Jesus Triumphant (Chronicles of the Nephilim Book 8) (37 page)

15
[Jeroboam] appointed his own priests for the high places and for the
goat idols (
seirim
)
and for the calves that he had made
.

Not only did Israel fall into worshipping the
seirim
in Canaan, they even committed spiritual adultery with them in the wilderness! It is no wonder Yahweh considered them demons, a declaration reiterated in Moses’ own prophecy that after Israel would be brought into Canaan by the hand of God, she would betray Yahweh by turning aside to other gods, redefined as demons
.

Deuteronomy 32:17

17
They sacrificed to
demons
that were no gods, to gods they had never known,
to new gods
that had come recently, whom your fathers had never dreaded.
[29]

Siyyim and Iyyim (Demons and Goblins)

Moving back to the prophecies of Isaiah 13 and 34 we find additional spiritual creatures of chaos that are connected to the satyrs. We read of hawks, ostriches, owls, and ravens was well as other unknown animals. But the English translations make it look like they are just more natural animals.

Not so in the Hebrew.

Let’s take a closer look at the Hebrew words behind two more of these strange creatures, “wild animals” and “hyenas.”

Isaiah 13:21–22

21
But
wild animals (
siyyim
)
will lie down there, and their houses will be full of howling creatures; there ostriches will dwell, and there wild goats will dance.
22
Hyenas (
iyyim
)
will cry in its towers, and jackals in the pleasant palaces; its time is close at hand and its days will not be prolonged.

Isaiah 34:14

14
And
wild animals (
siyyim
)
shall meet with
hyenas; (
iyyim
)
the wild goat shall cry to his fellow; indeed, there the night bird settles and finds for herself a resting place.

The Hebrew for the words “wild animals” and “hyenas” are not readily identifiable,
[30]
so the ESV translators simply guessed according to their anti-mythical bias and filled in their translations with naturalistic words like “wild animals” and “hyenas.” But of these words, Bible commentator Hans Wildberger says,

“Whereas (jackals) and (ostriches), mentioned in v. 13, are certainly well-known animals, the creatures that are mentioned in v. 14 cannot be identified zoologically, not because we are not provided with enough information, but because they refer to fairy tale and mythical beings.
Siyyim
are demons, the kind that do their mischief by the ruins of Babylon, according to [Isaiah] 13:21. They are mentioned along with the
iyyim
(goblins) in this passage.
[31]

The demons and goblins that Wildberger makes reference to in Isaiah 13:21-22 and 34:14 are the Hebrew words
siyyim
and
iyyim
, a phonetic play on words that is echoed in Jeremiah’s prophecy against Babylon as well:

Jeremiah 50:39 (ESV)

39
“Therefore
wild beasts (
siyyim
)
shall dwell with
hyenas (
iyyim
)
in Babylon, and ostriches shall dwell in her. She shall never again have people, nor be inhabited for all generations.

The Dictionary of Biblical Languages
(
DBL
) admits that another interpretation of
iyyim
other than howling desert animals is “spirit, ghost, goblin, i.e., a night demon or dead spirit (Isa. 13:22; 34:14; Jer. 50:39), note: this would be one from the distant lands, i.e., referring to the nether worlds.”
[32]
One could say that
siyyim
and iyyim
are similar to our own play on words, “ghosts and goblins.”

The proof of this demon interpretation is in the Apostle John’s inspired reuse of the
same exact language
when pronouncing judgment upon first century Israel as a symbolic “Mystery Babylon.” But instead of using the words “wild beasts” and “hyenas,” he uses, “demons” and “unclean spirits.”

Revelation 18:2

2
“Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! She has become a
dwelling place for demons
, a
haunt for every unclean spirit
, a haunt for every unclean bird, a haunt for every unclean and detestable beast.”
[33]

Because of the exile under the Babylonians, Jews would use Babylon as the ultimate symbol of evil. So when John attacks his contemporaries in Israel for rejecting Messiah, he describes them as demonic Babylon worthy of the same judgment as that ultimate evil nation.

But regardless of one’s eschatological interpretation, the “wild beasts” or “monsters” and “hyenas” of Isaiah and Jeremiah are interpreted as demons, unclean spirits and detestable beasts, along with the unclean animals that will scavenge over the ruins of the judged nation.

Lilith

Another strange creature that occurs in Isaiah 34:14,
in the same passage as the satyrs,
is the “night hag,” or “night bird” that “settles and finds for herself a resting place.” The Hebrew word is actually
Lilith
, which the
Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible
explains is a Mesopotamian demoness residing in a tree that reaches back to the third millennium BC.

Here we find Inanna (Ishtar) who plants a tree later hoping to cut from its wood a throne and a bed for herself. But as the tree grows, a snake [Ningishzida] makes its nest at its roots, Anzu settled in the top and in the trunk the demon makes her lair... Of greater importance, however, is the sexual aspect of the—mainly—female demons lilitu and lili. Thus the texts refer to them as the ones who have no husband, or as the ones who stroll about searching for men in order to ensnare them.
[34]

Lilith was also known as the demon who stole away newborn babies to suck their blood, eat their bone marrow and consume their flesh.
[35]
In Jewish legends, she was described as having long hair and wings, and claimed to have been the first wife of Adam who was banished because of Adam’s unwillingness to accept her as his equal.
[36]

The passage we previously looked at, Isaiah 34:11-15, after mentioning the satyrs, then talks about the “night bird” or “owl” that nests and lays and hatches her young in its shadow. But lexicons such as the
Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament
and
Brown, Driver, Briggs
Hebrew Lexicon
contest this Hebrew word for owl (
qippoz
) with more ancient interpretations of an “arrow snake.”
[37]
If they are correct, then the poetry of the passage would be more complete as the NASB indicates.

