 Exercising demons, casting demons out, is not clear at all. There is nothing in the Old Testament at least to surface reading that is about this. So where in the world would they get this idea? Why would people living during the experiences of the incarnation Jesus first advent, when He's going around casting out demons, why would they just look at that and say, well, of course, this is the Son of David. This is what the Son of David is supposed to do. Where would they get this idea? What preconditioned them to expecting that this was going to happen? What preconditioned them to the fact that once they saw somebody do this, they said, aha, we have here the Son of David, the Messiah. What was it that led them to that point where they could process what was going on correctly? So that's what we want to talk about and we really have to begin, surprisingly enough, in the Old Testament. And this is going to be some obscure stuff, but I'm going to quote one passage in the Old Testament. I'm going to quote it in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament. Again, that a lot of people, a lot of Jews, Jews or Gentiles, would have been familiar with. I mean, mostly Jews before we have the first advent, because if you're a Gentile, you don't really have any interest in reading stuff that Jews wrote. I mean, if you're an intellectual, you might, but again, the masses don't. When Gentiles start becoming converted after the resurrection and the ministry of the apostles, well, then you get a lot of Gentiles reading the Septuagint because, hey, that's your Bible. This is where the Messiah was presented. Well, prior to that, again, you do have something in the Septuagint that the Jewish community, because they're the ones who are going to be reading this, either in Hebrew or the Targum's Aramaic, or in this case, the Septuagint, they're going to be familiar with this idea. And so I'm going to start the passage from First Kings 4, and I'm going to read both versions, and then we're going to go into the Dead Sea Scrolls and talk about extra Psalms that are in the Dead Sea Scrolls, at least one of which actually shows up in the Septuagint. So again, people would have been familiar with the material. So prepping it that way, here we go. In First Kings 4, 29 through 34, the Maseritic text, and again, the traditional Maseritic text reads as follows, and God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding beyond measure and breadth of mind like the sand of the seashore so that Solomon's wisdom surpassed the wisdom of all the people of the east and all the wisdom of Egypt. Skipping to verse 32, he, Solomon, also spoke 3,000 proverbs, and his songs were 1,005. He spoke of trees from the cedar that is in Lebanon to the hyssop that grows out of the wall. He spoke also beasts and birds and reptiles, fish, so on and so forth. So that's First Kings 4, 29 through roughly 33 right around there. So we have the mention of Solomon. Solomon is obviously the son of David. King, he's going to be a Maseritic figure in that sense. And we have here the information that he spoke 3,000 proverbs, and his songs were 1,005. Big deal. I mean, how do you get casting out demons from that? Well, you don't, but it begins sort of a journey that is initiated in what's said here about Solomon that will get picked up in other material. In the Septuagint, it's slightly different. The difference here is in verse 32. And Solomon spoke 3,000 proverbs and his songs were 5,000. So there's a lot more songs in the Septuagint version than there is, than there are in the Maseritic text version. And that's because, as we move to the Dead Sea scroll material, that's because the Jewish community and of course the community that would have, that's part of the community that would have produced the Septuagint knew of lots of other songs. And we're going to focus on one of those that shows up in the Dead Sea scroll material that is actually not only interesting, but references. Here's the King of Thought. The scrolls material references what we just read in First Kings 4 about the songs and the, I'm going to use a very suggestive word here, the utterances of Solomon. So this is 11Q, okay, 11Q Psalm scroll and the abbreviation is AP superscript A. In numbers it's 11Q5 column 27. For those of you who have Dead Sea scroll stuff, you can go look this up, but I'm going to read you parts of it. So this is a Psalm about David. So we read here at the beginning, this is line two, David's son of Jesse was wise and a light like the light of the sun and learned and perfect in all his past before God and men. And then we have a blank and the Lord Yahweh gave him a discerning and enlightened spirit and he wrote Psalms 3,600 and songs to be sung before the altar over the perpetual. And then there's a gap in the text line nine and all the songs which he spoke were 446 and songs to perform over the possessed four of them. So you actually have a reference in this extra Psalm to David, okay, David composing songs to perform over the possessed. The total again of all of this was 4,050 again, the total of his total output when you get down to that particular line, line 