Lilith Mythology

From the night spirits of Mesopotamia to Adam's first wife and the Black Moon

The name Lilith is linked to the Akkadian word lilītu. In Mesopotamian texts lilû, lilītu and ardat lilî are the restless spirits of young people who died before they could marry or bear children. In the Hebrew Bible the name occurs only once, in Isaiah 34:14. The story that makes Lilith the first wife of Adam appears much later, in the Alphabet of Ben Sira, which is dated between the eighth and the tenth centuries.

In astrology the name Lilith is given to two different things: the Black Moon, which is the point of the Moon's orbit farthest from the Earth, and the asteroid 1181 Lilith, found in 1927. The asteroid is named not after the mythological Lilith but after the composer Lili Boulanger. In classical astrology Lilith has no rulership, exaltation, sect or joy.

16 branches7 cultures3 myths1927 1181 Lilith

Key facts

Symbolism map: night, the first wife and the Black Moon

The glyph of the Black Moon stands at the centre. The branches around it show the symbolism in four colours: gods and spirits in gold, archetypes in blue, traditions in green and narratives in red. Touch a branch and its explanation opens below the map.

Lilû and lilītuNight spirits of Mesopotamia

In Akkadian texts lilû is a male and lilītu a female spirit. Ardat lilî is the spirit of a girl who died young. They are described as young people who died before they could marry or bear children and who therefore found no rest. A link between the name and words meaning 'night' was made in popular tradition, but linguists do not accept it.

LamashtuDaughter of Anu

Lamashtu is a female being, counted as a daughter of the sky god Anu, who attacks pregnant women, women after childbirth and newborn infants. Amulets with the head of Pazuzu were worn against her. The figure of Lilith in Aramaic sources draws on a merging of lilītu and Lamashtu. Lamashtu in the family tree →

The huluppu treeA disputed reading

In the Sumerian poem 'Gilgamesh, Enkidu and the Netherworld' a snake settles at the root of the tree in Inanna's garden, the Anzu bird at its top and a young female being called ki-sikil-lil-la-ke in its trunk. Samuel Noah Kramer translated this name as 'Lilith' in 1938. Many scholars today do not accept the identification.

The Burney ReliefQueen of the Night

The terracotta relief in the British Museum shows a winged woman with the feet of a bird, flanked by two owls. In the 1930s it was presented as Lilith. Today it is mostly read as Inanna, Ishtar or Ereshkigal.

Isaiah 34:14Desolate Edom

The prophet says that once Edom is laid waste its place will be taken by wild creatures: jackals, wild goats and the lilit that will find rest there. This is the only place in the Bible where the name occurs. The translations part ways: the Septuagint renders the word as onokentauros, the Vulgate as lamia and the King James Version as 'screech owl'.

The Dead Sea ScrollsSongs of the Sage

The Songs of the Sage found at Qumran (4Q510-511, about 40-10 BC) list the spirits to be frightened away: the spirits of the bastards, demons, Lilith and howlers. The text is a hymn of exorcism.

The TalmudWinged and long haired

The lilit appears in several places in the Babylonian Talmud. Niddah 24b mentions a child with wings, Eruvin 100b speaks of a woman who grows her hair long like a lilit, and Shabbat 151b says that a man who sleeps alone in a house will be seized by a lilit.

Incantation bowlsA bill of divorce

In Sasanian Babylonia Aramaic incantation bowls were buried upside down beneath houses to drive out the liliths. Some bowls address the lilit in the language of the Jewish bill of divorce, the get, and divorce her from the house. The centre of a bowl often shows a bound lilit.

Adam's first wifeThe Alphabet of Ben Sira

The Alphabet of Ben Sira, dated between the eighth and the tenth centuries, is the oldest text that makes Lilith the first wife of Adam. Lilith says that she was made from the same earth as Adam and is therefore his equal, pronounces the secret name of God and flies away. Scholars disagree on whether the text was meant seriously or as satire.

Three angels and an amuletSenoy, Sansenoy, Semangelof

Lilith swears that she will not touch a newborn wherever she sees the three angels' names or images on an amulet. Such amulets, hung in the room of childbirth, were used in Jewish homes from the Middle Ages until recent times.

Lilith in KabbalahConsort of Samael

The Treatise on the Left Emanation, written in thirteenth century Castile and attributed to the brothers Jacob and Isaac ha-Kohen, says that Samael and Lilith were 'born as one', like Adam and Eve. The Zohar calls her the 'woman of harlotry'. Here Lilith is the female face of the side of evil.

Goethe's FaustAdam's first wife

In the Walpurgis Night scene of the first part of Faust, Mephistopheles points Lilith out to Faust as 'Adam's first wife' and warns him to beware of her beautiful hair.

