Why not magic?

“Yet another example of these boundaries between God and creation is found in the prohibition of the use of all magic. Sorcery of every kind is forbidden, and the Israelites may not attempt to manipulate God in any kind of ritualistic way. Nowhere is this clearer than in the prophets with their insistence that the rituals in and of themselves accomplish nothing. It is only as the rituals express genuine repentance, exhibiting itself in the nonmanipulative behavior of righteousness and justice, that the ritual gives any pleasure to God at all The attempt to lay hold of divine power to accomplish our purposes and to supply our own needs is represented as disgusting to God. He is not a part of this system and cannot be manipulated through it.

“But if that is the case, how are the Israelites to get their needs supplied? Theyare to do so by surrendering themselves and their need to God in trust and faith (Ps. 51:16-17). They are to do so through personal communication, that is, prayer. This is, of course, a rather frightening alternative. As we said above, it is to put oneself at the mercy of the gods. But unlike the fickle gods, who sometimes bless their human worshipers to aggrandize themselves, the biblical God is faithful, keeping his word no matter what the cost. he longs to bless his people if they will only surrender their own attempts to get what they want without commitment, and trust him. But the price of self-surrender is a high one, and we often find the Israelites slipping back into the attempts to manipulate God through magic.

“This prohibition of magic calls our attention to a feature of the Israelite understanding of God that has been implicit in much that we have already observed. This is that Yahweh, the Holy One of Israel, is absolute. There is nothing and no one beyond him. There is no raw power, no 'meta-divine' outside of him that can be appealed to through magic to force our will on him whether he likes it or not. Thus the Old Testament teaches us that the Absolute is a personal Spirit who is the source of all things—not because they emanate from him, but because of his creative will. He cannot be manipulated through creation, but he intends to bless all those who will surrender their attempts to perform such manipulation”—The Bible Among Other Myths, pages 75-76

<idle musing>
Not a whole lot has changed, has it? We still try to manipulate God; nothing is more scary than being out of control and depending on someone else. We want to be in control, always have. Didn't work in Genesis 3, doesn't work now...
</idle musing>