Demons

What the Bible Really Says About the Powers of Darkness

Michael S. Heiser

• Publisher: Lexham Press
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781683592907
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

The truth about demons is far stranger—and even more fascinating—than what's commonly believed. Are demons real? Are they red creatures with goatees holding pitchforks and sitting on people's shoulders while whispering bad things? Did a third of the angels really rebel with Satan? Are demons and "principalities and powers" just terms for the same entities, or are they different members of the kingdom of darkness? Is the world a chaotic mess because of what happened in Eden, or is there more to the story of evil?What people believed about evil spiritual forces in ancient biblical times is often very different than what people have been led to believe about them today. And this ancient worldview is missing from most attempts to treat the topic.In Demons, Michael Heiser debunks popular presuppositions about the very real powers of darkness. Rather than traditions, stories, speculations, or myths, Demons is grounded in what ancient people of both the Old and New Testament eras believed about evil spiritual forces and in what the Bible actually says. You'll come away with a sound, biblical understanding of demons, supernatural rebellion, evil spirits, and spiritual warfare.

CHAPTER 1

Hebrew Terms for Evil Spiritual Beings

Our task in this chapter is to briefly study Hebrew terms in the Old Testament that describe evil spirits—supernatural entities that oppose God. English Bible readers will presume this means a study of demons. That presents us with an immediate obstacle. Scholars who have devoted considerable attention to this topic have long pointed out that “there is no equivalent expression for the word ‘demon’ in the Semitic languages.”1 This is indeed the case, which may sound odd. John Walton summarizes the situation concisely:

No general term for “demons” exists in any of the major cultures of the ancient Near East or in the Hebrew Bible. They are generally considered one of the categories of “spirit beings” (along with gods and ghosts). The term demons has had a checkered history; in today’s theological usage the term denotes beings, often fallen angels, who are intrinsically evil and who do the bidding of their master, Satan. This definition, however, only became commonplace long after the Hebrew Bible was complete.2

Despite this reality, we are not without material! A variety of terms in the Hebrew Bible are relevant to our topic. But in order to understand why the plethora of terms exists and their relationship to one another, they need to be framed in accord with the ancient Israelite worldview.

As noted in the preview to this section, Old Testament writers linked the rebellion of supernatural beings to the hazards and calamities they experienced. The life God desired for human beings on earth had been diverted and corrupted. The fears and threats of the natural world were consequences of divine rebellions, from which death and chaos overspread the world of humanity. For this reason most of the terms we find in the Old Testament can be categorized as either (1) terms that are associated with the realm of the dead and its inhabitants, with fearful places associated with that realm, or with the threat of death itself, or (2) terms associated with geographical dominion by supernatural powers in rebellion against Yahweh, the God of Israel. But before we get to those two categories, we should begin with some general terms related to what an evil spirit is, ontologically speaking.

TERMS DESCRIBING THE NATURE OF EVIL SPIRITS

Ontology refers to what a thing is, a thing’s nature. By definition, an evil spirit is a spirit. What I wrote in another volume about the good members of God’s heavenly host is pertinent here, for evil spirits are members of God’s heavenly host who have chosen to rebel against his will. Passages such as 1 Kings 22:19–23 make it clear that “the members of God’s heavenly host are spirits (Hebrew: rûḥôt; singular: rûaḥ)—entities that, by nature, are not embodied, at least in the sense of our human experience of being physical in form.”3

The point of “spirit” language is contrast with the world of humankind. The members of God’s heavenly host are not, by nature, embodied, physical beings of our terrestrial world.4 This is why the Old Testament writers occasionally use Hebrew šamayim (“heavenly ones”), kōkebı̂m (“stars”), and qedōšı̂m (“holy ones”). The first two terms typically refer to the visible sky and celestial objects in that sky. Using such language of entities in God’s service metaphorically places them in the nonterrestrial spiritual realm, the plane of reality in which God exists (Ps 115:3; Isa 66:1; Job 38:7–8). A designation such as “holy ones” situates these beings in God’s presence—as opposed to the world of humankind (e.g., Ps 89:5–7; Job 15:15).