10 in that Dead Sea scroll text. Now the word translated possessed is more literally someone who has been assaulted, someone who has been accosted. Again, the implication is by some external force, but it's just an odd line. Songs to perform over the possessed or over the assaulted four of them. And the last line here and all these he spoke through the spirit of prophecy which had been given to him from before the Most High. So God gave him these things to these songs to sing and so on and so forth. Now in the same Dead Sea scroll in a different column, column 19, line 15, we read this where David says, let not Satan rule over me nor an evil spirit. Let neither pain nor evil purpose again, conquer me. Now part of that, that line, part of this little snippets that I've read, part of this material shows up in the Septuagint as what the Septuagint calls Psalm 151. Now if you know your Bible, if you know the book of Psalms, there's only a hundred and I think there's a hundred and fifty Psalms here. And you've got this extra Psalm. You know, the Maseridic text, we've got this nice, neat number here. Where in the world do we get this extra Psalm? Well, if you think about the Psalms, let's just do this a little bit. There are references in the Psalms to the Psalms of David and others. Not just David, but we're going to zero it on David here. The Psalms of David being collected. And again, this was the process. They were collected and put into the book so that in the Maseridic text, we have a hundred and fifty total. And there are even places in the Psalms where it says, and this is the end of the Psalms of David, son of Jesse. But then afterwards, you get more Psalms of David. And that's because the collecting kept going. So at one point, you know, they had a collection, Psalms of David and then an editor, you know, who was putting all this stuff together into the book that we know as Psalms. An editor says, hey, these are the Psalms of David, the Psalms of David. And this is this is all all that we have. But then they find more and those get added subsequently to those editorial comments in the in the book of Psalms as we have it today. I mentioned that because here we have a one hundred and fifty first Psalm that actually winds up in Dead Sea Scrolls and Dead Sea Scroll material and it was added to the collection that becomes part of the Septuagint. So in the in the Septuagint, the Greek translation, the Old Testament, if you turn to the book of Psalms, you're going to have an extra one. You're going to have Psalm 151. And in that Psalm, you get again some of this this material about don't let Satan rule over me or an evil spirit. Of course, the implications are because of what, you know, David had written, you know, songs to perform over the possessed and that he has power to deliver people from being bound by demons. Now, let's go to another one, Psalm 91. This is Psalm 91, which, again, you have your traditional version. OK, you would read most translations translating the Maseridic text. You have a version of this that comes from the Dead Sea Scrolls. Psalm 91 at Qumran, again, and not coincidentally, it is part of this same scroll, the 11 Q Psalms scroll that I've been quoting already. And then, of course, you also have a version of this in what becomes known as the Septuagint. Now, I'm going to read you this. There are four things in here that are very interesting that speak to this issue. And for those of you who remember the Fern and Audrey episode, Fern and Audrey and I have have discussed some elements of this particular Psalm because of the work they do. Again, they don't do renunciation prayers or anything like that. They're not deliverance ministry. What they do is different, but they have used the material in the Psalm and some other things to help them do what they do. And I think you'll understand why that's relevant as we read through this. So I'm just going to go, you know, we'll pick one of the versions because I'm going to actually link out to a few things and then talk about where it might be different. But we read here, Psalm 91, he who dwells in the shelter of the most high cannot look at the reference. We already had had Psalm 151. Again, don't let Satan rule over me. We already had a portion of of an extra, you know, extra saw material that had songs about dealing with possessed people. And there was a reference made to, hey, David wrote these things through power given to him from the most high. And here we have the most high referenced in Psalm 91. Again, if you've read anything in the unseen realm, you know that this is important terminology because the most high, again, this is the title given to the God of Israel when he divides up the nations again. It's a title of superiority. He is the most high. He is the one who made this decision. You know, who judges, you know, the rebellious, you know, divine beings, Genesis 6, who dealt with the Nacosh, Genesis 3. And you have this most high terminology. And that's that's important because you have to assert authority, you have to presume and assert and actually legitimately have authority over other Elohim, over other divine