Demons

In Moses’ Song, Demons are among the beings to whom Israel sacrifices after forgetting the God who brought and sustained the people. Their appearance belongs to the song’s indictment of apostasy: worship of them is framed as a breach of Israel’s exclusive covenant allegiance and as part of the cause of the judgments that follow.

Appearance in Moses’ Song

The song contrasts the LORD’s care for Israel with the people’s later abandonment of him. After describing Israel as growing prosperous and forsaking its maker, it says that the people sacrificed to Demons, characterized as no-gods and as gods they had not known. The song places them beside newly encountered deities that earlier generations had not revered.

This language locates Demons within a polemic against rival worship rather than presenting them in an independent narrative episode. The text gives no individual names, forms, or actions for them; its emphasis is on Israel’s sacrifice and the act’s religious and covenantal meaning.

Covenant Consequences

The reference contributes to the song’s account of Israel’s infidelity: the people forget the Rock who begot them and provoke the LORD by worshipping other powers. The LORD’s response is described as anger and the hiding of his face, followed by announced calamities. Demons are therefore associated with the people’s breach of allegiance, not identified as the direct agents of those punishments.

Elsewhere, the covenant warning in Deuteronomy describes service to foreign gods as a cause of disaster and exile, while Moses’ teaching and the law call Israel to hear and keep the covenant. Read within that wider emphasis, the song’s mention of Demons sharpens its contrast between the LORD’s sustaining care and Israel’s turn toward gods it did not know.