FORETELLER OF EVENTS
A person claiming ability to forecast what will take place in the future, among whom the Bible names magic-practicing priests, spiritistic diviners, astrologers and others. Some of these possessed occult powers by virtue of contact with the demons, the wicked angelic enemies of God under Satan the Devil, the ruler of the demons. (Luke 11:14-20) In ancient times various methods were employed by these prognosticators in obtaining their messages of prediction: stargazing (Isa. 47:13); examination of the liver and other viscera of sacrificed animal victims (Ezek. 21:21); interpretation of omens (2 Ki. 21:6); consultation with the so-called “spirits” of the dead, and so forth.—Deut. 18:11.
The lives of the Egyptians, like the lives of the Babylonians, were regulated to a large extent by their fortune-tellers. (Isa. 19:3) On the other hand, God’s true servants never looked to such persons for information. When the Law was given to Israel shortly after their release from bondage in Egypt, they were strictly forbidden to consult “professional foretellers of events.” (Lev. 19:31) Having “immoral intercourse” with them would result in being cut off (in death) from among God’s people. And as to the one practicing the art, the law went on to say: “As for a man or woman in whom there proves to be a mediumistic spirit or spirit of prediction, they should be put to death without fail.” (Lev. 20:6, 27) Nearly forty years later, when poised to enter the Promised Land and to drive out its inhabitants, Israel was reminded: “You must not learn to do according to the detestable things of those nations. There should not be found in you . . . anyone who consults a spirit medium or a professional foreteller of events or anyone who inquires of the dead.”—Deut. 18:9-11.
More than 350 years later, Israel’s first king, Saul, removed all the foretellers of events from the land, but before his death he had fallen so far away from Jehovah that he personally sought out a “mistress of spirit mediumship in En-dor” to foretell his future. At first she was afraid to practice her art, but at Saul’s insistence that she “bring up Samuel for me,” she conjured up a vision. She described its form as ‘an old man wearing a sleeveless coat.’ Saul was convinced that it was the prophet Samuel. (1 Sam. 28:3, 7-19) But it could not actually have been Samuel, for he was dead, and the dead “are conscious of nothing at all.” (Eccl. 9:5) Samuel, when alive, would certainly have had nothing to do with a spirit medium, and Jehovah God and his holy angels would give such a one no cooperation. God himself told his people: “In case they should say to you people: ‘Apply to the spiritistic mediums or to those having a spirit of prediction who are chirping and making utterances in low tones,’ is it not to its God that any people should apply? Should there be application to dead persons in behalf of living persons? To the law and to the attestation!” Jehovah goes on to say: “Surely they will keep saying what is according to this statement that will have no light of dawn.”—Isa. 8:19, 20.
Nearly four hundred years after Saul’s reign, King Manasseh of Judah “did on a large scale what was bad in Jehovah’s eyes, to offend him,” including the consulting of professional foretellers of events, who flourished under his rule. (2 Ki. 21:6; 2 Chron. 33:6) All of these had to be cleaned out of the land by Manasseh’s grandson, righteous King Josiah.—2 Ki. 23:24.
The only mention in the Christian Greek Scriptures of demonic predicting of the future is the instance in which the apostle Paul, in the city of Philippi, freed “a certain servant girl with a spirit, a demon of divination.” She had furnished her masters with much gain “by practicing the art of prediction.” Manifesting the fact that such practice is truly demonic and diametrically opposed to God, the masters of the girl from whom the demon was cast out caused Paul much trouble in Philippi, bringing Paul and his companion Silas before the magistrates, who beat them and threw them into jail.—Acts 16:12, 16-24.