Isaiah 34:14–15 (NASB95)

14
Yes, the night monster (
Lilith
) will settle there And will find herself a resting place.
15
The tree snake (
qippoz
) will make its nest and lay
eggs
there, And it will hatch and gather
them
under its protection.

The snake of verse 15 would match the Lilith myth (v. 14) with the snake in the roots making its nest. The correlation is too close to deny that this is another Biblical reference to a popular mythic creature that the Bible writers refer to in demonic terms.

The Dead Sea Scrolls of Qumran evidence a preoccupation with demonology that includes reference to this very Isaianic passage. In
The Songs of the Sage
, we read an exorcism incantation,

“And I, the Instructor, proclaim His glorious splendor so as to frighten and to terrify all the spirits 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
[38]

Note the reference to “spirits of the bastards,” a euphemism for demons as the spirits of dead Nephilim who were not born of human fathers, but of angels.
[39]

The God of This World

Chronicles of the Nephilim
has largely been based upon the Divine Council worldview that has been explained in several previous Chronicles appendices. This involves the fallen Watchers from God’s heavenly host who are called the Sons of God. They led the world astray in the Days of Noah, that led to the Flood as Yahweh’s judgment. Deuteronomy 32:8-9, then speaks of how at the Tower of Babel, Yahweh divided the seventy nations according to the number of the fallen Sons of God and placed them under their authority. They became the “princes” (Dan. 10:13, 20-21) or “gods” of those pagan nations (Deut. 32:17; 4:19-21), rulers of those geographical territories.
[40]

When earthly rulers battle on earth, the Bible describes the host of heaven battling with them in spiritual unity. In Daniel 10, hostilities between Greece and Persia is accompanied by the battle of heavenly Watchers over those nations (described as “princes”).

Daniel 10:13, 20-21

The prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days, but Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I was left there with the kings of Persia.” …Then he said, “Do you know why I have come to you? But now I will return to fight against the prince of Persia; and when I go out, behold, the prince of Greece will come.
21 
But I will tell you what is inscribed in the book of truth: there is none who contends by my side against these except Michael, your prince.

When Sisera fought with Israel, the earthly kings and heavenly authorities (host of heaven) are described interchangeably in unity.
[41]

Judges 5:19–20

“The kings came, they fought; then fought the kings of Canaan…From heaven the stars fought, from their courses they fought against Sisera.

When God punishes earthly rulers, he punishes them along with the heavenly rulers (“host of heaven”) above and behind them.

Isaiah 24:21–22

On that day the
Lord
will
punish the host of heaven, in heaven, and the kings of the earth, on the earth
. They will be gathered together as prisoners in a pit; they will be shut up in a prison, and after many days they will be punished.
[42]

This notion of territorial archons or spiritual rulers is Biblical and carries over into intertestamental literature such as the Book of Enoch (1 En. 89:59, 62-63; 67) and others.
[43]
In the New Testament Greek world, heavenly rulers seem to transform into a more generic reference to spiritual “principalities and powers.” The notion of the host of heaven being spiritual powers was foreshadowed in the Old Testament Greek Septuagint with the common translation of “Yahweh of Hosts” into “God of the Powers” (Psa. 88:9 LXX).
[44]

Walter Wink points out that the picture of Watchers over nations is hinted at in 1 Cor. 4:9 where the apostle explains their persecution has “become a spectacle (theatre) to the world, to angels and to men.” He explains that “the image of the Roman theater conjures up hostile and jeering crowds,” and the angels are “heavenly representatives of the Gentile nations and people, who watch, not without malicious glee, the tribulations endured by the apostle to their peoples.”
[45]

The epistles speak of the spiritual principalities and powers that are behind the earthly rulers and powers to be sure (Eph. 6:12-13), but it appears to be more generic in reference. And after the death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, these spiritual powers have been disarmed and overthrown (Col. 2:15, Luke 10:18), at least legally losing their hegemony (Eph. 1:20-23). The fallen angelic powers are still around, but have been defanged with the inauguration of the Messianic kingdom of God.

But there is one of those fallen angelic powers that seems to rise up and grab extraordinary authority in the New Testament: The satan (which translated, means, “Accuser”). The Accuser’s choice of Belial as a proper name in
Jesus Triumphant
is well-attested in Scripture and other ancient Jewish writings, especially the Dead Sea Scrolls from Qumran.
[46]
He is also called Beliar, Mastema, and Sammael in other Second Temple literature.
[47]
Throughout the Old Testament, the Hebrew word
belial
is used as a personification of death, wickedness, and treachery, as well as “an emotive term to describe individuals or groups who commit the most heinous crimes against the Israelite religious or social order, as well as their acts.”
[48]
The Apostle Paul uses the proper name of Belial for the satan (using language similar to the Dead Sea Scrolls) in 2 Corinthians 6:14–15: “Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial?”