beings, again, to to do what you're going to do, to do what needs to be done. And so there's this, again, conceptual link back to we're doing this because of the most high and his power. But the Messiah son, you know, son of David was again, you know, Jesus is actually called son of the most high in the Gospels, and that is a messianic title because the King of Israel, again, the King from the line of David is referred to as the Son of God in the Old Testament. So again, there's this linkage about the messianic figure, son of David, you know, son of Solomon, line of David and Solomon, son of the most high son of God, all this sort of stuff factoring into what this Psalm and again, what Jesus actually does in the Gospels with demonic entities. So he who dwells in the shelter of the most high will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say to the Lord, my refuge and my fortress, my God and whom I trust, for he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence. He will cover you with his pinions and under his wings you will find refuge. His faithfulness is a shield and buckler. Now here we get hit verses five and six. We're going to get some lines in here that it's very easy to read right over, but we're going to be linking out to some things and talking about them. You will not fear the terror of the night. Hear the terror of the night in Old Testament thinking. This was actually a demonic entity. Now if you have the dictionary of deities and demons in the Bible again, I've recommended that that source many, many times this term is discussed. There's actually an entry for the terror of the night in DDD and the the Hebrew for this is Pakad Laila. Laila is the important thing to sort of fix in your brain, Laila, the way that sounds because, to quote the article, there have been some attempts to relate Laila etymologically to Lilit, which is referenced in Isaiah 3414. This is Lilith, again, which is a demonic figure in Jewish tradition, but the entry continues. Akkadian lili is actually a better choice. Akkadian lili was a night demon. So lili, Laila, it's different than Lilit. It's close, but it's not quite the same. But this term, Pakad Laila, DDD suggests, you know, there might be some relationship here. They say this is a folk etymology. Functionally, however, the demon Pakad Laila reveals traits similar to those of the Mesopotamian lilu and the lili, especially as it's referenced in the Song of Solomon 3.8, which talks about, again, the terror of the night. We're not going to necessarily go there, but you get this idea that there's an Akkadian term that aligns with this one that has characteristics that would sort of fit with, again, a demonic figure, terror of the night. Now, the terror of the night demon in Mesopotamia was, again, an aggressive, attacking entity. And the night association is significant because that's when lots of people sort of thought about when, you know, when demons are doing something. And it also has reference to what happens at night, specifically in bed between men and women. OK, there's the marital bed. Also, again, the care of children during the night while they're asleep, because the Akkadian demons associated with this were often associated with children dying during the night and whatnot or trying to prevent conception. Again, there's this notion of demonic activity during the midnight hours, I guess you could put it. And this term is associated with that. And I want to read you a little bit more from the DDD entry. He says, the writer says, among the host of Mesopotamian demons, Li Lu, which is related to Sumerian Lu Li La, which literally means wind man. So it's like a spirit man. Among the host of Mesopotamian demons, Li Lu and Li Li Tu, or Li Li, most resemble the biblical Pakad Laila. These demons seem to have been attached, particularly to pregnant women and newborns whom they sought to harm. They are conceived as harmful to brides and grooms whom they attack on their wedding night and prevent the consummation of the marriage. As an attacker of brides and grooms, Li Lu, or especially in Jewish tradition, Lilit, comes close. Now catch this line, comes close to the incubus and succubus demons known from all over the world. Again, just giving you a little bit of a flavor of what's going on here. Again, this I don't want to drift off into, you know, façade territory or alien abduction stuff. But thematically, there's a lot of overlap here between, you know, like in sleep paralysis, even though I think sleep paralysis is just a biological medical condition, but, you know, it's often associated with feeling like a presence in the room. But again, you get these sorts of things. I'm just trying to pluck examples out so that you get a feel for what this term in antiquity would have been used to describe or how this term would have been brought into discussion based upon some experience somebody had, whether it was supernatural or something that just freaked him out. That might have been natural or not. So this is the terminology that's going on in this particular psalm, back to the terror of the night in Psalm 91. A cursory look, last line from DDD, a