Just when you think you’ve seen all that Leviticus could possibly throw at you—sexual purity, Day of atonement, leprosy—suddenly, you come across a warning that is as much jarring as it is confusing.
“They [the Israelites] shall no longer sacrifice their sacrifices to the goat demons with which they play the harlot” (Leviticus 17:7).
Upon reading that, I have three questions.
First, what are “goat demons”? Where do they come from? What do they look like? Were they even actually goats?
Second, why goats? I’ve heard of people worshipping golden calves and monkeys, but a goat just seems so…ordinary.
Third, why are Israelites still worshipping goat demons even after they’ve been in the wilderness for so many years? Haven’t they seen the glory of God and been convinced of His power several times over by this point?
Let’s take those three in order. Apparently, the phrase “goat demons” is usually just translated as “demons,” which may explain why some people have never seen this phrase before. Literally though, the word translates to “hairy ones,” and is usually made in reference to male goats, as it is in Isaiah 13:21.
Conversely, it is also translated in 2 Chronicles 11:15 as “satyrs.” You’ve most likely seen this type of being before, even if you don’t recognize it offhand. In Greek mythology, the satyr was a man/goat hybrid that stood on its hind legs (and trained champions, according to the Disney Classic Hercules).
It’s a stretch to say that the Greek satyr was what Moses had in mind in Leviticus 17:7, so it seems safest to say that the goat demon referenced here is some form of idol that is in the shape of a goat.
There are references to a goat deity in ancient Egypt named the “Goat of Mendes,” which is later connected with a Satanic figure named Baphomet. The Knights Templar were famously accused of worshipping Baphomet by other orders who charged them with devil worship.
It’s this connection between goat worship and paganism that most likely led translators to simply shorten this idea down to one of “demons.” From the statement in Leviticus 17, it seems like Israelites still carried these types of household idols with them as they left Egypt.
Contextually, the warning against sacrificing to demons falls right in line with the exclusivity of Jehovah worship in Leviticus 17. They are to make their sacrifices at the Tabernacle, let the priest sprinkle the blood, and “offer up the fat.” Leave the goat demons—and whatever other idols they may have carried with them—in the dirt.
I’m not sure why they even had the idols though, to be honest. Wasn’t the pillar of fire and God’s presence on Mt. Sinai enough to convince them who the real God is?
The only explanation I’m left with is the understanding that they didn’t necessarily view them as alternative gods. Instead, those idols were so ingrained with who they were that they didn’t recognize the impediment between them and God that those idols created.
Do we? If you think to your own life, what items or practices or hobbies or career paths have you chosen that have relegated God to second place? Are you sacrificing church time because of your child’s traveling baseball team? Are you abandoning prayer with your family because screens have occupied all of your attention?
There are idols all around us, even if we don’t recognize them. And even though they don’t always come in the shape of goats, they can still cause us to drift away from God nonetheless.
