Where a Deep Dive Into the Scriptures Can Take You

 

Some time ago I was reading in Leviticus and I came across something that caught my attention, but I didn't know what to do with it at the time. I had a strong suspicion that, though this was something that could be easily read over and forgotten, there may be more of a meaning to it. I have chosen the New American Standard Bible from 1995 (NASB95) as the main version of the Bible that I read, but when I come across something like this, often my first move is to check with another version of the Bible to see if I see the same thing there, and my go-to first alternative version to check is the King James or the New King James version. This may be because this was the version of the Bible that I grew up with and most of the verses that I memorized as a child were from the King James Bible. From there, I will check other versions as well to see how the different versions handle what I have found.

The verse that I was reading was Leviticus 17:7, which says this; ""They shall no longer sacrifice their sacrifices to the goat demons with which they play the harlot. This shall be a permanent statute to them throughout their generations.”". The words that jumped out at me were "goat demons". It turns out that the King James version does not use this term, but simply states that the sacrifices that the Israelites were making were being made to demons. A quick and not overly thorough search shows me that the New American Bible Revised Edition (NABRE) shares this same terminology with the King James version, but that the NIV, ESV and NLT all share the term "goat demons" with the NASB. Given my belief that the mythological creatures of Greek and Roman mythology did actually exist at one time, as I explained in my article called Biblical Support for Greek/Roman "gods" and Mythological Creatures, I suspected that there may be more to this phrase than meets the eye.

If you have any knowledge of Greek mythology, of which I admit that my knowledge is limited, you may know that there are creatures that are a combination of a human man and a goat, called satyrs, which are similar to fauns. These creatures have the body of a man except for having the legs, tail, ears and horns of a goat. Some mythologies also note that a satyr has a permanent erection and spends it's time chasing the forest nymphs, which are mythological maidens of the woods, which given the correlation to the term 'nymphomaniac', which refers to a woman with an overly aggressive sexual appetite, seems to indicate to me that the nymphs were eager to engage in sexual activities with the satyrs, or likely any other male that came along. These things together cause me to believe that the offerings and worship that the Israelites gave to the "goat demons" possibly also included some sort of sexual aspect. It was not uncommon in ancient pagan worship to include some sort of sexuality in the worship of demon gods, so to consider this is not a stretch. The Old Testament Scriptures have several mentions of male cult prostitutes, especially in first and second Kings. I would posit that this practice of a sexual aspect of demon worship has not disappeared over time, but that it may be more hidden from the public eye or that it has simply become more accepted by humanity, or even that the pagan worship aspect of the sexual deviancy has been wiped from human recollection.

It seems to me that many of the pagan gods have some aspect of fertility to them, which seems to feed into the practice of sexual deviance as part of their worship. What a clever way to fool ignorant men into worshipping these "gods" if part of that worship is that they are expected to have sexual relations with many women, or even men in some cases. This feeds a man's sexual drive and gives him permission to seek personal sexual satisfaction while claiming that it is not done to satisfy his own needs but to appeal to a "god". Of course, there must be willing women with whom to commit these sexual acts, so the women also have a place in pagan worship. 

What a contrast to the desires of the One True God, who does not see sexual activity as an act of worship to Him, and who limits acceptable sexual acts as those performed between a married man and his wife. God gave mankind sexuality in order to grow intimacy between a man and his wife as well as to enable procreation. All other sexual encounters are anathema to Him. Pagan gods encourage hedonism while the True God expects self control. But I digress.

Another aspect of this verse that appears to support the idea that there was a sexual nature to the worship of these goat demons is a potential word play that God Himself uses in this proclamation through Moses. Whenever the Israelites would turn away from God and pursue pagan gods, they were referred to as "playing the harlot", or being unfaithful to God as they prostituted themselves to these other 'gods'. We see this same language in Leviticus 17:7, but here I believe that it not only refers to the unfaithfulness of the Israelites towards God, but also to the fact that their unfaithfulness includes the commission of sexual acts as part of the worship to these goat demons, contrary to His will.

According to Rabbeinu Bahya, the Israelites had been exposed to this type of demon worship during their time in Egypt, and they pursued this demon in the hope and expectation of receiving information about the future.

There are two other mentions of the satyr in the Bible, both of which are found in the book of Isaiah. In Isaiah 13:21, we read, "But desert creatures will lie down there, And their houses will be full of owls;
Ostriches also will live there, and ^[j]shaggy goats will frolic there." I left the note marker beside the words "shaggy goats" in order to point out that the note states that another term for the word that was used here is goat demons. Given what I will point out next, I wonder if the references to specific birds in this passage may be better interpreted as spirits, which the Scriptures refer to in other places simply as birds, though the word "owls" also has a notation that indicates that it is referring to howling creatures.

Isaiah 34:14 is the other passage where we find that the satyr is referred to. This passage reads, "The desert creatures will meet with the [o]wolves, The [p]hairy goat also will cry to its kind; Yes, the [q]night monster will settle there And will find herself a resting place." I left the notation markers here as well because they paint an interesting picture of this Scripture; one which the simple English interpretation leaves hidden to readers without a cultural understanding of ancient Israel. The notation beside wolves says that this refers again to howling creatures; the notation beside hairy goat states that this is synonymous with demons; the night monster is noted as being synonymous with "Litlith", which after a little research into Jewish mythology, is a female demon of the night who manifests as a woman with wings, who sometimes appears as an owl; she is keen to seduce men who are sleeping alone and to also steal children away, which may mean that she snatches their lives from them as they sleep.

As I have been researching this article, it has become more clear to me that the English translations of the Bible do not do the original Word justice. As English speaking believers, we readily learn of the love of God towards us and the gift of salvation through Jesus Christ, but the deeper meanings of the Scriptures are hidden from us in innocuous words that cover over the meanings in the original language. This means that for us to fully understand God's Word to us will take more than a cursory reading of the Word in our native tongue; it will require a deep dive into the original language and likely a careful dissemination of the Jewish understanding of what is written, but this latter work must keep in mind that the Jewish people are still lost to the plan of salvation that God rolled out for mankind over 2000 years ago. They simply cannot see the truth of it written in their own sacred writings. Furthermore, while the superstitions of the Jewish people will open the understanding of the Word to us, we must also be very careful not to fall into the same superstitions ourselves. I believe that there is an ancient wisdom to be harvested, one that is contrary to our materialistic minds where we ignore the spiritual realm to our own detriment, but we must always weigh this wisdom against the power that followers of Christ have in Him.

This article has taken a very different tract than I had at first imagined it would take. I need to see where God will lead me in my own studies given what I have found in my research today.

Please, if you decide that you want to delve farther into the Word of God in the original languages and researching the thoughts of ancient Israelites regarding these things, make sure that you do so prayerfully and listen to the promptings of the Holy Spirit just in case you end up starting down a wrong path. The Holy Spirit will guide you if you are attentive to Him. Trust His leading.

If this article has piqued your curiousity about the Scriptures, then please consider reading some of my other articles which can be found from my home page, and leave me a comment if you so desire.