cursory look at the context in which Pachad Lila occurs in Psalm 91 reveals its demonic identity. This psalm abounds with names of other demons, and it does. Let's go back to Psalm 91, verse five, we read, you shall not fear the terror of the night. Here's the next one, nor the arrow that flies by day. Now you say, well, isn't that just like an arrow? I don't want to get stuck with an arrow that somebody shot off. Well, again, there's a little bit more to it than that, especially if you are reading this psalm in the Septuagint, because in the Septuagint, instead of arrow that flies by day, you actually get Daimonion Messame Brinon, which means midday demon. So you will not feel that the terror of the night, the nighttime demons, and you won't fear the midday demons either in the Septuagint. Now, DDD also has a reference to this. I'll read you a few excerpts. The midday demon is found in the Septuagint version of Psalm 91. In that case, it's verse six. The English Bibles, it's going to be verse five. In these verses, the Hebrew psalmist declares that the one who takes refuge in the Almighty will not fear. Again, Masoretic texts terror the night nor the arrow that flies by day. And then it continues to the pestilence and the destruction. We're going to get to those in a moment. Those are also names of gods in antiquity and Canaanite religion. And those gods are referred to as demons in the Septuagint. But just hold that thought for a moment. So back to the entry for midday demon. Again, this is the Septuagint version. The Septuagint translators, continuing with the entry, confronted a different Hebrew text. And then he references probably the same ones that Aquila and Simacus used. He gets into the Hebrew for what they probably read. Destruction and demon of noon time. Again, according to the Hebrew text, they probably had which the Septuagint renders as misfortune and the midday demon. So it's very clear in the Septuagint that what they're reading, and again, DD says they probably had a text that actually led them this direction. A Hebrew text is a little bit different than the Masoretic text. But in this verse, the psalmist is saying, if you're under the shelter of the most high, the one who's really in charge of, again, all these other entities, you will not fear the terror of the night, the nighttime demon. You will not fear, again, the midday demon, the one that shows up in the middle of the day, that sort of thing. You won't need to fear these things. Now, before we leave this, if you go with the Masoretic text, the arrow that flies by day, there are scholars who would actually argue, and I think this is a reasonable argument, that the reference to the arrow provides a clue, actually to a demonic entity, because in Canaanite religion, the god Reshef, who was a plague god, is represented as an archer, someone who shoots arrows. And so that, again, that might have contributed, that knowledge in antiquity, might have contributed to the Septuagint translator when he's looking at what he looks at, and he has different options. It might have led him to say, okay, we got it, midday demon. You know, we get it, because of the way Reshef, again, was depicted and described in Canaanite literature. So even if you wanna go with MT, you don't like Septuagint, you can still be dealing with a demonic entity here. And Reshef, again, was a deity, he was a god in Canaanite religion. Continuing on to the next verse. So you won't feel a tear in the night, you won't need to fear either the arrow, again, the Reshef's darts. Remember what Paul talks about, the fiery darts, you know, the wicked. It's the same idea, but here in the Old Testament, here you have a deity associated with this, represented as an archer, shooting at his victims, that sort of thing. Or if you go with the Septuagint, the midday demon. We continue. Nor will you have to fear the pestilence that walks in darkness, nor the destruction that wastes at noon day. And I say, catch what the psalmist just did there. The previous verse, we have tear of the night, nighttime demon. And then we have a daytime demon. Next verse, we have the pestilence that's stalking in the darkness. There we go with nighttime. Nor the destruction that wastes at noon day. And we have noon day at reference again. So you could take verses five and six as parallel to each other. It's another way, again, instead of that, instead of it yielding four demonic figures, it would only be two demonic figures described two times in different ways. Either way, these are hostile divine entities, hostile gods in canite literature that are again viewed as the forces of darkness, spiritual forces of darkness, that the psalmist is saying, you don't need to fear these things. Now let's talk about pestilence a little bit, this term. And this is something that shows up in a footnote somewhere in unseen realm. I know, I don't quite remember what the chapter was, but the Hebrew word here is devar. Again, pestilence is a normal translation. But the thing to notice here, to be aware of, is that this devar is a deity name in the eugridic texts. And he is the god, a god of destruction. Now, again, devar