One frequently misunderstood term that identifies a being as a member of the nonhuman, nonterrestrial world is ʾelōhı̂m (“god”; “gods”). I’ve written extensively on this term and how the biblical writers affirmed the existence of multiple ʾelōhı̂m—that is, a populated spiritual world.5 Since the biblical writers identify a range of entities as ʾelōhı̂m that they explicitly differentiate from Yahweh and emphasize as lesser beings than Yahweh, it is clear that the term ʾelōhı̂m is not a label for only one Supreme Being. As I have noted elsewhere:

A biblical writer would use ʾelōhı̂m to label any entity that is not embodied by nature and is a member of the spiritual realm. This “otherworldliness” is an attribute all residents of the spiritual world possess. Every member of the spiritual world can be thought of as ʾelōhı̂m since the term tells us where an entity belongs in terms of its nature.6

The term ʾelōhı̂m simply means “divine beings”—residents of the supernatural world.7 By choosing ʾelōhı̂m to describe a particular being, the biblical writer was not denying the uniqueness of Yahweh, the God of Israel. Rather, the term helped them affirm that there was an animate, spiritual world, of which Yahweh was a member. Yahweh was, of course, unique in that he was the uncreated Creator of these other spiritual beings and superior to them in his attributes.

The word ʾelōhı̂m is vocabulary that works in concert with terms such as rûḥôt (“spirits”). Some of the spirit beings created by God to serve him in the spiritual realm rebelled against him.8 Their rebellion did not mean they were no longer part of that world or that they became something other than what they were. They are still spiritual beings. Rather, rebellion affected (and still characterizes) their disposition toward, and relationship to, Yahweh.

Beyond these ontological terms, it is helpful to group terms describing evil spirits in the Old Testament. These can be broadly categorized as: (1) terms that are associated with the realm of the dead and its inhabitants; (2) terms that denote geographical dominion of supernatural powers in rebellion against Yahweh; and (3) preternatural creatures associated with idolatry and unholy ground. The vocabulary explored in these categories derives from the divine rebellions described in the early chapters of Genesis.

It is important to note that the vocabulary for evil spirits in the Old Testament appears to have no unifying principle. Recognizing and understanding the supernatural nature of what unfolds in Genesis 3; 6:1–4; and 11:1–9 (compare Deut 32:8–9) provides the framework for how Old Testament writers thought about the unseen spirit world and its relationship to the terrestrial world.9 We will also need to consider the matter of “pseudo-demons” in the academic discussion of certain terms in the Hebrew Old Testament.

Terms Associated with the Realm of the Dead and Its Inhabitants

The coherence of this category extends from divine rebellions described in Genesis 3 (the fall) and Genesis 6:1–4 (the transgression of the sons of God). We must content ourselves at this point with cursory observations in that regard. The fall brought death to humankind. Its supernatural antagonist, described with the term nāḥāš (“serpent”) in that passage, was cast down to ʾereṣ, a term most often translated “earth” but which is also used for the domain of the dead (Jonah 2:6; Jer 17:13; Ps 71:20). Jonah 2:6 is especially instructive in this regard, in that the word ʾereṣ is found in parallel with the term šaḥat (“pit”), a term frequently employed to speak of the grave or underworld (Job 33:18, 22, 24, 28, 30; Ps 30:9; Isa 51:14).

The most familiar evil supernatural figure in the biblical underworld is the serpent of Eden—known later, beginning in the Second Temple period, as “Satan.” My wording here suggests that the serpent is never called “Satan” (śāṭān) in any verse of the Old Testament. That is, indeed, the case. The subject of why this is so, how the characterization of this figure developed, and how passages other than Genesis 3 contribute to a theology of this figure is very complicated and controversial, and it will be addressed in more detail later.10

The realm of the dead—that afterlife destination for all mortals—is referred to by a variety of terms in the Hebrew Old Testament, including sheʾôl (“Sheol”; “the grave”), māwet (“death”), ʾereṣ (“land [of the dead]”), and bôr (“pit”).11 As the realm of the disembodied dead, this place has no literal latitude and longitude. Nevertheless, the association of death with burial led biblical writers to describe the dead as “going down” (Heb. y-r-d) to that place (Num 16:30; Job 7:9; Isa 57:9). Lewis summarizes this conception: Sheol “represents the lowest place imaginable (Deut 32:22; Isa 7:11) often used in contrast with the highest heavens (Amos 9:2; Ps 139:8; Job 11:8).”12

In Old Testament theology this realm was populated by spirit inhabitants in addition to the disembodied human dead. Whi...