To some, she has wandered the earth realm for thousands of years,
lurking under the cover of darkness and preying on infants for which to consume. To others,
she is a temptress - a wicked femme fatalle who seduces the unsuspecting man in the nocturnal
hours. The Mesopotamians said she was a winged creature, perhaps part bird and part woman,
one who possessed a horrific screech and a pair of bloody talons to boot.
As we saw in the last episode, Lilith or Lilitu was indeed a wicked spirit - an
enemy of the gods, a fornicator of men and a butcher of children.
Various audiences have since described her as evil, innocent, immoral, brave,
sickening, charming, villainous… heroic. Indeed, the character Lilith evokes many
polarising perspectives and it would appear that throughout the generations of history,
the meaning of Lilith has morphed to suit her ever changing audiences.
Going by the last episode, we now have a fair understanding of the Mesopotamian attitude towards
Lilith, which is arguably the oldest attitude that one could possibly have. She was not seen
favourably in any capacity and most communities would sooner ward their houses against her with
talismans and incantations than risk her looming in their doorway. To the Babylonians, Lilith
had a pretty terrible rap sheet - she was a night spirit who preyed on the vulnerable, most notably
pregnant women and children and besides feasting on the flesh of babies and drinking their blood,
she was also known to carry and spread disease. She seduced unsuspecting men in their beds,
sometimes at the command of the Babylonian goddess Ishtar and sometimes on her own
accord. Some state that she took on the role of a succubus, emptying men of their seed to fertilise
her own offspring… Others say she seduced men for sport and defiled them in the process.
But what did the bible have to say about this controversial figure?
Well, as I’m sure you’ve guessed, the bible doesn’t speak too fondly of her either.
Whilst she only makes a single appearance in chapter 34 of the book of Isaiah,
even this is enough to stir confusion and debate amongst readers. The first 39 chapters
of Isaiah are essentially hewbraic prophecy as detailed by Isaiah where he encourages readers
to not get too familiar with anyone outside of their own communities so as to avoid coming
into contact with their gods. As you might imagine, Isaiah warns of his god’s anger
when it comes to the worshipping of other gods and scrupulously dissuades anyone from doing so.
In chapter 34, we see Isaiah’s god seeking vengeance upon the people of Edom, who had
taken up worship of multiple deities. Isaiah recounts to us that because of their polytheism,
the region of Edom will become a barren desert land, a place where the soil is infertile and
no man can live, for it would be patrolled by wild animals. We are told “Wildcats shall meet hyenas,
Goat-demons shall greet each other; There too the Lilith shall repose and find herself
a resting place.” (Isaiah 34:14) Isaiah doesn’t appear to describe Lilith
beyond this, implying that it was possible that his audience were well aware of Lilith already.
She did not require an introduction nor an explanation in this passage, for her infamy
preceded her. Isaiah notes that it is in this desolate place, amongst the remnants of Edom, that
Lilith will find her resting place, suggesting that the demoness did saunter from place to place
as she committed her evils, but would now focus it all upon the site of Edom. To some,
this passage may also go hand in hand with the story of Inanna and the Huluppu tree,
for where Gilgamesh banishes Lilitu or Lilith to the desert, the desert is where she arrives
here in the bible. The desert in both cases may be symbolic for Lilith being
sent to a place devoid of life - a bleak and forsaken place that was suitable for a being
such as her. Lilith flees there because she knows it is a place that Gilgamesh will not follow,
a place no man would willingly tread and a place where, ironically, she would feel safe.
In Isaiah’s account, God brings this terrible place upon Edom to punish them and to serve as
a reminder to every neighbouring part that this is what is to come to those who do not worship him.
It’s also interesting that in Isaiah’s account, Lilith is surrounded once more by animals,
just as we’ve seen in the Burney Relief. These animals of course are much more violent;
wildcats, hyenas and goat-demons - creatures that would no doubt prey on
mankind given the chance… much as Lilith would. What’s interesting about the biblical account is
that in other translations, Lilith is completely omitted and replaced instead by a screeching owl.
The King James translation for example tells us, “The wild beasts of the desert shall also
meet with the wild beasts of the island, and the satyr shall cry to his fellow;
the screech owl also shall rest there, and find for herself a place to rest.” (Isaiah 34:14) It is
unclear why various translations omit Lilith and instead choose to replace her as a screeching owl,
but in any case, the choice to use an owl may be a deliberate nod to Lilith’s Babylonian image
where she was believed to have been depicted with wings, talons and various bird-like qualities.
Furthermore, as a nocturnal bird that flies in darkness, the owl certainly shares Lilith’s
characteristics - a creature that hunts its prey under the cover of the night.
In the Septuagint, the Greek version of the bible, the reference to Lilith is swapped for the Greek
beast known as the onocentaur, a creature similar to a centaur, but is half human and half donkey.
