Ver. 10. Or that useth divination— The Hebrew is קסמים קסם kesem kesamim, divining divinations; which may signify, either divination by lots, after the manner of the sortes Praenestinae, sortes Dodoneae, and others among the Greeks and Romans, or divination by arrows, the ancient βελομαντεια, of which see Ezekiel 21:22. The manner of it was, by inscribing upon several arrows the names of the cities which they were to attack, and, after mixing of the arrows together, one was drawn at a venture, which presented the name of the city to be attacked first. Something of this kind of divination still prevails among the Mahometans. See Sale's Introduction to the Koran, D'Herbelot's Bibliotheque Orientale, under the word ACDATT, and Pococke in his notes upon Abulfarage, p. 327, 328. There was another horrible kind of divination among the heathens, formed upon the inspection of the entrails of human victims.. See Gensius de victim. human. c. 21 and Jeremiah 27:9-10.
An observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch— See Leviticus 19:26. An enchanter, מנחשׁ menachesh, is thought to signify one who uses divination by means of serpents; (נחשׁ nachash, in the Hebrew, signifying a serpent,) of which kind we have many instances in the heathen poets, particularly Homer and Virgil; see Bochart, Hieroz. lib. i. p. 1. c. 3. Though, as diviners by serpents are mentioned in the next verse, it is not improbable, that this word may allude to that sort of diviners who formed their auguries upon the flight of birds, the motion of clouds, the bowels of animals, &c. The verb נחשׁ nachesh, in the Hebrew, signifies to view, observe attentively, and so, to use auguries. The LXX renders it by οιωνιζομαι; the Vulgate by augurari. See Parkhurst on the word. Respecting the word witch, see Exodus 7:11.