Tool Beta
The Gods of the Bible
Every named divine being in Scripture, what the text calls it, and what the ancient world thought it was.
Shedim
A Hebrew word for the beings Israel sacrificed to, translated demons in Greek.
Deuteronomy 32:17, in every translation this tool compares.
Two appearances, both about sacrificing to them, both calling them gods Israel had not known, new arrivals their fathers never feared. The Greek translators rendered the word demons, and that is the hinge connecting the Hebrew category to the New Testament one.
Two occurrences, both about sacrificing to them, both calling them gods Israel didn't know, new arrivals their fathers never feared. The Septuagint renders the word daimonia, and that is how the two categories get connected. Heiser reads Deuteronomy 32:17 against its own context in 32:8-9, where the nations were divided among the sons of God at Babel: the shedim are those same allotted elohim, now indicted for abusing the guardianship they were given, spirit beings guarding foreign territory who must not be worshipped. The verse calls them shedim and elohim in the same breath, so it doesn't deny these beings exist; it denies Israel any right to worship them. Paul draws on this passage when he warns the Corinthians against fellowship with demons (1 Corinthians 10:20-21), which Heiser reads as evidence that Paul accepted the Deuteronomy 32 framework and didn't treat "demon" as empty pagan superstition.
H7700 (שֵׁד), 2 occ
Cognate with Akkadian shedu, which could mean either a protective spirit or a malevolent demon, with the plural leaning demonic. The Hebrew narrows the range more than it inverts it. Akkadian shedu named minor spirits tied to the dead that wouldn't normally receive sacrifice at all, and Deuteronomy 32:17 brands the elohim Israel sacrificed to as shedim, a deliberate demotion of beings that were minor divinities in their home setting.
- Deuteronomy 32:17
- Psalm 106:37
- DDD has no Shedim headword
- the LXX's *daimonia* for *shedim* is handled under "Demon," 235-239 (see Daimonion above)
- Ludwig Koehler et al., *The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament*, 1417
- Keener & Walton, NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, 352
- Heiser, *Unseen Realm*, 33, 81, 621
- Heiser, *Demons*, note-to-build: missing from entities.json