in eugridic texts is also mentioned in concert with, in tandem with Reshef. That was the arrow demon, the archer demon that we just read about in the previous verse. So again, this is what that quote in DDD much earlier said, hey, the context of Psalm 91 supports this demonic thinking. Because look at all these terms in the Psalm that point to demonic entities. That was an accurate quote. There are a number of things in the Psalm that point that direction. Devar is also mentioned in Habakkuk 3. Again, we have there, might as well just go out to Habakkuk 3, where devar and Reshef are actually in this scene. We have here, I'll just start at the beginning. Oh, Lord, I have heard the report of you and your work, oh, Lord, do I fear? In the midst of the years, revive it. In the midst of the years, make it known. In wrath, remember mercy. God came from Timon and the holy one from Mount Paran. His splendor covered the heavens, the earth was full of his praise, his brightness was like the light, rays flashed from his hand, and there he veiled his power. Before him went pestilence and plague followed at his heels. So there you have devar and Reshef mentioned in this. And in this scene, they are sort of like cringing, you know, servants, they're underlings of the God of Israel. Again, the prayer of Habakkuk here puts them in their place. So they're not independent, more powerful entities or anything like that. The God of Israel can use destruction and he can use pestilence and that sort of thing. But what you get is you get in Canaanite religion, these are distinct deities and they're in opposition, of course, to what's going on in Israel. And in the Psalm, they become enemies. They become rebels. They become threats, you know, to the God's people. And that's why we have this Psalm that you don't need to fear these entities because the God of Israel is more powerful than they are. And in fact, again, the supposition is that the most high Kenan will deliver you from these things. So let's go to, again, quickly, the other reference, the destruction reference. This is not Reshef, this is Ketev. The term Ketev appears four times in the Old Testament, DDD, again, its basic significance is destruction. In Ugaritic, this name would be pronounced kezev and it occurs once in Ugaritic and kezev is a buddy or kinsman of moat, the God of death in Ugaritic thinking. And in Hosea, 1314, we get a reference to this kind of material. This is, it's gonna sound like a familiar passage, but think about this passage and think about where it's referenced in the New Testament. Hosea says, again, and the speaker here is, let me get the context here for the speaker, Hosea 13. It is the prophet. He's talking about he destroys you, Israel again. Hosea basically giving Israel bad news for their idolatry and then we get to verse 14. Shall I ransom them from the power of Sheol in the realm of the dead? Shall I redeem them from death? The word moat. O death, O moat, where are your plagues? And the word there is devour. O Sheol, where is your sting? The word there is kezev. Compassion is hidden from my eyes. Now, where do we see that quoted in the New Testament? O death, okay, where is your sting? Okay, all that sort of thing. We get it in 1 Corinthians 1555. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? And it's a passage about the resurrection, okay? Because the resurrected Messiah and the resurrection itself conquers death, conquers Sheol, conquers the plagues that, you know, people get that send them to the underworld. You know, it conquers the destruction again that results in people dying and all this sort of stuff. It's a reference to again the power of the God of Israel over these forces, these entities, these things and ultimately even the power of death. Well, that's important because all of those things, the resurrection is tied to the Messiah. Okay, this was the plan of salvation. The Messiah needs to die and rise again to, again, complete to really bring into effect, kickstart, bring to fruition the whole plan of salvation, salvation, history in the Old Testament. And the Messiah is the Son of David. The Messiah is the Son of Solomon. Okay, again, the Davidic line. All of these ideas again are interconnected in the Old Testament mind as part of the Messianic profile. The Messiah will have power over the terror of the night. The Messiah will have power over the terror of the day. Again, night time demon, daytime demon. The Messiah will have power over pestilence, devour, destruction, ketab. Both of them are buddies of moat, death in Hosea 13, 14. The Messiah will have the power over, not catch what I'm saying here. Again, if you've read the unseen realm, this is gonna click with you pretty easily. The Messiah has the power over the realm of death, the Lord of the dead who is Satan and everybody who works for him. Okay, the minions in the realm of the dead who are in the Old Testament context, they're described by these God terms, these pseudo lesser hostile God terms. In the Septuagint, this terminology is gonna be put into demonic terms. And in the New Testament in Greek, all of this is gonna be put under demonic terms