Shedim are spirits or demons in Jewish mythology. However, they are not necessarily equivalent to the modern connotation of demons as evil entities. Evil spirits were thought as the cause of maladies; conceptual differing from the shedim, who are not evil demigods, but the foreign gods themselves. Shedim are just evil in the sense that they are not God. They appear only twice in the Tanakh, at Psalm 106:37 and Deuteronomy 32:17 both times, it dealswith child or animal sacrifices. Although the word is traditionally derived from the root that conveys the meaning of "acting with violence" or "laying waste" it was possibly a loan-word from Akkadian in which the word shedu referred to a spirit which could be either protective or malevolent. With the translation of Hebrew texts into Greek, under influence of Zorastriandualism, shedim were translated into daimonia with implicit negativity. Otherwise, later in Judeo-Islamic culture, shedim became the Hebrew word for Jinn with a morally ambivalent attitude.
Origin
According to one legend, the shedim are descendants of serpents, or of demons in the form of serpents, alluding to the serpent in Eden as related in Genesis. According to one common view, they are the offsprings of Lilith, from her union with Adam or other men. Another legend said that God had started making them, intending for them to be humans, but did not complete their creation because He was resting during the Sabbath. Even after the Sabbath, He left them how they were to show that when the Sabbath comes, all work must be viewed as complete. The Zohar describes them as offspring of Azazel and Naamah
Traits
The Talmud describes the Shedim as possessing some traits of angels, and some traits of humans:
In three ways they are like ministering angels: They have wings like ministering angels; and they fly from one end of the world to the other like ministering angels; and they know what will be in the future like ministering angels. And in three ways they are similar to humans: They eat and drink like humans; they multiply like humans; and they die like humans.
They can cause sickness and misfortune, follow the dead and fly around graves. Supposedly, sinful people sacrificed their daughters to the shedim, but it is unclear if the sacrifice consisted in the murdering of the victims or in the sexual satisfaction of the demons. There are many things that one is admonished not to do in order to avoid invoking shedim, such as whistling or even saying the word "shedim". Judah ben Samuel of Regensburg wrote in his will and testament that one should not seal up windows completely because it traps shedim in the house. The shedim are not always seen as malicious creatures and are also considered to be helpful to humans. They are said to be even able to live according to the Torah, like Asmodeus.
Appearance
Shedim are said to have had the feet and claws of a rooster. To see if the shedim were present in some place, ashes were thrown to the ground or floor, and then their footsteps became visible. Shedim can shapeshift and assume a human form. The talmud tells of Asmodeus assuming King Solomon's form and ruling in his place for some time. However, he was never seen barefoot because he could not disguise his feet. In the Zohar:
The Shekhinah hid Esther from Ahasuerus and gave him a Shedah instead while she returned to Mordechai's arms. This is why a man must speak with his wife before he mates with her, because she might have been exchanged with a female demon.
