509. Spirit Voices

 •  1 min. read  •  grade level: 10
Listen from:
Isaiah 29:4. Thy voice shall be, as of one that hath a familiar spirit, out of the ground, and thy speech shall whisper out of the dust.
This is probably an allusion to the notion which was common to the ancient heathen, as well as to the Hebrews, that the souls of the dead had a weak, stridulous sound, entirely different from the voices of living men. The necromancers, who were chiefly women, spoke in a shrill, feigned voice, and may have practiced ventriloquism; in which case the voice would seem to come from the ground, where it was popularly supposed the disembodied spirits were. See also Isaiah 8:19.