Two words haunted ancient Israel: shedim (demons) and se'irim. The Israelites were forbidden from sacrificing to either. They sacrificed anyway.
The se'irim were the hairy ones, satyr-like creatures that danced in ruined cities and howled across desert wastes (Isaiah 13:21). Among them lurked Azazel, the goat-demon of the wilderness to whom a scapegoat was driven on Yom Kippur (Leviticus 16:10), and Lilith, the night-demon who haunted desolate places (Isaiah 34:14). The shedim were storm-demons, adopted from ancient Chaldean mythology, where seven ox-shaped deities of destruction raged across the sky. Israel offered sacrifices to them in open fields despite every prohibition (Deuteronomy 32:17).
The Talmud multiplied them beyond counting. Abba Benjamin said: if the eye could see the demons pressing in on every side, no creature could endure it. They outnumber humans. Each person has ten thousand at his left hand and a thousand at his right. The crushing in the lecture halls on Sabbath eve? Demons. The wearing out of the rabbis' clothing? Demons grinding against the fabric. The stumbling of feet on a dark road? Demons.
They could be detected. Scatter ashes around your bed at night and by morning you will find tracks like a rooster's. They eat and drink, they multiply, and they die. They have wings. They sit in the tops of palm trees. And every privy, every ruin, every shadow harbored them.
Yet the shedim also served. Solomon commanded them through a signet ring inscribed with the ineffable Name (Deuteronomy 32:17). They dove into the sea for him. They built the Temple. Bound in chains, the storm-demons who once scattered terror became the king's laborers, and the creatures that Israel had once worshipped in fear now carried stones at the command of a mortal.