Lady LilithRossetti, 1866-68

Dante Gabriel Rossetti's painting shows a woman combing her hair before a mirror and is read together with his sonnet 'Body's Beauty'. The painting is now in the Delaware Art Museum.

Lilith rereadThe 1970s

Judith Plaskow's 'The Coming of Lilith' of 1972 rewrote Lilith as a symbol of the woman who asks for equality. The Jewish feminist magazine Lilith, founded in 1976, takes its name from this reading. The being who harms newborns in the medieval text and this modern reading are two separate things.

The Black MoonThe far point of the Moon's orbit

The Moon's orbit is an ellipse, and its point farthest from the Earth is called the apogee. In astrology the longitude of this point is used as Black Moon Lilith. The mean Black Moon moves evenly, while the true (osculating) Black Moon swings to either side of the mean because of the Sun's pull.

1181 LilithNamed for Lili Boulanger

On 11 February 1927 Benjamin Jekhowsky found an asteroid at the Algiers Observatory and named it Lilith in memory of the French composer Lili Boulanger. The asteroid has no link with the mythological Lilith, yet astrologers read it under her name.

Meaning of the glyph:

The glyph of Black Moon Lilith ⚸ is a black crescent set above a cross. It was added to Unicode in 2008, in version 5.1, as U+26B8 BLACK MOON LILITH. The form varies from program to program, and some use a black crescent alone. The fonts of this site do not contain the character, so the glyph here was drawn in line to match the other glyphs. The asteroid 1181 Lilith has no established glyph.

☾ CrescentShows the Moon. In the original glyph the crescent is black, a point that is calculated and cannot be seen in the sky.
+ CrossAs in the planetary glyphs, it shows matter and the earth.
⚸ WholeThe whole sign stands for the dark point tied to the Moon, the Black Moon.

The night spirit that threatens childbirth

A night being that attacks the woman in childbirth and the newborn exists in many cultures, and protection usually comes from an amulet. The correspondences below are similarities of function, not claims of identity or kinship.

Mesopotamia

Lamashtu

The being counted as a daughter of Anu who attacks pregnant women and infants. Amulets with the head of Pazuzu were worn against her.

See in family tree
Jewish

Lilith

Adam's first wife in the Alphabet of Ben Sira, and the night being driven from the house with a bill of divorce in the incantation bowls.

Greek

Lamia

A lover of Zeus. When Hera kills her children she turns into a monster that steals the children of others. The Vulgate renders the lilit of Isaiah as lamia.

See in family tree
Byzantine

Gyllou

A female demon who threatens infants and women in childbirth. In the legend of Saint Sisinnios she is powerless before an amulet bearing her names, a pattern close to the story of Lilith and the three angels.

Anatolia and Central Asia

Albastı

Also called Al karısı. She is believed to attack the woman after childbirth and the newborn, so a red cloth is tied on the mother's head and iron is placed under her pillow.

Iran

Āl

In Persian folk belief a female being who attacks the woman after childbirth and the newborn. She shares her name with the Turkic Albastı belief.

Arab

Qarina

A female spirit double believed to harm women and children. Some sources call her Umm al-Subyan, 'mother of the children', and she is kept away with amulets.

Three myths

Adam's first wife

According to the Alphabet of Ben Sira, God sees that it is not good for Adam to be alone and creates for him a woman from the earth, as he made Adam, and her name is Lilith. The two quarrel at once. Lilith refuses to lie beneath him and says that both were made from the earth and so they are equal. When they cannot agree she pronounces the secret name of God and flies away. Adam complains, and God sends three angels after her: Senoy, Sansenoy and Semangelof. The angels find her in the midst of the sea in which the Egyptians would later drown and tell her that if she does not return a hundred of her children will die every day. Lilith does not return. She says she was created to bring sickness to newborns, with power over a boy for eight days and over a girl for twenty. She swears not to touch a child wherever she sees the angels' names or images on an amulet. So a hundred of her children die every day.

The huluppu tree

In the Sumerian poem 'Gilgamesh, Enkidu and the Netherworld' Inanna finds a huluppu tree uprooted by the wind on the bank of the Euphrates and plants it in her garden in Uruk, meaning to make a throne and a bed from it. When the tree has grown, a snake immune to charms settles at its root, the Anzu bird and its young at its top and a young female being called ki-sikil-lil-la-ke in its trunk. Inanna weeps, and her brother Utu does not help. Gilgamesh takes up his axe and kills the snake, the Anzu bird flies to the mountains with its young and the young female being tears down her house and flees to desolate places. Gilgamesh makes a throne and a bed for Inanna from the tree. Kramer translated this young female being as Lilith in 1938. The identification is disputed today, and the figure is mostly compared with the Akkadian ardat lilî.

