In the Old Testament, Jehovah frequently brings evil upon men by direct action. Angry with the Jews on one occasion, Jehovah put the idea of taking a census into David's mind so that he could then punish this crime by sending a pestilence that killed seventy thousand men. But on some occasions Jehovah worked through subordinate spirits. When he was angry with Ahab and intended to bring him to his death, Jehovah consulted the host of heaven who were gathered about his throne and said, 'Who shall persuade Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?' The host of heaven argued the point inconclusively until a spirit came to stand before Jehovah and said, 'I will persuade him . . .1 will go forth and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.' Jehovah agreed and Ahab was duly killed.  Besides the spirits which attended on Jehovah and made up his court, the angels of later Jewish and Christian belief, the Jews also believed in malignant demons and hairy spirits which infested lonely and barren places. But in these early traditions there is no sign of any belief in the Devil, the great prince of evil who is the arch-enemy of God. The figure of the Devil loomed up later and passages in the Old Testament which originally had nothing to do with him were taken as scriptural authoritiy for his existence