Hebrew Lilith: A Name at the Edge of Scripture
In the Hebrew Bible, Lilith is not a developed character, goddess, or narrative figure. She appears only once, in a single poetic and highly symbolic passage—Isaiah 34:14—within a prophetic vision of desolation and ruin.
The Hebrew term used is lîlîṯ (לִילִית). In older English translations, it was rendered as “screech owl” or “night creature.” Modern scholarship, however, understands the word more broadly as a nocturnal or liminal being, linguistically related to earlier Mesopotamian līlītu traditions, though not identical in meaning or function.
Lilith in Isaiah 34:14
Book of Isaiah 34 presents a vision of cosmic reversal: cities emptied, human order undone, and the land returned to wilderness. The verse in which Lilith appears is not narrative but catalogic—a poetic listing of animals, desert spirits, and night beings inhabiting a cursed landscape.
Within this context, Lilith is not individualized. She is named alongside other liminal inhabitants of abandoned places, functioning as a symbolic marker of desolation, inversion, and the collapse of civilization.
There is no story of rebellion.
No reference to Adam.
No sexualized demonology.
No mythic biography.
Those elements belong to later tradition.
What Hebrew Lilith Is—and Is Not
In the biblical text, Lilith is:
A linguistic and symbolic term for a night-being
Associated with wilderness, ruin, and liminality
Part of prophetic poetry, not mythic narrative
She is not:
Adam’s first wife
A feminist rebel figure
A fully developed demon
A psychological archetype
Those meanings arise only through post-biblical interpretation.
From Biblical Term to Mythic Figure
The transformation of Lilith from a single poetic term into a fully formed mythological persona unfolds gradually in later Jewish literature, particularly in the Babylonian Talmud, medieval folklore, and texts such as the Alphabet of Ben Sira.
Only in these later sources does Lilith acquire:
A personal narrative
Association with Adam
Demonological and sexualized traits
A defined symbolic role
None of this is present in the Hebrew Bible itself.
Astropsychological Perspective
(clearly symbolic, not historical)
From a Jungian perspective—distinct from biblical scholarship—Hebrew Lilith can be read symbolically as an image of rejected or unintegrated psychic material, projected onto wilderness and night at moments when conscious order collapses.
This is a modern interpretive layer, not an ancient claim.
Recognizing that distinction preserves both historical clarity and symbolic depth.
Why Hebrew Lilith Matters Historically
This single appearance marks:
The first entry of the name Lilith into Hebrew tradition
A threshold moment between Mesopotamian spirit terminology and later Jewish mythmaking
An example of how a poetic term can become the seed of centuries of projection
Lilith enters history here not as a story, but as a shadowed name—present, undefined, and waiting to be filled.
References
Primary text
- Hebrew Bible, Isaiah 34:14 (Masoretic Text)
Scholarly & linguistic sources
- The Hebrew term lîlîṯ as a night-being or nocturnal entity, linguistically related to Mesopotamian līlītu (Brown–Driver–Briggs Hebrew Lexicon)
- Day, John. Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan — on wilderness beings in prophetic texts
- Scholem, Gershom. On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism — on later mythic development (clearly post-biblical)
- Encyclopaedia Judaica — entries on Lilith (distinguishing biblical vs later traditions)