Deuteronomy 32:17 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Ver. 17. They sacrificed unto devils— The original word rendered devils, is שׁדים shedim, concerning the import of which etymologists are much divided. Some think it imports destroyers, as the devil is called a destroyer, Revelation 9:11. Others think it is of the same import with Sirim; see Leviticus 17:7 and there are many critics who derive it from שׁדי shaddi, one of the names given in Scripture for Jehovah. Parkhurst has embraced this opinion, and observes, that, as Shedi, one of the divine names, signifies the pourer or shedder forth, i.e. of blessings, both temporal and spiritual; (see Genesis 49:25.) so shedim, in the plural, imports the same, and is applied to objects of idolatrous worship here, and Psalms 106:37 from which passage it appears, that these Shedim were worshipped by the Canaanites, and from them the valley of Siddim, of which we read, Genesis 8:10 so early as the time of Abraham, was probably denominated. So it is emphatically observed by the sacred writer, Genesis 14:3 that this place, which had been thus idolatrously dedicated to pretended genial powers of nature, was changed into the Salt sea, barren and waste. He adds from Hutchinson, (with what probability we leave the reader to judge,) that by the Shedim, it is highly probable the idolaters meant the great agents of nature, or the heavens, considered as giving rain, causing the earth to send forth springs and shed forth her increase, vegetables to yield and nourish their fruit, and animals to abound with milk for the subsistence of their young. To these refer the multimammiae, or many-breasted idols, which were worshipped among the heathens, and of which sort in particular was the Diana of the Ephesians, mentioned Acts 19.