The Mysterious, Demonic Origins of Lilith

Lilith has many stories and even more names. Jewish folklore immortalized her as Adam’s first wife, the rebellious woman who fled Paradise rather than submit to her husband. Incantation bowls, amulets and other ancient relics paint a picture of a child-snatching female demon preying on lonely men and their pregnant wives. 

“She changes and moves between different cultures,” says Nikki Marmery, a novelist who studied and reimagined the “night demon's" story for her 2023 book Lilith.

So who was Lilith, and why does her story now inspire radical feminist art, numerous retellings and endless debate among theologians and historians alike?

Lilith first appears in writings from the eighth century B.C., but not in the form we know today. Ancient stories about Lilith spread throughout the Middle East and Mediterranean, specifically in ancient Sumer and Babylon, located in modern-day Iraq. Documents and relics from these civilizations reference a category of demon known as lilit or lilītu. She is not one demon goddess; she is many.

Historians know of lilitu today because their images were everywhere: inscribed in amulets and painted on the bottom of incantation bowls, which ancient people used as talismans to ward against evil. 

These bowls and other artifacts reveal a deep fear of Lilith—or Liliths—and the threat posed to families. People believed her spirit could enter homes at night to seduce husbands, like a succubus. But she also tortured women in childbirth, kidnapped infants and murdered children. 

This version of Lilith seems to have been heavily inspired—or borrowed—from the story of the ancient goddess Lamashtu. Ancient Mesopotamians blamed her for children’s deaths, as she was believed to feed on the blood of infants. Ancient incantation bowls paint a similar picture of Lilith; by binding her with spells or warding against her with charms, people hoped to keep her at bay. 

In a world where so many mothers died in childbirth and life expectancy was tragically low, this myth might have offered some solace or explanation for fearful families, Marmery posits. 

The first and only mention of Lilith in the Bible describes a tired creature of the wilderness: 

Wildcats shall meet with hyenas, goat-demons shall call to each other; there too Lilith shall repose, and find a place to rest.

That passage, from Isaiah 34:14 (part of the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible), can also describe her as a “night demon” or “demoness of the night,” depending on the translation. Other versions don’t mention her by name at all. However, texts beyond the bible elaborate on her origin. The medieval Alphabet of Ben Sira describes Lilith as Adam’s first wife who rebelled and became a demonic figure. Her legend grew in Jewish folklore over centuries.

When studying Jewish scripture as a child, psychologist Barbara Koltuv never once heard Lilith mentioned. “Nobody talked about Lilith, whether you were Hasid or Orthodox,” says Koltuv, a scholar of amulets and talismans and author of The Book of Lilith. “She was only one line in the Bible.” 

As the women’s liberation movement and second-wave feminism spread in the 1960s, women excavated Lilith’s legend and reclaimed the “demoness of the night” as an icon of women’s empowerment. 

In 1972, theologian Judith Plaskow wrote The Coming of Lilith as a modern midrash, a textual commentary on ancient scriptures. In this feminist interpretation, Adam tells Eve horrendous stories of his first wife, Lilith, echoing the ancient tales of succubi and women-hating night demons. But in Plaskow's retelling, Lilith and Eve ultimately form a sisterhood bonded by their shared understanding of what it means to be a woman in a new world. 

Plaskow’s work helped shape a modern idea of Lilith as an “emancipatory figure,” Marmery says. In 1997, singer-songwriter Sarah McLachlan even named Lilith Fair, a groundbreaking women’s music festival, after the ancient figure. Today, people get tattoos, create altars and write songs inspired by her reimagined legend. 

“In modern-day, the reason I think she is so appealing is this sort of reputation she has as the woman who said ‘no’ and refused to be insubordinate," says Marmery. "There aren’t a huge number of myths where you see a woman defying authority."