Isaiah 34:14

14. The desert animals, ( ziim,) hyenas, for example, (TRISTRAM’S Natural History,) there come in contact with the howlers, ( ijim,) jackals, called an island creature from its dwelling near the coast, and all inhabited, fertile spots.

The satyr Shaggy, fabulous animals, supposed to inhabit desert thickets, and hence called wood devils objected to by Alexander only because fabulous, but without reason here, for Isaiah employs the term poetically, basing his use of it upon Leviticus 17:7, “And they shall no more offer their sacrifices unto devils,” as the Hebrews had been accustomed to while resident in Egypt. It is the same word in the original, שׂעירים , ( s’irim,) rendered here “satyr,” and, in Leviticus 17:7, “devils.” The word means the hairy ones, shaggy animals. The goat was an object of worship in Egypt, according to Herodotus (ii, 46,) and from the shaggy, rough he-goat, sprang those ideal beings supposed to bear a resemblance to the goat, such as figured in the mythology of Greece at an early period, (when the Egyptian and Grecian religions began to mix,) under the names Pan, Satyr, Selene, etc. Real they doubtless were to the ignorant Israelites when in bondage, but ideal, hateful, and forbidding, both to Moses and Isaiah. No doubt Isaiah gave not the least countenance to them as facts in nature, but poetically used the word to express what was ideally horrible to every mind he addressed. The same is to be said of the screech owl, or some nightly sounding creature, though many expositors, and Delitzsch among them, favour the meaning of nocturnal spectres. The superstitions brought from Egypt lingered with the people of Israel till Monotheism in a large measure expelled them from the popular mind. Nevertheless, later in Jewish history, a crop of legends sprung out of them, and were easily moulded into those of Persian origin; and to this day, with the Arabs, the idea is persistent of still existing devils or ghuls and spectres in the desert. The mirages, the exciting air, and the monotony of desert landscapes generally, are very favourable to the persistence of such superstitions. See SPRINGER’S Leben und Lehre des Mohammed.