I. Name

Paḥad laylâ is hap.leg. in the OT, in Ps. 91.5, where it appears in close conjunction with several terms referring to various demons (see below). Another combination of the word paḥad, lit. ‘terror, dread’, and laylâ, lit. ‘night’, occurs in Cant. 3.8 where it also refers to a certain type of demon (see already the Targumîm and Krauss [1936] for references to other rabbinical sources). See also Deut. 28.66.

The understanding of paḥad in Ps. 91.5 as ‘terror’ is not the only one. M. Dahood has suggested …