LILITH (rM), a term which occurs only once in Scripture (Is. xxxiv. 14). Derived from night, it means simply nocturnal ; and, standing as it does in a list of animals, it must be regarded as either the name of some particular nocturnal crea ture, or as a generic name for such. The A. V. renders it by screech-owl, and this is the rendering adopted by most modern interpreters. Many, how ever, prefer following the example of Aquila and re taining the original word (so De Wette, Henderson, Zunz, and the version of Joseph Athias in the Bib/ia Pentapla). The LXX. render the word by avoid], Toupin, which is in keeping with their other render ings in this verse, all of which ascribe characters of monstrosity to the objects enumerated by the pro phet. The Vulg. renders by La mia, a word which has much the same meaning as our witch, but which was originally the name of a Libyan queen who, having lost her child, was said to prey on the children of others. These renderings are in ac cordance with Jewish superstition, which supposed the Lilith to be a female spectre that was wont to lie in wait, elegantly dressed, for children at night.
Some recent German intcrpreters have eagerly adopted this interpretation, and have compared the Jewish fable on which it is founded to the Arab tales of ghuls, and to the Greek belief in the 'EA 7rouo-a (cf. Aristoph., Ran. 293, ff. ; Philostr., vit. Apollo/2. ii. 4.; M. de Sainte Croix, Sur les mysteres du Paganisme,i., p. 191, 2d ed.); but all this, be sides being purely gratuitous, is opposed to the text of the prophet, who places the Lilith among ani mals, and who represents it as finding a place of rest in the desert, which is precisely what a spectre or a ghul never finds any more than the Hecatean Empusa. Bochart (Hieroz., 1. vi., c. 9, p. 830 seems inclined to account for the fabulous interpre tation by calling attention to the representations given by the poets of the strix or screech-owl, as a woman who, under this guise, sought the cradles of infants by night (comp. Ovid, Fast. vi. 13o, ff.) —W. L. A.