DESTRUCTION, a scourge — a rare noun for a devastating blow, and the fourth of Psalm 91's terrors, 'the qetev that lays waste at noon' (91:6). ⚠ It is the origin of a monster that never existed in Hebrew: the Septuagint rendered the phrase daimoniou mesembrinou and Jerome's Vulgate daemonium meridianum, the NOONDAY DEMON, which Evagrius Ponticus in the fourth century made the besetting spirit of monks — the ancestor of acedia. The Hebrew has a plague, not a personality; the demon entered through Greek. → first discussed at Psalms 91:6