Soothsayer…an antiquated term we rarely hear today. Scripture only translates the original language into the term soothsayer a handful of times.
Balaam was a soothsayer, and Balaam’s word clearly carried a lot of weight. He was paid handsomely for the art of soothsaying. But what is it? It’s not witchcraft. Most of the times it is translated as “divination” or a “diviner”.
In the reference in Joshua about Balaam it comes from the Hebrew “gacam”, meaning “to distribute, that is to determine by lot of magical scroll; to divine, prudent, soothsayer, use divination.” [Strong’s]
Two other words in the Hebrew have been translated similarly [again, Strong’s]:
“gezar: to quarry; determine: cut out, soothsayer”
“Anan: to cover, to cloud over, to act covertly i.e. practice magic: enchanter…observer of times…soothsayer, sorcerer”
And once in the New Testament it’s used.
Acts 16:16
And it came to pass, as we went to prayer, a certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination met us, which brought her masters much gain by soothsaying:
This term comes from the Greek “manteuomai: to divine, i.e. utter spells under pretense of foretelling, by soothsaying”.
Eighteen years ago….
Eighteen years ago a stranger stopped me and prophesied over me. At the end of the prophecy she said this, “God would warn you that a soothsayer will come against you – whether in form or spirit, I don’t know. This soothsayer will send lies or confusion to you as to make you disbelieve His word and His calling. He’s warning you ahead of time so you are not deceived or swayed away from Him or His call.”
When I asked her for more understanding, that’s all she had. She was clear that the word she was given was “soothsayer” and not witchcraft.
I was in my 20s and a young mother. I had no idea what this meant or what to expect. It has taken me a long, long time to understand it. This is what I have learned….
Some time after this I was working with some deliverance ministers and intercessors on personal deliverance. At one of the sessions one of the gals told me I had a specific thought or emotion as a baby and that I needed to repent of it. As soon as she told me the emotion I allegedly had as a baby (or small child), my inner being recoiled. I could not for the life of me understand how I would have had that thought or emotion. It was well over two decades later and I was not cognizant of ever thinking or feeling what she suggested I thought or felt. She perceived my reluctance and chided me to accept the revelation of God and respond by asking forgiveness.
I actually had a visceral reaction to this. I had no problem taking by faith elements of my earliest childhood by inspiration of the Spirit, but I had no inspiration, no confirmation that this was from God. I had already had several other leadings that were confirmed in me, but this one I had the exact opposite reaction. I recoiled. I drew back from the implication and within me immediately pushed back with a resounding no. No, I did not have that thought or emotion as a baby or small child.
When I questioned her more about it, she refused to move on or answer additional questions and stated she was following the leading of the Spirit. I implored direction from another intercessor in the session. That other intercessor did not get a confirmation but instead got a separate word for me that God confirmed and helped me gain deliverance with.
The fallout of that led to a standoff. The lady declared that I was in rebellion to God by not accepting the word she had brought forth. She told me we could not continue my sessions until I aligned with that word. I assured her I would as soon as I got confirmation from the Spirit. That confirmation never came. Instead, I was in turmoil and inner conflict as I wrestled over this directive in my own being. My husband told me to let it go, that she was just a human and could be wrong like anyone else. He said he did not get a witness to that word.
I prayed over that for days that moved into weeks. She refused to allow our sessions to go forth. Because of her position of leadership in the church, no one else would help me. I turned to self-study through Derek Prince books, prayer and some deliverance conferences. Nearly a year later I was approached by her to “resume our sessions”. I was shocked. The Spirit warned me that same morning that workers of darkness were aligned against me, but I did not know what it meant until I went to that meeting. She ambushed me by bringing two other people to the meeting to accuse me of things that were blatantly false. One of the other attendees was a pastor in the church. I was admonished of being rebellious to spiritual authority and told to submit to their leadership. I walked away and never went back. The fallout of that cost me, my children and our family dearly. My name was slandered and lies were spread about me that took years to expose.
The same woman, in a prominent role of leadership in that church, spread flat out lies about me that would not come to the surface until I was gone. The damage was done and I moved on.
Fast forward a couple more years. I had moved on and away from that scene and was in a different church with no overlap of those people. One of the intercessors from the prior church was powerfully prophetic, and got clear words of knowledge that could not be denied. She ended up at the same church I was at, and we ministered together in leadership roles for quite a while.
