Indeed, it has been supposed by some that the teraphim,
household gods, (Genesis 35:4; 31:19; 30 - 35; I Samuel 15:23; 19:13, 16; II Kings 23:24) were originally images of ancestors; that they were honored as such and were part of the apparatus of popular religion; (Hosea 3:4) that mortuary customs which the prophetic school later condemned grew up around them; (Cf. Deuteronomy 26:13 - 14) that the right of performing the necessary ceremonies for one's ancestors devolved
upon a son and that this fact underlay both the sense of tragedy in being sonless and the practices of levirate marriage and of
adoption to avoid such disaster; (Cf. Genesis 15:2 - 3; 30:3 - 8; Deuteronomy 25:5 - 10) and that this set of ideas and customs was an integral part of the whole clan organization of early Israel.