fication. Thus from שרש radix is שרש radices evulsit, from רשו Cinis רשו removit Cineres, from חטא peccavit חטא expiavit à peccato; and so lastly from בחש Serpens is made בחש liberavis â serpentibus, nempe occidendo vel fugando per incantationem. And therefore there seems to have been a great deal of skill and depth of Judgment in our English Translators that rendred מבחש [Menachesh] an Enchanter, especially when that of Augur or Southsayer, which the Septuagint call Όιωνιζόωνον (there being so many harmless kinds of it) might seem less suitable with this black List: For there is no such abomination in adventuring to tell, when the wild Geese fly high in great Companies and cackle much, that hard weather is at Hand. But to rid Serpents by a Charm is above the power of Nature; and therefore an indication of one that has the assistance of some invisible Spirit to help him in this exploit, as it happens in several others; and therefore this is another name of one that is really a Witch.
The fourth Word is, מבשף [Mecasseph] which our English Translators render, a Witch; for which I have no quarrel with them, unless they should so understand it that it must exclude others from being so in that sense I have defin'd, which is impossible they should. But this, as the foregoing, is but another term of the same thing; that is, of a Witch in general, but so called here from the Prestigious imposing on the sight of Beholders. Buxtorf, tells us, that Aben Ezra defines those to be מבשפים [Mecassephim] qui mutant & transformant res naturales ad aspectum oculi. Not as Jugglers and Hocus-Pocusses, as Webster would ridiculously insinuate, but so as I understood the thing in the second name: For these are but several names of a Witch, who may have several more Properties than one Name intimates. Whence it is no wonder that Translators render not them always alike. But so many names are reckoned up here in this clause of the Law of Moses, that, as in our Common-Law, the sence may be more sure, and leave no room to evasion, And that here this name is not from any tricks of Legerdemain as in common Jugglers that delude the sight of the People at a Market or Fair, but that it is the name of such as raise Magical Spectres to deceive Mens sight, and so are most certainly Witches, is plain from Exod. 22. 18. Thou shalt not suffer מבשפה [Mecassephah] that is, a Witch to live. Which would be a Law of extreme severity, or rather cruelty, against a poor Hocus-pocus for his tricks of Legerdemain.
