Demons
Mot and Molek were not the only dangerous supernatural powers afoot in
the Bible. Although Jewish interest in demonology would peak much later, demons
also appear sporadically in the Hebrew Bible. There is of course the divine adversary
haśśātān (1 chr 21:1; Job 1-2; Zech 3:1-2), but also unspecified demons
that stalk in darkness (Ps 91:6), sneak into windows (Jer 9:20), and terrorize
suffering people (Pss 55:5; 88:16). Rešeph becomes a henchman in YHWH’s
wrathful retinue in Hab 3:5 “Before him went Pestilence, and Plague (רשׁף)
followed close behind.” The plural רשׁפים are loosed in Ps 78;48-49 as “a troop
of destroying angels.” Job 18:13-14 also reflects demonic attack in strikingly
Mesopotamian terms: “the firstborn of death (בכור מות) consumes their limbs.
They are torn from the tent in which they trusted, and are marched before the
king of terrors (למלך בלהות).” The “firstborn of Death” alludes to a demon or
deity of sickness, perhaps Rešeph, while the “king of terrors” is reminiscent
of the image of Namtar from the Underworld Vision.
Demons are also often portrayed semi-naturalistically as wild animals
(e.g., Ps 22:13-19), sometimes haunting wastelands as in other ancient Near Eastern
cultures. Perhaps the most obvious reference is in Isa 34:14, to Lilith, a well-known
Mesopotamian demon (1.4.2.). Apart from a possible association of wastelands
with unburied corpses, I find no explicit link between demons and the dead in general,
unlike in Mesopotamia.
References to demons in literary texts such as Job are not always
reflective of any general belief in their power. However, Mowinckel plausibly
perceived a number of the Psalms as prayers for protection from demonic forces,
which would reflect a genuine religious concern. (Christopher B. Hays, A
Covenant with Death: Death in the Iron Age II and its Rhetorical Uses in
Proto-Isaiah [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2015], 183-84)
