79 myths · Page 1 of 3
Lilith, Asmodeus, Samael, and the shadowy world of Jewish demonology drawn from the Talmud, Midrash, and Kabbalah.
79 myths on JewishMythology.com retell how Jewish tradition imagines demons, drawn from the Hebrew Bible, Midrash, Talmud, Kabbalah, and later Jewish literature. Each story below synthesizes primary sources into a single narrative; follow any myth to read it, and from there into the source passages behind it.
Adam and Lilith rose from the same handful of dust. He wanted her beneath him. She said no. Three angels found her far out at sea, waiting.
Adam came back from the far paths of Eden to find an infant crying in the grass. He asked Eve whose child it was. She said it was the son of Samael.
Solomon needed a demon to build the Temple. He caught the king of demons with wine, used him, then kept him chained. The demon got his revenge.
A demon was draining life from a child on Solomon's building crew. Solomon prayed and Michael arrived with a ring that bound every demon on earth.
Solomon bound a prince of demons and made him confess his secrets. Then he put the entire court of the underworld to work cutting marble for God's house.
Lilith crossed a night road hunting a birthing mother, but Elijah stood in her path and bound her hunger with an oath by the Name.
A Roman counselor found a way to repeal every decree against the Jews without losing face. He argued that the Sabbath would keep them poor.
A ring dragged them in one at a time. Ornias strangled men in their sleep. A headless spirit ate heads. Each said which angel could stop it.
After Abel's blood soaked the ground, Adam fled Eve for 130 years. Female spirits found him there, and grief took on bodies.
One drop from his sword, and the dying open their mouths. Samael is the angel of death, but he answers to God, not against him.
Four hundred armed men were a day away. Jacob sent everything ahead and stayed alone by the river, and something found him in the dark.
Samael searched the sea, Gehinnom (afterlife of judgment), and Sheol (the underworld) for Moses and found nothing. Death's poison could not touch the man God.
A headless demon named Envy wanted Solomon's head. Soon Asmodeus wore the king's face, while Solomon begged to be recognized.
After the Temple falls, Lilith takes a stolen seat in the ruined house, then enters a mother's room in Kurdish Jewish memory and is trapped.
Rome believed the executions were its own idea. The terms had been settled long before, in a room above the world, and the ten names were read aloud.
Lilith waits where the road forks, earrings swinging, and offers the traveler a cup. Her words are smoother than oil. The sword comes later.
Moses called from the camp gate, and Levi ran toward him, raising a sword against guilty kin without seeing his father in the calf.
Noah planted a vineyard and Ha-Satan, the Accuser, claimed a share. Blood of lamb, lion, pig, and monkey fed the soil as stages of drunkenness.
The builders of Babel invented fire-baked bricks and wept for each one that fell. Before a single stone was laid, Mastema's demons were already at work.
Mastema sent ravens to strip the fields bare when Terah was born. The famine that named him shaped the world his son Abraham would one day defy.
Sarah of Ecbatana had seven husbands. Asmodeus killed all seven before any marriage was consummated. Then God arranged a match the demon could not stop.
After Enoch ascended, Methuselah ruled the earth. His first task was the demons, Adam's children by Lilith, which he cleared with a sword bearing the Name.
Abraham had six sons by Keturah. He gave them a gem that outshone the sun, taught them secret arts, and built them an iron-walled city in the eastern lands.
After Balaam blessed Israel a third time, Balak dismissed his princes and asked what God had spoken. His tone was not a question. It was a verdict.
David never caught the deer. He looked up in unfamiliar country, and a Philistine giant had recognized his face. Ishbi-Benob pinned him under a winepress.
A spirit tore through Arabia and no army could stop it. Solomon sent a servant with a leather bottle and a ring engraved with the divine name.
No iron could touch the Temple stones. Only the shamir could split rock without weapons. Only Asmodeus knew where the shamir was kept.
Asmodeus wore Solomon's face and ruled his throne. Solomon wandered for three years telling people his name while they laughed.
A kabbalist conjured Elijah and asked how to chain the Prince of Evil. He came within one act of forcing the Messiah's arrival. One mistake ended everything.
Two elders condemned a righteous woman with false testimony. A young man with no standing interrupted and asked each elder which tree they had stood under.
