Or a charmer One that charmeth serpents or other creatures. Or rather, as the Hebrew חבר חבר, chober chaber, seems to mean, an astrologer, or such as, by the conjunction of the planets, pretended to foretel the events of men's lives, or other future things. It must be observed that the eastern people were much addicted to divination of all kinds, and undertook no enterprise of importance without consulting their soothsayers; and therefore Moses uses these sundry expressions that he might prohibit it in all its forms. A consulter with familiar spirits The original words שׁאל אוב , shoel ob, are here rendered by the Seventy, εγγαστριμυθος, one that speaks out of his belly: but literally, it is one that consults or inquires of Ob. This word originally means a bottle, and was the name which the Hebrews gave to the spirit which was supposed to agitate these ventriloquists, because their bodies were violently distended, like leather bottles full of wine and ready to burst. See Doddridge on Acts 16:16, where both St. Paul and St. Luke evidently consider the girl spoken of as being really possessed by what is there termed πνευμα πυθωνος, a spirit of python, or divination, because the Greeks supposed it to be an inspiration from their god Apollo, whom they termed Pythius.
A wizard Hebrew, A knowing man; who by any forbidden ways undertakes the revelation of secret things. The Seventy render the word τερατοσκοπος, an observer of prodigies. A necromancer Hebrew, One that seeketh unto the dead; that calleth up and inquires of them, as the witch of Endor is represented to have done. Dr. Waterland, after the Seventy, renders it, very properly, one that consults the dead. Their manner of doing this is stated to have been by visiting their graves in the night, and there lying down and muttering certain words with a low voice, by which means they pretended to have communion with them by dreams, or by the dead appearing to them. To this Isaiah has been thought to allude, Deuteronomy 8:19; Deuteronomy 29:4.