Zechariah 10:2

"For the teraphim have spoken vanity, and the diviners have seen a lie; and they have told false dreams, and they comfort in vain: therefore they go their way like sheep, they are afflicted, because there is no shepherd."

This, of course, is an accurate description of what had happened to the pre-exilic Israel. Their leadership, whether of the priests and prophets who were their shepherds, or their kings, judges, and magistrates, - all of them had proved incompetent, and had succeeded in leading the nation into total ruin. It has been wondered by some how "thanks to God" instead of to idols should have been singled out here; but it is precisely at this point of thankfulness to the True Source of all human blessing that human apostasy always began. When Paul recounted the awful debaucheries of the pre-Christian Gentile world, he cited first of all the fact that, "Knowing God they glorified him not as God, and neither gave thanks" (Romans 1:21). Christians who leave the faith usually begin in the same way; they stop giving thanks to God, either at the table or anywhere else.

Deane stated that all of the things mentioned here refer "to superstitious devices";[6] in this same line of thought, McFadyen wrote:

"Superstition, a way of life divorced from God and his guidance, is the parent of restlessness and instability and reduces men to the level of shepherdless sheep."[7]

"Teraphim ..." were household gods or idols (Genesis 31:19,30; Judges 7:5). "They bore the likeness of some human figure (1 Samuel 19:13); and they also took the form of signs of the Zodiac and other instruments of astrology."[8]

The test of any people's true worship is found in the way they pray regarding the essentials and the catastrophies of life. It is a mistake so to spiritualize religion that it is considered to be irrelevant to such mundane things.[9]

We have already noted in our studies of the other Minor Prophets that the Israelites worshipped their drag, practiced rhabdomancy and indulged in other superstitions.