The lilit divorced from the house

In Sasanian Babylonia a household has a magician write an earthenware bowl. The writing runs in a spiral inside the bowl, and the centre often shows a lilit with bound hands or feet. The text addresses the lilit. On some bowls it is written in the set phrases of the Jewish bill of divorce, the get: she has been given a writ of divorce and separation and may no longer approach the woman and children of this house. The bowl is buried upside down at the threshold or in the corners of the house. The lilit is put out of the house as one is put out of a marriage.

How it got its name

The Black Moon is not a body but the point of the Moon's orbit farthest from the Earth. It spread in the second half of the twentieth century. Programs calculate this point in two ways, mean and true (osculating), and the difference between the two can be large.

The asteroid 1181 Lilith was found by Benjamin Jekhowsky at the Algiers Observatory on 11 February 1927. Jekhowsky chose the name in memory of the French composer Lili Boulanger (1893-1918), so the asteroid's name does not refer to the mythological Lilith.

Black MoonApogee of the Moon's orbit, a calculated point
Mean and trueThe mean Black Moon moves evenly, the true Black Moon swings with the Sun's pull
1181 Lilith11 February 1927, B. Jekhowsky, Algiers Observatory
Asteroid's nameIn memory of the composer Lili Boulanger
UnicodeU+26B8 BLACK MOON LILITH, Unicode 5.1 (2008)

Lilith in classical astrology: no place

RulershipNone. In classical astrology rulership belongs only to the seven traditional planets.
ExaltationNone. Exaltation degrees are defined for the seven planets.
SectNone. The division of sect applies to the classical seven.
JoyNone. Joys belong to the house system and do not cover calculated points.
Nature of the Black MoonNot a body in the sky. It is the point of the Moon's orbit farthest from the Earth, the apogee.
CycleThe mean Black Moon goes round the zodiac in about 8.85 years and stays about nine months in a sign.
1181 LilithA metallic asteroid of the main belt that goes round the Sun in about 4.35 years. Its diameter is about 20 kilometres.
Modern useIn twentieth century astrology it is read with suppressed female power and refused desires. It is absent from the classical sources.

The position of this school is plain: Lilith is not a planet and rules no sign. The Black Moon is a calculated point and carries no meaning in any of the classical sources. For the detail see Essential and Accidental Dignities and Lilith Variants.

Table of correspondences

These correspondences come from the discovery record, from the mythological sources and from twentieth century asteroid literature. They are not part of the classical system of dignities and should not be read as if they were.

Akkadianlilû, lilītu, ardat lilî
Hebrewlilit, Isaiah 34:14
Adam's first wifeAlphabet of Ben Sira, 8th-10th century
Guardian angelsSenoy, Sansenoy, Semangelof
Consort in KabbalahSamael
UnicodeU+26B8, Unicode 5.1 (2008)
In classical astrologyNo place

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Asteroid Mythology Lilith Variants Moon Mythology Mesopotamian Gods Family Tree Thema

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Lilith appear in the Bible?

Only once, in Isaiah 34:14, among the creatures that will live in a desolate Edom. The story of Adam's first wife is not in the Bible. It appears in the medieval Alphabet of Ben Sira.

Are the Black Moon and 1181 Lilith the same?

No. The Black Moon is the point of the Moon's orbit farthest from the Earth and is not a body in the sky. 1181 Lilith is an asteroid found in 1927, and its name comes from the composer Lili Boulanger. A chart should always say which Lilith it uses.

What is the difference between the mean and the true Black Moon?

The mean Black Moon is the even average motion of the apogee. The true, or osculating, Black Moon is the apogee of the Moon's orbit at that moment and swings to either side of the mean because of the Sun's pull. The difference can be large, so it should be stated which one is used.

Does Lilith have a rulership in classical astrology?

No. In classical astrology rulership, exaltation, sect and joy belong only to the seven traditional planets. Both the Black Moon and 1181 Lilith entered astrology in the twentieth century.

Why did Lilith become a symbol of equality?

In the Alphabet of Ben Sira, Lilith says that she was made from the same earth as Adam and refuses to submit. In the 1970s writers such as Judith Plaskow reread this scene as the story of a woman who asks for equality. The same medieval text also describes Lilith as a being who harms newborns, and the two readings are separate.

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Where is Lilith in your chart?

Thema, your free astrology software, can add the asteroid 1181 Lilith to a chart. The Black Moon is a separate calculated point and should not be confused with the asteroid. Neither has a place in the dignity table.

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