Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.
Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live, х mªkasheepaah (H3784)] - a practitioner in magic and incantations; a juggler, who pretended by skill in occult science to reveal future events. The word is in the feminine gender; and although the profession of a wizard was equally proscribed, the "witch" is mentioned here because, from the female taste being strongly devoted to mystic arts, witches, if unchecked, would rapidly increase in Israel, and their influence prove more seductive than that of male performers.
"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" is a strong expression, adopted apparently to prevent the interposition of any false sympathy or misplaced tenderness toward persons of such a character. They were to be exterminated from Israel as engaged in the service of idols (see further the notes at Deuteronomy 18:10-11). 'All manner of witchcraft, sorceries, divinations, or pretences to any of them, were an open profession and practice of idolatry; because witches pretended to a knowledge and power of doing things above human, by virtue of supernatural powers received from the deities with whom they were supposed to have an immediate and intimate connection. Now, the very profession of having received such supernatural powers from idols was an overt act of idolatry-that is, of high treason to the Hebrew government; and whether such declaration was really true or false in itself, still the treason was the same; because it openly denied Yahweh to be the one true God, as it asserted the power of idols. It was compassing to depose Yahweh as King of Israel by asserting the authority of "other gods before him;" which justifies the wisdom of this law against a practice of idolatry which was so very apt to corrupt weak minds of eagerly fond of knowing things to come; and such the greater part of every nation is composed' (Lowman's 'Civil Government of the Hebrews').