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. 

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  

then don’t forget to give this video a thumbs up  and don’t forget to subscribe for more content  

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