A selection of verses showing what the Bible says about teraphim:
The first mention is when Rachel steals her father's teraphim when her family leaves:
19 Now Laban had gone to shear his sheep; and Rachel stole the teraphim that were her father’s.
In the time of the judges, Micah made teraphim among other items for worship of gods:
5 The man Micah had a house of gods, and he made an ephod, and teraphim, and consecrated one of his sons, who became his priest.
King Josiah removed the teraphim as part of his reforms to stop idolatry:
24 Moreover Josiah removed those who had familiar spirits, the wizards, and the teraphim, and the idols, and all the abominations that were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, that he might confirm the words of the law which were written in the book that Hilkiah the priest found in the LORD’s house.
When David was escaping from Saul, his wife put teraphim in their bed to make Saul think that David was ill in bed:
12 So Michal let David down through the window. He went away, fled, and escaped. 13 Michal took the teraphim, and laid it in the bed, and put a pillow of goats’ hair at its head, and covered it with clothes. 14 When Saul sent messengers to take David, she said, “He is sick.”
15 Saul sent the messengers to see David, saying, “Bring him up to me in the bed, that I may kill him.” 16 When the messengers came in, behold, the teraphim was in the bed, with the pillow of goats’ hair at its head.
This would suggest that some teraphim looked like people.
The prophet Ezekiel tells us that the king of Babylon used teraphim in his attempts to get guidance from the gods:
21 For the king of Babylon stood at the parting of the way, at the head of the two ways, to use divination. He shook the arrows back and forth. He consulted the teraphim. He looked in the liver.
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