Written by For centuries, the phrase “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live” from Exodus 22:18 has been used to justify persecution, torture, and murder. But what if the Bible never actually condemned witches at all? What if the wise women, the herbalists, the midwives, and the village healers were never the target of this ancient text?
The truth is far more complex, and far more tragic, than most people realize.
The Word That Changed Everything: Kashap
In the original Hebrew text of Exodus 22:18, the word translated as “witch” is kashap (כָּשַׁף). This is critical, because kashap doesn’t mean what we think of as a witch at all.
Kashap refers specifically to someone who uses poison or harmful potions with malicious intent – a poisoner, a sorcerer who causes harm through toxic substances. The root of the word is associated with muttering or whispering incantations while preparing harmful concoctions. This wasn’t about the wise woman brewing healing tea or the midwife easing labor pains with herbal remedies.
In ancient Near Eastern context, a kashap was closer to what we might call a malicious poisoner or one who used substances to harm, manipulate, or kill others, often for payment. These were individuals who worked in secret to cause genuine harm, not community healers working openly to help their neighbors.
The verse, more accurately translated, might read: “You shall not allow a poisoner to live” or “Do not tolerate one who harms through toxic sorcery.”
The Wise Women Who Were Never Condemned
Throughout the Biblical narrative, we actually see women in roles that would later be called “witchcraft” by European standards, and they’re not condemned for it.
Midwives like Shiphrah and Puah are celebrated as heroes who defied Pharaoh to save Hebrew babies. The woman of En-dor, though operating outside official religious channels, isn’t condemned in the text for her abilities, Saul seeks her out, and the narrative treats her sympathetically. The “virtuous woman” of Proverbs 31 is praised for her knowledge of herbs and textiles, skills that would later mark women as suspicious.
The Biblical text distinguishes between harmful magic (kashap, using poisons to harm) and the everyday wisdom of women who understood plants, healing, and the mysteries of birth and death. The herbalist mixing remedies, the midwife catching babies, the woman who knew when to plant by the moon. These were never the target.
When Religion Became a Weapon: Europe’s Dark Turn
Fast forward to medieval and early modern Europe. Christianity had spread across the continent, but something sinister was brewing. As the Church consolidated power and patriarchal structures tightened their grip, fear became a useful tool of control.
The translation of the Bible into Latin, then into vernacular European languages, carried that single word kashap into a completely different cultural context. European translators, influenced by their own cultural fears and misogyny, chose words like “witch” (English), Hexe (German), and sorcière (French) – words loaded with meaning in their own cultures.
But European “witches” weren’t poisoners. They were often simply women who:
~ Possessed knowledge of herbal medicine
~ Served as midwives and healers
~ Lived independently without male oversight
~ Owned property or spoke too boldly
~ Were elderly and no longer “useful” to patriarchal society
~ Were convenient scapegoats when crops failed or illness struck
The mistranslation provided Biblical justification for something the text never actually endorsed: the systematic persecution of women, particularly those with knowledge, independence, or property.
Fear as a Weapon of Control
The European witch hunts (roughly 1450-1750) resulted in the execution of an estimated 40,000 to 60,000 people, with some historians suggesting the number could be much higher. The overwhelming majority, around 75-80%, were women.
This wasn’t about Biblical faithfulness. This was about power, control, and the elimination of women who represented a threat to patriarchal authority.
The “witch” became:
~ The woman who knew too much about herbs and healing, competing with male physicians
~ The midwife whose patients survived when the Church-sanctioned doctors’ patients didn’t
~ The widow who inherited property that men wanted
~ The woman who refused to conform to increasingly restrictive gender roles
~ The outsider, the elderly, the poor. Anyone vulnerable and voiceless
The mistranslation of kashap gave religious and legal authority to genocide. Fear was deliberately weaponized. Communities were taught to be suspicious of their own healers, their wise women, their grandmothers. Knowledge that had been passed down for generations was deliberately destroyed.
The Lost Wisdom
What was lost in the witch hunts cannot be fully calculated. Countless women who held ancient knowledge of herbalism, midwifery, and healing were murdered. Their wisdom died with them, burned at the stake or drowned in rivers.
The village healers who understood which herbs eased pain, which plants prevented infection, which remedies aided difficult childbirth – they were systematically eliminated. The women who served as counselors, mediators, and spiritual guides in their communities were silenced forever.
This wasn’t just about individual lives lost. This was about the deliberate destruction of women’s knowledge, women’s power, and women’s community networks.
Reclaiming the Truth
Today, as modern witches, pagans, and practitioners of folk magic reclaim these traditions, it’s important to understand the historical truth. The Bible didn’t condemn witches. It condemned poisoners. People who deliberately harmed others.
The wise woman brewing healing tea, the grandmother teaching herb lore, the midwife attending births, the woman who reads signs in nature, these practices were never Biblically forbidden. They were made criminal by a patriarchal power structure that used mistranslation as justification for control.
When we practice herbalism, folk magic, or earth-based spirituality today, we’re not defying ancient religious texts. We’re reclaiming wisdom that was stolen, honoring the women who were silenced, and continuing traditions that predate the institutions that tried to destroy them.
Moving Forward
Understanding this history doesn’t erase the trauma inflicted in religion’s name, but it does clarify something important: the persecution wasn’t about faith or Biblical accuracy. It was about power, fear, and control dressed in religious language.
The next time someone quotes “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live” to condemn modern practitioners, perhaps they should learn what that verse actually said. And ask themselves why the mistranslation has been so carefully preserved for so many centuries.
The wise women are rising again. Their knowledge, though interrupted, was never truly lost. And now we know: they were never the ones condemned in the first place.
May we honor those who came before. May we remember those who were silenced. May we reclaim the wisdom that was stolen. So it is.