I was the head of a ministry, and in favor with the pastor. Behind my back this woman went to the pastor and cast seeds of doubt against a program I was running. She and I had previously had a conversation about that program, and I had gone to the pastor with her stated concerns, and like me, he did not have the same concerns. So I proceeded with the program. When she found out, she went behind my back and slurred me to him with unfounded accusations. When I confronted her, she told me, “I have to obey God, not man.” Implication: she was following God to do this.
Again, she was highly prophetic with extremely accurate words of knowledge. I figured I must’ve missed something, and I moved on. I didn’t talk with her for a year after that, but circumstances brought us back together. I looked at her prophetic gift and figured I must’ve been wrong on something, forgave her, and continued in ministry with her.
A couple years later I happenstance ran into the first lady. ALL of my antennas were up, and I was silently pleading the Blood over myself as she engaged me in small talk. That night my dog started barking incessantly, pointed in the direction of our alley. Our back fence was solid metal – you could not see through it. After fifteen minutes of this barking, I walked out my front door and down the sidewalk to the alley to investigate. As I was approaching the alley the Spirit warned me to not go down it. He simply said, “Don’t get off the sidewalk.” I rarely can see spirits, but there was an enormous ten or twelve foot dark spirit in the alley my dog was barking at. I knew it was sent through her.
A couple years later the second lady started coming to the church I was now at, and in a leadership role. One by one, little things started happening that made no sense. While I was praying with her, financially assisting her, and ministering with her, she was sowing lies about me in secret conversations. I felt something off but couldn’t put my finger on it. And then I found out she wrote a letter to the District Superintendent of our church and told a bold-faced lie about me (that I had been kicked out of six churches). By this time the damage of her lies had started the demise of many things in that church, and people were being divided and picked off at record rate.
Somewhere along this multi-year journey, the Spirit showed me it was the soothsayer spirit at work against me. He reminded me of his warning in 2003.
In my experience, the soothsayer spirit worked through Christians with a strong prophetic gift. I have no idea whether they are true Christians or not. I would guess they are, but are being used by the enemy. I can go back to many words given by some of these highly prophetic people and know they were spot on. I can go back to many other words given by these same highly prophetic people and know they were dead wrong.
In my earlier days I had no self confidence. While I’m prophetic, it has taken me a couple decades to feel confident in the words and revelations God has given me. I came from a place of brokenness, so I doubted myself regularly. When those around me with titles and notoriety spoke into my life with their words, I deferred to their experience and reputations.
One of the common arrows used against me was I was “rebellious”. Of course I was. I was raised by a religious spirit of control. The only way to resist authoritative control is to rebel. Rebellion was ingrained in me. It kept me alive. My adult daughter recently asked my dad why he (my parents) disowned me (when I was sixteen). He replied, “We couldn’t control her.” How accurate those words are. My parents used an iron fist to control me, even down to the clothes I had to wear daily, even down to the emotions on my face and the words out of my mouth. Personal expression was forbidden, I was punished for laughing even. The only way to survive for me was to rebel, to push back against their authoritarian control. Submission was death to my spirit, my inner man. I would not do so.
Those in the deliverance ministry and with a prophetic gift would have seen that rebellion in me and use it against me, to shame me into submission to more authoritarian control and religious spirits. It took a prophet from Kenya to prophesy over me (in one of the very churches I was debased and stripped of sovereignty) to free me from the chains they had attempted to put on me.
So to me the soothsayer spirit is a treacherous spirit that masquerades as prophetic gifting and religious authority. It did the very thing the prophetic word I was given in 2003 warned me of, “This soothsayer will send lies or confusion to you to make you disbelieve His word and His calling.” This is exactly what those actions through good Christians did. The wake of damage from this spirit working against my life has been extensive. But God.
There are multiple other examples of how this worked against me for fifteen years, but I don’t have space for all of them. I tried to pick the bigger more destructive situations it manifested. So today I am extremely cautious of the prophetic and prophetic words. I am extremely cautious of those in church authority. I walk a fine line between honoring those appointed by God and making sure I do not acquiesce to a spirit being used for my destruction. I err on the side of caution every time.
Soothsayer, by original definition, uses a spirit of divination. I learned that it can use a prophetic gift most easily, and Christians who have a mixture of flesh and spirit in their walk. I hope that helps someone else on their journey.