The name Lilith is generally derived from the root meaning ‘night’ (Bab.-Semitie lildtu, Eth. lélit, Heb. 5:5), night being the special season of this demon’s power and activity. Baudissin, how- ever (op. cit. below), doubts whether this derivation be correct, although it may have been assumed as the basis of some later Jewish conceptions. He quotes Jensen to the effect that the Sumerian lila (=Assyr. lid%) means ‘ wind’ (ef. Del. Assyr. HWB, s.v. ‘hlt’), and that ‘the handmaid of Lila’ is brought into relation to ‘the house of the wind.’ Bandissin suggests that even in Zec 5° there may be a thought of Lilith in the prophet’s mind, when he describes the two women with stork-like wings in which was the wind (n7).
The belief in Lilith existed among the Jews of Mesopotamia, where a species of Lilith-worship prevailed as late as the 7th cent. A.D. In the Rabbinical literature Lilith figures largely (see Buxtorf, Lex. Talm. s.v.). She was said to have been the first wife of Adam, and to have flown away from him and become ademon. The Targ. on Job 115 apparently identifies the queen of Sheba with Lilith (see Griitz’s Monatschrift, 1870, pp. 187 fl., cited by Cheyne in commenting on Is 34").
See, further, arts. DEMON in vol. i. p. 590f., and NIGHT MonsTER.
LitrraTurgE.—The commentaries of Cheyne, Delitzsch, and Dillmann, on Isaiah, ad loc. ; Whitehouse, COT’ ii. 311; Levy in ZDMG, ix. 470, 484f.; Schrader, JPTh i. 128; Lenotmant, Chaldean Magic (Eng. tr.], p. 38; Eisenmenger, Entdecktes Judenthum, ii. 413 ff.; W. R. Smith, RS 113; Wellhausen, Reste2, 148 ff.; Baudissin, art. ‘Feldgeister, Feldteufel’ in Herzog’s RES vi. 5f.; Weber, Jiid. Theologie, 255 ff. ; Sayce, llibbert Lectures, 1887, pp. 145ff.; Hommel, Vorsemit. Kult. 367. J. A. SELBIE.
*In a note on this passage in his edition of the Psalter of 1539 (p. 321), Earle says, ‘The old verb dician was first im- personal, and in that condition it produced this adjective, and the substantive liking as in the sense of looking well and in good condition, as in Shaks. J Henry IV. m. iii. 6—“ 11] repent
. While I am in some liking.” When it became personal and fransitive, it produced liking=approval, as in The Epistle Dedicatorie (1611), ‘who runne their owne wayes, and give liking unto nothing but what is framed by themselves, and hammered on their Anville.”’ From the last came the modern meaning, of which there is an example in AV, Wis 162! ‘to every man’s liking’ (πρὸς δ τις ἐβούλετο, Vulg. ad quod quisquam volebat, RV ‘according to every man’s choice’).
LILY
LILY.—There are three questions to be settled in reference to the lily: (1) What was meant by Ἰριῦ shishan, jw shdshan, and aww shéshannah} (2) Are shishan and shéshanndah the same as κρίνον (Mt 6%)? (3) What is meant by ‘lilies of the field’ ?
(1) The word shtishan or shéshan is still pre- served in stésan or sdsan, a word of Persian origin, but adopted in this form into the Arabic. It is possible that it entered the Heb. from the same source. The capital of Persia was called in Heb. Shushan (Neh 1’, Est 2° οἷς, Dn 8%). Atheno dorus (xii. 513) says that this name was derived from the abundance of the lilies (shishanim) in its neighbourhood. Stsan in Arab. is a general term for lily-like flowers, as the lily, iris, pan- cratium, gladiolus, ete., but more particularly the iris. It is as general as the English term lily, which is applied to flowers of the genera Lilium, Gladiolus, Coavallaxiny Hemerocallis, of the bot- anical order Liliacew, and to Nymphea, Nuphar, Funkia, ete., not of that order. The Heb. shushan must be taken in the same general sense. This makes it easy to explain all the references to the flower in the OT. Some of the lilies grow in ‘ the valleys’ (Ca 2}, not our ‘lily of the valley,’ Con- vallaria, which does not grow in the East), such as several species of Iris; others ‘among thorns’ (Ca 2°), as other species of Iris ; others in pastures, as still other species of Iris and Gladiolus (2! 4° 6%), Its flowers were typical of luxuriance (Hos 14°), as are those of all the Irises, Gladioli, and Pancratia. The comparison of lips to lilies (Ca 5!) may refer to fragrance, not to colour. The allusion to lilies as features of architectural ornament doubtless refers to the recurved leaves of various flowers of the lily type, imitations of which were wrought in stone for capitals of columns (1 K 715), and bronze for the lip of the molten laver (2 Ch 4°), as they have been in similar works of art in other lands, from ancient times to our day. The meaning of the term shéshannim in the title of Pss 45. 69 (ef. Shishan-édith. Ps 60, and Shéshannim-édiith, 80) is obscure. See PSALMS.
(2) Is shiishan the same as κρίνον (Mt 6%: 9)? The Chaldee Targum and most of the Rabbis render it by ‘rose.’ Kimchi and ben - Melech render it in one place (1 K 7%) ‘violet.’ The LXX, however, tr. it always by κρίνον. This is probably correct for several reasons. (a) Wherever there are not urgent reasons to the contrary, a LXX tr. has the preference. (δ) Κρίνον has in Greek the same general application to lily-like plants as shishan in Hebrew and Jily in English. (c) There is no reason for translating shiishan dif- ferently in different places, as in the above men- tioned authorities and in the Judo-Spanish VS, which tr. shiéshan in Ca by ‘rose,’ and in Hos by ‘lirio’=Lilium candidum. Admitting, then, the correctness of the LXX tr. κρίνον, we may assume that Mt used this Greek word to express the Aramaic word used by our Saviour, which was doubtless a modification of shishan.