Divination has been principally employed in inspecting the entrails of
beasts offered for sacrifice, and from their appearance drawing omens
of the good or ill success of the enterprises in which we are about to
engage.
What the divination by the cup was which Joseph practised, or
pretended to practise, we do not perhaps exactly understand. We all of
us know somewhat of the predictions, to this day resorted to by
maid-servants and others, from the appearance of the sediment to be
found at the bottom of a tea-cup. Predictions of a similar sort are
formed from the unpremeditated way in which we get out of bed in a
morning, or put on our garments, from the persons or things we shall
encounter when we first leave our chamber or go forth in the air, or
any of the indifferent accidents of life.