because this is where the demons dwell. Yes, the demons in the gospels, demons in the New Testament are the spirits of the dead Nephilim. We get that. Again, we're not gonna go over all that ground in this podcast episode. But this is where they live, okay? Even in the Old Testament, you get that. You get the dead Refayim who are Anakim, who are descendants of the Nephilim. You get them living in the underworld. They live in the realm of the dead. They come out, they seek embodiment, they seek to possess people. Again, we understand that from the gospels, but who is Lord of all of this? Okay, who's Lord of the dead? Who's Lord of the minions running around that run the place, that afflict people, okay, that bring destruction and plague and all this stuff. And of course, the Lord of the dead himself. Well, the answer is the Messiah. The answer is the Messiah. And so people who are familiar, again, with this literature, Psalm 91, the extra psalm, Psalm 151. Again, the reference in extra psalm material about, hey, David had written songs and suggestion, hint, maybe Psalm 91 is one of them. David had written psalms to perform over the possessed, four of them. Remember that Dead Sea Scroll we read a few minutes ago? So if you're familiar with this material, when Jesus shows up and starts casting out demons, starts giving his disciples power over demons, the theological messaging is quite clear. This is, again, this guy has to be the Messiah because only the son of David, only the messianic figure, only the messianic king would have been authorized, would have been empowered to do this and to do it for real, other than being a pretender. He not only has the power, but he dispenses it to his followers, to his disciples. And again, it's no coincidence that when Jesus does this stuff, the first time he does this is he sends out the 70. Okay, again, it's always done in conjunction with the launch, the kickstarting of the kingdom of God over against the kingdom of Satan. Again, all of these things have to be taken together collectively in context. They are part of the messianic profile that in and of itself is splintered, is scattered. And the pieces start coming together and converging into an around, clustered in connection with this figure, Jesus of Nazareth. I mean, again, the theological messaging would not have been lost to someone, again, familiar with these texts. And I'm not saying they could quote them, even though I'm sure a lot of them could, but even if they had heard them, when Jesus starts doing this stuff, the bells and whistles are gonna start going off in their head, they would associate this with Messiah. Now, one passage yet to mention about that people would have conceivably had in their head, at least by the time of the writing of the gospels, would be something Josephus says. Josephus in his antiquities book, and again, Josephus was a first century figure, so again, you would have had to, the gospel readers and writers may not have had this, but certainly Josephus is actually sharing Jewish tradition with his readers. He doesn't just make this up when he decides to write something down, he writes this. Now, the sagacity and wisdom which God had bestowed upon Solomon was great. So great that he exceeded the ancients in so much that he was no way inferior to the Egyptians. Again, he's drawing on that First Kings four passage that we read, who are said to have been beyond all men in understanding. Okay, this is antiquities 8.2.5. If you want the actual references, this is line 45 now. God also enabled him, Solomon, to learn that skill which expels demons, which is a science useful and sanitive to men. He composed such incantations, again, utterances, songs, you know, this sort of thing, stuff that you say or sing. He composed such incantations also by which distempers are alleviated. So he was a healer too. And he left behind him the manner of using exorcisms by which they drive away demons so that they may never return. Again, this is part of Jewish thinking. This was associated with Solomon. Again, because of some of the texts that we had read, you know, we read earlier in this episode. And by the time Jesus shows up, there's a body of tradition based upon, again, Qumran material, you know, Jewish material. This is Hebrew Jewish material that of course gets translated into the Septuagint and the, you know, Psalm 91, the extra Psalm, Psalm 151, which is in the Septuagint also helps create this body of thought, this body of tradition that associated the son of David, the son of Solomon, the Solomonic, Davidic line, associated that messianic figure with the casting out of demons. And this is why when Jesus starts doing this, nobody blinked an eye. Nobody said, hey, where's the Messiah supposed to be doing that? Chapter and verse, please. Now they don't say that. They, again, have this expectation because of this material. And so that's why, again, this part of the messianic profile that we read in the Gospels that isn't very transparent in the Old Testament, why it's still a legitimate connection back into the Old Testament as part of, you know, the messianic figure, the messianic profile.