Bibical Demonology: 7iii – Demons in Isaiah, including Lilith

I this section we discover a range of demons which appear in Isaiah 13 and 34, including Lilith. These two passages have been chosen as they exemplify the way modern translations have de-supernaturalised their meanings, leaving us with a fairly bland menagerie of physical creatures.

It should be noted that there is no Hebrew word for demon, and therefore the words we do discover have to be cross referenced with contemporary cultures in and around the area in which those scriptures were written. The LXX translators chose some of these particular beings to be translated as daimones, whilst others were translated into theriomorphic representations of spirit-beings. Still more were translated accordingly as non-spirit beings given their particular context. A whole mixture of physical and spiritual entities were put together in these passages, so you can see why some translators decided to translate the whole lot as ordinary animals.

Each subsection here will be titled with the original Hebrew word, rather than the Greek LXX, and show the progression of key translations. Bible passage links are to pages which show parallel translations of all the English versions available for further research purposes, but on this page we shall only present a few across the span of time from the KJV to present .

It should be noted that whilst these may be perceived as natural animals by some translators and commentators, there is theriomorphic messaging going on in the text, which original readers would understand. Just like there wouldn’t have been a literal snake in Eden, the imagery used in the passages telegraph something about each entity’s status in the spiritual realm.

Śĕ ̔îrîm

Leviticus 17:7; 2 Chronicles 11:15;
Isaiah 13:21 and 34:14)

LXX – Mataois (Lev & 2 Chr) / Daimones (Isa)
Vulgate – pilosis (hairy ones)
KJV – satyrs / devils
NIV – wild goats
NRSV – goat-demons.

Śĕ ̔îrîm is Hebrew for goat, so context is required for these translations, which is why we include Leviticus and 2 Chronicles as background. The LXX translates Leviticus 17:7 and 2 Chronicles 11:15 using the word mataois (idol), not daimones. Idols were representations of gods, not the gods themselves. They functioned as physical shells for a god who would have been attributed with goat-like characteristics. The Hebraic annual atonement ritual in Leviticus 16:7-10 included sending a “sin-laden” goat to Azazel (not as a sacrifice, but merely ascribing sin its place with the sinful Azazel). As these idols are acting as intermediary objects they avoid being categorised as Class I daimones, in these two passages. Worshippers understood idols were not gods, but representations within which the presence of their god had been invoked [1].

However, when faced with a catalogue of entities in Isaiah 13:21 and Isaiah 34:14, the LXX translators chose to use daimones. These would be Class II diamones, as they were entities which didn’t receive sacrifices or offerings. These beings resided in the Steppe / wastelands and may be the origin of the Arabic conception of the djinn.

It’s strange that the NIV chooses to de-supernaturalise the passage with “wild goat”, causing anyone without a knowledge of other versions to think these beings were ordinary animals. As we often think of satyrs in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, or ancient Greek myths, perhaps the translators thought the notion of goat-like beings was superstitious nonsense, so used natural animal imagery instead?

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Ṣîyyîm / ʾIyyîm

Isaiah 13:21 and Isaiah 34:14

LXX: thērion (beasts) /onotaurus (donkey-centaur) – 13:21; daimonia (demons) /onotaurus (donkey-centaur) – 34:14.
Vulgate: bestiae / ibes and daimoniae / onocentauri
KJV: Wild beasts
NIV: desert creatures / hyenas
NRSV: wild animals, wildcats / “howling creatures”, hyenas

Often appearing together, are the ṣîyyîm and ʾiyyîm physical or supernatural entities? As ever, context is key for these interpretations…

Isaiah 13 is a prophecy of Amoz against Babylon, and speaks of God’s judgement via the Medes & Persians, which took place via King Cyrus in 539 BCE. This is a physical passage and as such the ṣîyyîm could rightly be identified as physical beasts as the LXX translation suggests.

Compared to Isaiah 13, chapter 34 is far wider in its scope of judgement, being eschatological in nature. In it we see the final judgement in the heavenly realms (Isaiah 34:4-5) and then upon earthly places. The inconsistency in translation in Isaiah 13 and 34 is probably due to the cultural concept of unclean animals having theriomorphic connections to unclean spirits.

Psalm 74:14 contains the ṣîyyîm when it speaks of the mythic chaos beast, Leviathan the sea dragon, a recurring cosmic Chaoskampf monster, crushed by Elohim and served up as a meal for the ṣîyyîm. Given the “other” nature of Leviathan, the context to interpret ṣîyyîm must also mean they are creatures of an “other” realm. Similar imagery is used of Pharoah, a physical being in Ezekiel 29:3-5, so we can read ṣîyyîm there as being physical beings. For yet another insight into the eschatological Judgement Feast see an upcoming article on the supernatural forces of Gog being sacrificed as a meal for the physical creatures in the Valley of the ‘Oberim.

