LORD: and because of these abominations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee.” The nations that occupied Canaan were driven out in part because of their occult practices. Israel is prohibited from replacing them with the same practices.
The capital penalty for sorcery reflects the Torah's view of what kishuf does to a community. A practitioner operating through unauthorized power introduces a competing spiritual authority into the community — one that claims to offer access to divine-level power outside of covenant relationship. This is not merely a personal sin but a communal corrupting presence. The Witch of Endor (1 Sam 28) — living hidden in Endor despite Saul's own earlier purge of such practitioners — illustrates how the persistence of occult practice in a community creates a reserve of forbidden power that desperate leaders eventually reach for.
- Egyptian Magicians (Chartumim) — Replicated the first two plagues through “their secret arts” (Ex 7:11–22), then failed at the third and declared “this is the finger of God” (Ex 8:19). The primary narrative illustration of sorcery's power and its limit.
- The Witch of Endor — Concealed her practice despite Saul's own purge (1 Sam 28:3); consulted by Saul in his darkest moment. Her story illustrates both how occult practitioners survive prohibition and the desperation that drives people to seek them.
- Manasseh — The most condemned king in the northern and southern monarchies, whose sins include practicing sorcery (2 Kings 21:6): “he used enchantments, and dealt with familiar spirits and wizards.” His reign made the Babylonian exile, according to 2 Kings 24:3, inevitable.
Read the source passage in the Torah reader.
Read in the Torah Reader — Exodus 22:18