In the Bible Israel's official religion contrasts sharply with contemporary polytheisms in the role assigned to demons, which in the bible is practically nil. Calamities and illnesses were not from demons but from the Lord. The Israelite conception of demons, as it existed in the popular mind or the literary imagination, resembled in some ways that held elsewhere.
Demons live in deserts or ruins.
They trouble men's minds. Although these and other statements refer to the Land of Israel, the Jerusalem Talmud is markedly free from demonology. A passage in the Babylonian Talmud specifically states that various beliefs connected with demons which were current in Babylon were isnored in Erez Yisrael. That the Babylonian Talmud is replete with demonology is clearly the influence of the belief in demons which was widespread in Babylon. The Babylonian Jews lived in a world which was filled with demons and spirits, malevolent and sometimes benevolent, who inhabited the air, the trees, water, roofs of houses, and privies.