Lilith in the BibleThere is an ongoing scholarly debate as to whether the concept of Lilith occurs in the Bible. The only possible occurrence is in the Book of Isaiah 34:13-15, describing the desolation of Edom, where the Hebrew word lilit (or lilith) appears in a list of eight unclean animals, some of which may have demonic associations. Since the word lilit (or lilith) is a hapax legomenon in the Hebrew Bible and the other seven terms in the list are better documented, the reading of scholars and translators is often guided by a decision about the complete list of eight creatures as a whole.[72][73] Quoting from Isaiah 34 (NAB):
(12) Her nobles shall be no more, nor shall kings be proclaimed there; all her princes are gone. (13) Her castles shall be overgrown with thorns, her fortresses with thistles and briers. She shall become an abode for jackals and a haunt for ostriches. (14) Wildcats shall meet with desert beasts, satyrs shall call to one another; There shall the lilith repose, and find for herself a place to rest. (15) There the hoot owl shall nest and lay eggs, hatch them out and gather them in her shadow; There shall the kites assemble, none shall be missing its mate. (16) Look in the book of the LORD and read: No one of these shall be lacking, For the mouth of the LORD has ordered it, and his spirit shall gather them there. (17) It is he who casts the lot for them, and with his hands he marks off their shares of her; They shall possess her forever, and dwell there from generation to generation.
[edit] Hebrew textIn the Masoretic Text:
Hebrew: וּפָגְשׁוּ צִיִּים אֶת-אִיִּים, וְשָׂעִיר עַל-רֵעֵהוּ יִקְרָא; אַךְ-שָׁם הִרְגִּיעָה לִּילִית, וּמָצְאָה לָהּ מָנוֹח
Hebrew (ISO 259): u-pagšu ṣiyyim et-ʾiyyim w-saʿir ʿal-rēʿēhu yiqra; ʾak-šam hirgiʿa lilit u-maṣʾa lah manoaḫ[74]
34:14 "And shall-meet desert creatures et (particle) jackals
the goat he-calls his- fellow
lilit (lilith) she-rests and she-finds rest[75]
34:15 there she-shall-nest the great-owl, and she-lays-(eggs), and she-hatches, and she-gathers under her-shadow:
hawks[kites, gledes ] also they-gather, every one with its mate.
In the Dead Sea Scrolls, among the 19 fragments of Isaiah found at Qumran, the Great Isaiah Scroll (1Q1Isa) in 34:14 renders the creature as plural liliyyot (or liliyyoth).[76][77]
Eberhard Schrader (1875)[78] and Moritz Abraham Levy (1885)[79] suggest that Lilith was a goddess of the night, known also by the Jewish exiles in Babylon. Schrader and Levy's view is therefore partly dependent on a later dating of Deutero-Isaiah to the 6th century BC, and the presence of Jews in Babylon which would coincide with the possible references to the Līlītu in Babylonian demonology. However this view is challenged by some modern research such as by Judit M. Blair (2009) who considers that the context indicates unclean animals