Isaiah and the Dead Sea Scrolls

Your goal in this lesson: to read the one biblical verse about Lilith in context, and to see how translations changed her.

One verse in a ruined land

Historical Isaiah 34 is a prophecy of judgment against Edom, a kingdom southeast of Judah. Its land turns to pitch and thorns, and wild creatures move into its ruins. Many scholars date this part of Isaiah to the sixth or fifth century BCE. In the middle of a list of animals, verse 14 says that a lilit will rest there and find a place of repose.

That is all. One word, in a list of creatures that haunt ruins. In the ancient Near East, abandoned cities were uncanny places, the home of jackals, owls and spirits.

How translators handled one word

Historical Translators had to choose, and their choices shaped how readers imagined her.

• The Septuagint, the ancient Greek translation, has no separate word for her and uses “donkey-centaurs” for the creatures in this verse.
• Jerome’s Latin Vulgate, around 390 to 405 CE, chose lamia, the child-devouring monster of Greek and Roman lore.
• The King James Version of 1611 has “screech owl”.
• The Jewish Publication Society translation of 1917 has “the night-monster”.
• Modern versions spread out: “night hag” in the Revised Standard Version (1952), “Lilith” in the New Revised Standard Version (1989), “night creature” in many others.

The Great Isaiah Scroll from Qumran, copied in the second century BCE, even has a plural form, liliyyot.

The Songs of the Sage

Historical The Dead Sea Scrolls, found near Qumran from 1947, date from about the third century BCE to the first century CE. Two fragmentary copies of a work now called the Songs of the Sage (4Q510 and 4Q511), from around the late first century BCE, show a teacher proclaiming God’s majesty to frighten evil spirits away. In paraphrase, the list includes destroying angels, demons, Lilith, howlers and desert creatures. Here Lilith is a named hostile spirit, driven off by praise.

Was she cut from Genesis?

Later tradition You will often read that Lilith was removed from the Bible. There is no evidence of that. Genesis has two accounts of the making of humans: “male and female” in Genesis 1:27, and the woman built from the man’s side in Genesis 2. Ancient readers noticed the difference. A midrash, Genesis Rabbah (about the fifth century CE), speaks of a “first Eve” but does not name her Lilith. The first-wife story is a later, creative answer to this puzzle, as we will see in lesson 4.

Try this

Today’s exercise: find Isaiah 34:14 in two different Bible translations, online or on a shelf. Write down the word each uses for lilit. What picture does each word put in your head: a bird, a monster, a woman?

Quick recap

• The word lilit appears once in the Hebrew Bible, among creatures in Edom’s ruins.
• Translations range from lamia and screech owl to night-monster and Lilith.
• The Songs of the Sage list Lilith among spirits frightened away by praise.
• Genesis does not tell her story; the first-wife idea comes later.

Keep going

Press “Mark as done” and continue with Bowls, amulets and Ben Sira.

Need a refresher? Go back to Mesopotamian roots or see the whole course.

Sources

• Isaiah 34:14, King James Version (1611).
• The Holy Scriptures According to the Masoretic Text (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1917).
• Geza Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English (London: Penguin), Songs of the Sage, 4Q510 and 4Q511.
• Genesis Rabbah 22:7.

Go deeper: the Lilith pages on this site

Mark as done