. . . even if some scholars should
refuse to share my scepticism and persist in understanding mašḥît as a
“destroyer”, that is, as some form of personal being, there is naturally
nothing to compel us to believe this “being” to be a demon. Taking our point of
departure in the text itself, it is important to note that there is a striking
collaboration between YHWH and his mašḥît:
YHWH will pass through to slay /ngp/
the Egyptians . . .
YHWH will now all the mašḥît to enter your horses to slay /ngp/
you
The “personal” aspect of the mašḥît
which can be held to be present here results from the fact that its activity –
rather like YHWH’s – is to “enter your hoses to slay”. This may well be
explained as the result of a frequently observable Old Testament stylistic
phenomenon. . . . It is also conceivable that the activity of the mašḥît,
being mentioned as it is in parallelism with that of YHWH, expresses a process
of hypostatization and differentiation that is well attested in the Old
Testament. (Fredrik Lindström, God and the Origin of Evil: A Contextual
Analysis of Alleged Monistic Evidence in the Old Testament [Coniectanea
Biblica Old Testament Series 21; Lund, Sweden: CWK Gleerup, 1983], 63, 64)