Whose Head Does Your Jack-O-Lantern Represent?

Did you ever wonder where the tradition of the jack-o-lantern came from? We can find them referred to indirectly in the Bible. When Jacob packed up his family to flee from his father-in-law, his wife Rachael took her father’s idols so he would not be able to consult them as to their whereabouts.

Gen 31:26 Then Laban said to Jacob, “What have you done that you tricked me and have carried off my daughters like captives of the sword?
Gen 31:27 Why did you hide your intention to flee and trick me, and did not tell me so that I would have sent you away with joy and song and tambourine and lyre?
Gen 31:28 And why did you not give me opportunity to kiss my grandsons and my daughters goodbye? Now you have behaved foolishly by doing this.
Gen 31:29 It is in my power to do harm to you, but the God of your father spoke to me last night saying, ‘Take care from speaking with Jacob, whether good or evil.’
Gen 31:30 Now, you have surely gone because you desperately longed for the house of your father, but why did you steal my gods?”
Gen 31:31 Then Jacob answered and said to Laban, “Because I was afraid, for I thought, ‘Lest you take your daughters from me by force.’
Gen 31:32 But with whomever you find your gods, he shall not live. In the presence of your kinsmen now identify what is with me that is yours and take it.” Now Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen them.
Gen 31:33 Then Laban went into Jacob’s tent and Leah’s tent and the tent of the two female servants and did not find his gods. And he came out of Leah’s tent and went into Rachel’s tent.
Gen 31:34 Now Rachel had taken the idols and put them in the saddle bag of the camel and sat on them. And Jacob searched the whole tent thoroughly but did not find them.
Gen 31:35 And she said to her father, “Let there not be anger in the eyes of my lord, for I am not able to rise before you, for the way of women is with me. And he searched carefully and did not find the idols.
Gen 31:36 Then Jacob became angry and quarreled with Laban. Jacob answered and said to Laban, “What is my offense? What is my sin that you pursued after me?

We get a definition of these idols from the book of Jasher. These heads of the Chaldean enemies would be made as idols. People like Rachael’s father would have these idols of shrunken heads with candles, and consult them through demonic entities and familiar spirits. They are called teraphim.

“And Rachel stole her father’s images, and she took them and she concealed them upon the camel upon which she sat, and she went on. And this is the manner of the images; in taking a man who is the first born and slaying him and taking the hair off his head, and taking salt and salting the head and anointing it in oil, then taking a small tablet of copper or a tablet of gold and writing the name upon it, and placing the tablet under his tongue, and taking the head with the tablet under the tongue and putting it in the house, and lighting up lights before it and bowing down to it. And at the time when they bow down to it, it speaketh to them in all matters that they ask of it, through the power of the name which is written in it. And some make them in the figures of men, of gold and silver, and go to them in times known to them, and the figures receive the influence of the stars, and tell them future things, and in this manner were the images which Rachel stole from her father. And Rachel stole these images which were her father’s, in order that Laban might not know through them where Jacob had gone.” Jasher 31:40-44

Human heads were eventually replaced by vegetables like turnips and pumpkins, but what about the demons that spoke through these idols? Do they care if they are working through a human shrunken skull or a vegetable?

Consider these verses:

1Pe 1:13 Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
1Pe 1:14 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance,
1Pe 1:15 but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct,
1Pe 1:16 since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

Deu 12:29 “When Yahweh your God has cut off the nations whom you are about to go to, to dispossess them before you, and you have dispossessed them, and you live in their land,
Deu 12:30 take care so that you are not ensnared into imitating them after their being destroyed from before you, and so that you not enquire concerning their gods, saying, ‘How did these nations serve their gods, and thus I myself want to do also.’
Deu 12:31 You must not do so toward Yahweh your God, because of every detestable thing they have done for their gods Yahweh hates, for even their sons and their daughters they would burn in the fire to their gods.
Deu 12:32 All of the things that I am commanding you, you must diligently observe; you shall not add to it, and you shall not take away from it.”

1Co 10:19 What do I imply then? That food offered to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything?
1Co 10:20 No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons.
1Co 10:21 You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons.
1Co 10:22 Shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he?

When you celebrate this high sabbat with trunk or treats in church parking lots, you are paying homage to the wrong god, and entertaining these dark entities.