The ʾiyyîm or “howling creature”, could well be a nocturnal carrion eater such as a hyena, or jackal, but this is not conclusive, as the Hebrew of this term is uncertain (NRSV footnotes acknowledge this). Once again, the context is again important: Isaiah 13:22 places them alongside the identifiable species tannîm – jackals (yes, v22 translates ʾiyyîm and tannîm both as jackals!), whereas Isaiah 34:14 puts the ʾiyyîm amongst the śĕ ̔îrîm and lîlît, both spiritual beings.

In the end, these mysterious, ‘non-zoologically identifiable’ [2] beings form part of those who haunt the counter-human places such as deserts, mountains, and swamps. Whether animal, spirit or a mixture of the two, these together with other entities populate areas of former human habitation that have been ruined by warfare. In the cultural mindset, these places were places of death and bloodshed and they believed that these liminal places were where evil supernatural beings resided as well as unclean carrion consumers.

Lîlît

Isaiah 34:14

LXX: onotaurus (donkey-centaur)
Vulgate: lamia
KJV: Screech owl
NIV: night creatures
NRSV: Lilith

The particularly feminine demon in Isaiah, lîlît or Lilith, is about the only being here which we have quite a bit of contemporary Akkadian literature for. She first appears in the 4000 year-old Babylonian epic Gilgamesh and the Huluppu-Tree, where Gilgamesh sends the demonic Lilith away into the desert. Whilst some today believe she’s a champion of female equality, back then Lilith was not a being you would wish to have anywhere near you.

Connections between the demon in Isaiah, lîlîtu (Lilith) and the Akkadian demon Lamashtu include both being female sexual predator spirits (a succubus) that would enter homes to lie with men at night, though were unable to become pregnant, They would also be accused of stealing children away in the night. Both were said to drink the blood of the living and eat their flesh, leading some to believe that Lilith is the first vampire to enter written history!

Lîlît is mentioned alongside the ṣîyyîm (donkey-centaurs) in Isaiah 34 connecting her with archaeological discoveries of apotropaic amulets for warding off Lamashtu which bear her image standing upon a donkey. This may well be why the LXX translates lîlît as onotaurus as well as theʾiyyîm in the same verse. Lamashtu’s nemesis was the entity called Pazazu, who was invoked for protection upon newborn children. Because of carvings of Pazuzu are quite scary to look at, modern day films such as The Exorcist have portrayed him as being an evil entity – a case of demonizing the daimons.

The animal associated with Lilith was the owl, which explains the King James usage of “screech owl” for the word lîlît.

Connected with the word laylâ (night), the lîl were wind demons and lîlîtu could enter / leave houses through open windows. The link with the wind also comes into play when the lîlît were said to take the breath (wind) of young children, a possible supernatural attribution by the culture for what we now know as sudden infant (cot death) syndrome.

Interpretations of lîlît as Lilith, first wife of Adam that gave birth to the demons are modern Midrash / Talmud attempts to explain what these beings were. There is absolutely no link whatsoever in the Hebrew Bible between the lîlît and the Edenic story, despite what some authors such as Robert Graves try and make out.

Conclusion

The two passages in Isaiah describe liminal places uninhabited by humans, either due to them being classed as places of death where humans couldn’t live (e.g. the desert), or places where death has occurred and thus are inhabited by unclean beasts – carrion eaters. That these creatures were mixed together with supernatural entities reveals beliefs that these places were unsafe both physically and spiritually.

As these were all beings which did not receive worship (ignoring the idols which are technically empty shells), we can add them to the Class II category of daimones:

Next time:– we explore the ittim, the ghosts in Isaiah 19:3.

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Bibliography

Heiser, M. S. (2020), Demons: What the Bible Really Says About the Powers of Darkness, Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.

Marilyn J. Lundberg (2007). ‘The Mis-Pi Rituals and Incantations and Jeremiah 10: 1–16’, in Goldingay, J. (ed.), Uprooting and Planting: Essays on Jeremiah for Leslie Allen, New York, NY: T & T Clark International.

Van der Toorn, K., Van der Horst, P. W., et al (1998), Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible. Lieden, Netherlands: Brill Academic Publishers.

Walton, J. H. and Walton, J. H. (2019), Demons and Spirits in Biblical Theology: Reading the Biblical Text in Its Cultural and Literary Context, Eugene, OR: Cascade.

Footnotes

[1] Hence, when the idol of Dagon was destroyed upon bringing the Ark of the Covenant into his temple, its priests didn’t believe Dagon himself had been destroyed as they continued worshipping him after the event (1 Samuel 5:1-5). A series of idol consecration inscriptions called “Washing of the mouth”, or mîs-pî, have been found in Babylonian and Assyrian literature. The consecration process involved a series of rituals and incantations designed to invoke the presence of the preferred deity within the idol. Afterwards, the idol was said to be able to see, hear, touch, taste and smell the prayers and offerings presented to it (Lundberg: 211-212). Isaiah 44:9-20 and Jeremiah 10:3-15 mock the absurdity of idols and show an awareness of these mîs-pî rituals.

[2] DDD, 898.