the article in the Lisdn el 'Arab on JiC., and cui find ootiiing
that wcewitatei giving to 'I/reet the sense " hairy." I daresay you tiave noticed that some of the derivatives of the root
\ -tc, i_f^Al (in plu.) denote the feathers of the neck or the mane, or the front hairs of a horse. In the Une
dted by Wellh. from Hudh. 227" ^Ur (plu. of O/S-C) i»
used of the hair of women. The feminine of i_5r^ ^ 'S! T*^ '
whence, according to Arabic lexicographers, kj; — . J.C- (I/rtt), through quiescence of the yd, and subsequent change of the
S into iSJ. This Is all the connexion with hair which I have yet been able to find, and thus there seems less in favour of connecting 'I/reet with hairiness, than of your attractive alternative view of connecting it with dust.' In the new ed (181)7) of WeUhausen's Jiette, see pp. 161 ff., and footnote 1 p. 182.
DEMOX, DEVIL
DEMON, DEVIL
591
See Weber, Syst. der altsynagog. Pnlastin. Theol. p. 246; ^is^nmeageT, EntdeckteaJudenth.W p. 413tf.
Even conservative critics like Dillmann and Kbnig assiLTi Is 34 (together with 35) to a period not earlier than the end of the exile ; Cheyne, indeed, would regard it as post-exilic (Intrud. to Isaiah, p. 205 ff.). In the case of this chapter, as well as IS'-U", it is impossible to deny the existence of clear traces of direct Babylonian infliience. But th? date of authorship of these passages does not determine the question when the belief in demonic personalities embodied in animal shapes first be- came prevalent in Israel. From the mention of jackals, ostriches, wild cats, and hysenas in con- nexion with the cn'1'7 ' satyrs,' both in 34'"'- and its parallel 13"'-, we are led to infer that demons were held to reside more or less in all these animal denizens of the ruined solitude. From Lv IT' we also learn that in post-ex. times sacrifices were ottered to c-i'ii^ — a practice which is expressly forbidden. On the other hand, the curious rite respecting 'Azftzel (^iKlif), detailed in Lv le"-, formed an in- tegral part oi the ceremonies on the great Day of Atonement, and clearly shows how firmly embedded in popular imagination was this belief in evil powers of tlie solitude. 'Azftzel is here an evil spirit, and stands opposed to J". * See AzAZEL.
The belief that certain animals were endowed with demonic powers, somewhat like the Arabic Jinn, must have existed in comparatively early pre-ex. times, since Gn 3''", containing the tempta- tion of Eve by the serjient, belongs to tlie earlier stratum of J. We might compare with this Nu 22^"**, coming from the same documentary source. But in the narrative of the temptation of Eve by the serpent there is no hint that an evil spirit resided in the serpent. The serpent is identified with it, and we have no suggestion tliat a demon was able to detach itself from the animal and pass Into something else. This was a later develop- ment. The animal was itself the demonic power, and the latter is not abstracted or treated as a separable personality.
The Jewish exile, covering the larger part of the 8th cent. ac. and the close of the 7th, wrought a great change. It is probably to this period that we owe the Heb. word i^. This word, occurring in the plural form u-\^ in Dt 32", like the Aram. KiV, is probably a loan-word, taken from the Assyro - Babylonian (Hdu). The word Hdu in Assyr. means good or evil genius, represented in the monuments in the form of a colossal bull. The word occurs only twice in OT(Dt32"and Ps 106"). The Song of Moses (Dt 32) in its present form can hardly be earlier than the time of Jeremiah and Ezekiel (Kuenen). Indeed, its retrospective and didactic character, as well as the references to Israel's past sins of idolatry, would point quite as well to the 6ih cent, as to the 7th for the date of its composition. In other words, it may be held, with considerable probability, to reflect the feel- ings of pious Jews m the exile period. , Now, magic played a very considerable part in Babylonian religion. Magic rests on the basis of a belief in evil and destructive spirits, to whose baleful influences man is daily exposed, and which can be counteracted by certain incantations, whereby the countervailing name and power of the higher oenilicent gods are invoked. As Sayce has \ clearly shown (Uibbert Lr.ct. p. 317), ma^c was I closely bound up with medicine, since ' all sickness was ascribed to demoniacal possession ; the demon had been eaten with the food and drunk with the
• 8pc SchulU, A Ittett. Thteiln<i<t «(1888), p. 308; and al*o Cheyne In ZATW, 1896, He(t i. P. ISi'lT. Tlie rurioin rits ot lendinK forth the KOnt for AiImI Into the wildcm(!M(Lv 18»> >')«hould brf-oiii)<arril with \\\f denvat'-h of the bird Into th« fUld In the amnion; mpectJng loproc; (Ufy
water, or breathed in -with the air, and until he could be expelled there was no chance of recovery ' (p. 310). Specimens of these magical texts may be seen in the translations given in Appendix 3 of Sayce's Hibbert Lectures. We subjoin the follow- ing specimen : —
* The plague (namtarX the fever which wUl carry the people