I would speculate that the bulk of the world’s population has heard the name ‘Satan’ and have some idea of who or what he is. Throughout history, Satan has been ‘known’ by many other names. Lucifer, the Devil. the Evil One, the Man of Sin, the enemy of God and the enemy of Man, and especially as the Hater of Christians. He is the master of evil and has a third of the Angels who ‘fell from heaven’ with him and who are now Demons. Their one goal is to Destroy God’s main creation, i.e. Mankind.
‘He runs around like a hungry lion, looking to see who he can devour’ (1 Peter 5:8).
Most people can describe what he looks like as well; He wears a red suit, has a pointy tail, has cloven feet and carries a pitchfork. And of course, has horns on his head. If you asked these people if they had actually seen Satan ‘for real’ they would answer no and explain that their description of Satan was based on books, preaching, movies, cartoons, etc.
So how much of this is accurate? As we did with other aspects in this book, we will start by looking at what the Bible says about Satan.
The Old Testament and Satan
You may be surprised to learn that there is no mention of ‘Satan’ in the ‘original’ Old Testament. There are, however, several references to someone called ‘Ha-Satan’, which means ‘the accuser’ or ‘the adversary’. So ‘Ha-Satan’ is actually a job description rather than somebody’s name. Today we may call someone a ‘public prosecutor’, which defines their role similar to the role defined by ‘Ha-Satan’.
We find many references in Job to ‘Ha-Satan’ where it can clearly be seen that he is an angel and part of God’s council. God converses with him in a way that indicates he is known to God and has to report to God what he has been doing. Effectively he is God’s prosecutor whose job is to go and see what humans on Earth are doing and then report back to God.
‘And the Lord said to Ha-Satan, “From where do you come?” So Ha-Satan answered the Lord and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking back and forth on it.” (Job 1:7).
An important point to note here is that there is no evidence of rebellion, no indications that ‘Ha-Satan’ is having ‘evil thoughts’ or that he is ‘anti-God’ in any way. In fact, ‘Ha-Satan’ is given power and authority by God to test Job to see if Job will still praise God during, and after the trials and persecutions that are to be forced on him.
Some commentators use this section of Job to suggest that Ha-Satan had ‘evil powers’ that he used against Job. However, a reading of the book of Job will show that members of Job’s family were killed and his livestock stolen by ‘people’, namely the Sabeans.
‘and a messenger came to Job and said, “The oxen were plowing and the donkeys were feeding beside them, and the Sabeans attacked and swooped down on them and took away the animals. They killed every one of your servants except me(Job 1:14.)
Whilst the story of Job is quite problematic as it seems to show that God allows evil things to fall upon his children, and even makes a ‘wager’ with his angelic council member., I think there are two main ‘takeaways’ from the story of Job.
- All of Jobs ‘troubles’ occurred when God lifted his ‘hedge of protection’ from him. This allowed outside forces, enemies, weather, sickness and poverty to befall him.
- Ha-Satan is not seen as an evil ‘devil’ who is rebelling against God. He is just one of the angels in heaven who is doing God’s bidding.
During the Exodus when the Israelites complained against God and Moses, it appears that God lifted his protection from them as they were suddenly attacked by venomous snakes.
‘…and spoke against God and against Moses: “Why have you led us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no bread or water, and we detest this wretched food!” So the LORD sent venomous snakes among the people, and many of the Israelites were bitten and died’ (Numbers 2:6)
Now it appears that the snakes were always there in the wilderness but God kept them away for the Israelites via a ‘hedge of protection’.
So maybe we should consider what sort of ‘hedge’ God has around us and our families. How many accidents, sicknesses and misadventures have not happened to us? I know that most people will say that many of these things have happened to them, but could they have been worse? Did you gain more faith and understanding along the way?
Ha-Satan in Zechariah
Ha-Satan is also referenced in a vision that Zechariah had
‘Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the Angel of the Lord, and Ha-Satan standing at his right hand to oppose him. And the Lord said to Ha-Satan, “The Lord rebuke you, Ha-Satan! The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you!’ (Zech 3:1,2)
Here we can again see that ‘Ha-Satan’ is in the role of ‘accuser’. Joshua was the high priest at this time and apparently was physically dirty and his clothes were disheveled. Ha-Satan was accusing Joshua of being a poor representative of God’s priests however the Angel of the Lord (Jesus) defended Joshua.
A point I find interesting is that Ha-Satan is an angel, created by God and placed into the position of ‘Accuser’. So he was ‘just doing his job’ but it appears he didn’t have the ‘ability’ to be lenient, kind, or understanding. He was just methodical and focused on doing the job he appeared to have been created for. Fortunately, we have God and Jesus who bring compassion into our situations.
The Garden of Eden
Some of you may be wondering about ‘Satan’ in the Garden of Eden. Wasn’t he the snake?
The original Hebrew version of Genesis uses the word ‘nachash’ which means ‘serpent’ and can also mean ‘shining one’. Some scholars, therefore, have interpreted the ‘nachash’ as being an angelic being, which explains why he can talk and communicate with Eve, and why she was not frightened or asked ’who are you?” If he was an angelic being, perhaps he had been in Eden on many occasions and had interacted with Adam and Eve before. Interestingly ‘nachash’ can be derived from Hebrew root words that mean ‘deceiver’ or ‘slanderer’. So maybe this is describing ‘Ha-Satan’?
The word ‘nachash’ can also mean serpent or snake and so that is what was mainly used in later translations, especially as the ‘Garden of Eden story’ mentions a snake crawling on its belly and being evil and crafty, similar to how a real snake appears in our world. Of course, ‘snake’ can also be used as a metaphor for an evil, lying and manipulative person. Being forced to ‘crawl in the dust’ can also be used as a metaphor to describe how a person has ‘fallen’ from a lofty wealthy high place and now has to ‘grovel in the dirt’, in a poor state.
There’s a whole course of research that could be done on the Garden of Eden as being a metaphor for describing God’s creation and then man’s fall. However, the intention of this section of this post is to review the role of Satan in the Old Testament.
It appears that whilst he was an ‘evil tempter’ who had been around during those days, he was not called ‘Satan’, nor was he in ‘charge’ of a host of ‘fallen angels’.
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