In this version, there is no Lilith and the desolate land of Edom is instead inhabited by
this bizarre hybrid creature, one that certainly seems less threatening. Additionally, the wild
beasts that accompany Lilith are also replaced by the Greek ‘Daimonia’, those believed to be demons
or unclean spirits. By this, Septuagint seeks to completely remove Lilith and all
associations to her and appear to favour an even more obscure beast in the form of the onocentaur.
There is no certain answer as to why this is, but one idea is that Lilith was too strikingly similar
to another creature that lingered in the shadows of old Greek legend - a monster known as Lamia.
Lamia, who much like Lilith was a hunter of children, would have been well known to the
ancient Greeks. She was first and foremost known as the ‘child-killer’, a fearsome creature that
hunted children and devoured them until nothing of their physical form remained. What made Lamia so
striking was perhaps the very visual descriptions of her which may have helped keep her legend so
prominent for so long. Lamia had the upper body of a human and the lower body of a serpent,
though in some variations she was again much like Lilith (or her Babylonian equivalent in Lilitu),
being adorned with wings and talons. It is believed that Lamia may have been a daughter
of the goddess Hecate, but her more prominent role within Greek Mythology comes from her
romantic associations with Zeus. After Lamia had been caught in bed with Zeus,
Hera - Zeus' jealous wife, sought revenge by killing all of Lamia’s children. Unable to cope
with the grief, Lamia metamorphosed into a monster and manifested her own anger of having lost her
children by killing the children of others. In other accounts, Lamia was also a seducer of
men - luring men to her clutches before embodying a more vampiric essence and sucking their blood.
Where Lilith seduced men with the intention of stealing their semen and defiling them morally,
it would appear Lamia intended grievous physical harm and would even kill the men she entrapped.
Where Lilith appeared to hunt pregnant women and children, Lamia appears to have gone a
step further - perhaps an expression of her rage for what she had lost.
Lamia would become a common folk story amongst the Greeks,
a cautionary tale to both men and women to keep their wits about them when it came to exploring
the unknown. But it's more common use was to scare children into listening to their parents and goad
them into good behaviour - sort of like an archaic boogeyman of the ancient age. With this knowledge,
it’s possible that Lilith was rejected from the Septuagint because of her considerable
semblance to Lamia and was possibly an effort by the original translators to distance themselves
from the strands of their earlier mythology, one that was not congruent with biblical sentiments.
What’s even more interesting is that the early 5th century Vulgate - a Latin translation of
the bible - outrightly referred to Lilith in Isaiah 34 as Lamia, saying "And demons shall
meet with monsters, and one hairy one shall cry out to another; there the lamia has lain down and
found rest for herself". With this, it further adds to the speculation that Lilith and Lamia
may have been conflated in some way, or at the very least drew inspiration from the same place.
We later see Lilith unearthed once more in the Dead Sea Scrolls,
most notably in the fragmentary manuscript of a Jewish exorcism known as Songs of the
Sage. The text, whilst incomplete, appears to offer some protection against various demons,
as well as Lilith, who presumably conducts herself in the same fashion that’s expected of her.
The text suggest that the world is populated with evil angels that serve the demon Belial
and that in order to protect against such forces, the following words should be uttered
“And I, the Instructor, proclaim His (God’s) glorious splendour so as to frighten and
to terrify all the sprits of the destroying angels, spirits of the bastards, demons, Lilith,
howlers and desert dwellers and those which fall upon men without warning to lead them astray from
a spirit of understanding.” (Songs of the Sage) Mentions of Lilith do also appear in the Talmud
- a Jewish compendium of discussions and tales by great rabbis - though these are few and far
between. However, they do give us some insights as to how the ancient rabbis considered Lilith in the
early years of the 4th century. Here in various chapters, she is described in a physical sense
and is attributed with having long hair and wings. Along with this, she is also noted as having sex
with men whilst they sleep in an effort to steal their semen. This then reinforces the idea,
as well as building on the demon’s sexual nature , that Lilith was indeed something of a succubus,
or perhaps the first succubus. One talmudic entry actually specifies that people ought
not to sleep alone at night, for to do so would allow oneself to become vulnerable to Lilith.
Lilith’s presence in the bible is admittedly almost inconsequential, but that has not stopped
many scholars, theorists and even fans of Lilith from picking apart Isaih’s words in chapter 34.
Whilst believers may not wish to lose sight of the message behind Isaiah’s dire warning for the
people of Edom, the intrigue behind Lilith finding this obliterated land as her final resting place
is quite hard for some to ignore. With Edom being so totally bombarded with God’s vengeance,
as told to us by Isaiah, where its sands will be drenched in blood, its streams
turned to darkness and its lands set on fire, the inclusion of Lilith seated amongst this madness
makes for both an epic and horrifying spectacle. As always guys, if you’ve enjoyed today’s episode
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