What are "goat-demons"?

Question

In Leviticus 17:7 (NASB)

And they shall no longer offer their sacrifices to the goat demons with which they play the prostitute. This shall be a permanent statute to them throughout their generations.”’

What are "goat-demons"?

Answer 1

The Jewish Encyclopedia provides a wealth of information about demonology in the Tanach. I quote just a bit below, but provide the link to the full article:

...The demons mentioned in the Bible are of two classes, the "se'irim" and the "shedim." The se'irim ("hairy beings"), to which the Israelites sacrificed in the open fields (Lev. xvii. 7; A. V. "devils"; R. V., incorrectly, "he-goats"), are satyr-like demons, described as dancing in the wilderness (Isa. xiii. 21, xxxiv. 14; compare Maimonides, "Moreh," iii. 46; Vergil's "Eclogues," v. 73, "saltantes satyri"), and are identical with the jinn of the Arabian woods and deserts (see Wellhausen, l.c., and Smith, l.c.). To the same class belongs Azazel, the goat-like demon of the wilderness (Lev. xvi. 10 et seq.), probably the chief of the se'irim, and Lilith (Isa. xxxiv. 14). Possibly "the roes and hinds of the field," by which Shulamit conjures the daughters of Jerusalem to bring her back to her lover (Cant. ii. 7, iii. 5), are faunlike spirits similar to the se'irim, though of a harmless nature. The (Job v. 23. A. V. "stones of the field"), with which the righteous are said to be in league—obviously identical with, if not a corruption of, the (Mishnah Kil. viii. 5), explained in Yer. Kil. 31c as "a fabulous mountain-man drawing nourishment from the ground" (see Jastrow, "Dict.," and Levy, "Neuhebr. Wörterb." s.v. )—seem to be field-demons of the same nature. The wilderness as the home of demons was regarded as the place whence such diseases as leprosy issued, and in cases of leprosy one of the birds set apart to be offered as an expiatory sacrifice was released that it might carry the disease back to the desert (Lev. xiv. 7, 52; compare a similar rite in Sayce, "Hibbert Lectures," 1887, p. 461, and "Zeit. für Assyr." 1902, p. 149).

The Israelites also offered sacrifices to the shedim (Deut. xxxii. 17; Ps. cvi. 37). The name (believed by Hoffmann, "Hiob," 1891, to occur in Job v. 21), for a long time erroneously connected with "the Almighty" (), denotes a storm-demon (from , Isa. xiii. 6; A. V. "destruction"; compare Psxci. 6, , "that stormeth about"; A. V. "that wasteth"). In Chaldean mythology the seven evil deities were known as "shedim," storm-demons, represented in ox-like form; and because these oxcolossi representing evil demons were, by a peculiar law of contrast, used also as protective genii of royal palaces and the like, the name "shed" assumed also the meaning of a propitious genius in Babylonian magic literature (see Delitzsch, "Assyrisches Handwörterb." pp. 60, 253, 261, 646; Jensen, "Assyr.-Babyl. Mythen und Epen," 1900, p. 453; Sayce, l.c. pp. 441, 450, 463; Lenormant, l.c. pp. 48-51). It was from Chaldea that the name "shedim" = evil demons came to the Israelites, and so the sacred writers in tentionally applied the word in a dyslogistic sense to the Canaanite deities 'in the two passages quoted. But they also spoke of "the destroyer" () Ex. xii. 23) as a demon whose malignant effect upon the houses of the Israelites was to be warded off by the blood of the paschal sacrifice sprinkled upon the lintel and the door-post (a corresponding pagan talisman is mentioned in Isa. lvii. 8). In II Sam. xxiv; 16 and II Chron. xxi. 15 the pestilence-dealing demon is called = "the destroying angel" (compare "the angel of the Lord" in II Kings xix. 35; Isa. xxxvii. 36), because, although they are demons, these "evil messengers" (Ps. lxxviii. 49; A. V. "evil angels") do only the bidding of God, their Master; they are the agents of His divine wrath....

https://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/5085-demonology#anchor2

Answer 2

It was a common form of worship at that time in that general area.

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(7) And they shall no more offer their sacrifices unto devils.--The word (s?irim) here translated "devils," literally denotes hairy or shaggy goats, and then goat-like deities, or demons. The Egyptians, and other nations of antiquity, worshipped goats as gods. Not only was there a celebrated temple in Thmuis, the capital of the Mendesian Nomos in Lower Egypt, dedicated to the goat-image Pan, whom they called Mendes, and worshipped as the oracle, and as the fertilising principle in nature, but they erected statues of him everywhere. Hence the Pan, Silenus, satyrs, fauns, and the woodland gods among the Greeks and Romans; and hence, too, the goat-like form of the devil, with a tail, horns, and cloven feet, which obtain in medieval Christianity, and which may still be seen in some European cities. The terror which the devil, appearing in this Pan-like form, created among those who were thought to have seen him, has given rise to our expression panic. This is the form of idolatrous worship which the Jews brought with them from Egypt, and to which reference is continually made.