Satan and the Devil in the Bible
Satan in the Bible starts as an ordinary Hebrew noun, satan, meaning adversary, and only over centuries becomes the name of God's great opponent. So who is Satan? In the Old Testament the word can describe a human rival, the angel of the LORD blocking a road, or a figure in God's own court who tests Job. Jewish writings between the Testaments give that figure a story, and by the New Testament Satan and the Devil name the adversary Jesus resists. Two scholars on The Dig In trace how it happened, and they do not fully agree.
Dr. Ryan Stokes counts two of the thirty-nine Old Testament books mentioning Satan, and nineteen of the twenty-seven New Testament books. Something happened in between, and this page follows it.
Who made
the Devil?
The accuser of Job did not become the Devil overnight. Tap a stage. Each one shows the texts, what the word means there, and how Dr. Ryan Stokes and Dr. Henry Ansgar Kelly read it.
A tester in God's court
In Hebrew, satan is an everyday word for an opponent. Philistine commanders worry that David will become a satan to them in battle (1 Samuel 29:4), and God raises up Hadad the Edomite as a satan against Solomon (1 Kings 11:14). In Numbers 22 the angel of the LORD stands in Balaam's road with a drawn sword as a satan, an obstacle sent by God himself.
Job 1 and 2 move the word into heaven. With the article it is ha-satan, the satan, a title and not a personal name, standing among the sons of God as they present themselves before the LORD. He questions whether Job's faithfulness is bought, strikes Job only within the limits God sets, and then disappears from the book after chapter 2.
- Numbers 22:22
- Job 1 to 2
- 1 Samuel 29:4
- 1 Kings 11:14
Dr. Kelly reads the satan in Job as a member of God's court who works for God as tester and accuser, and notes that Job never learns he exists. Dr. Stokes argues the word means attacker or executioner, that Job is the first time this executioner turns on an innocent man, and that the Satan scenes may have been added to an older story, since Job's friends never mention him.
Hear both readingsA priest in filthy clothes
Zechariah, prophesying around 520 BC as the returned exiles rebuilt the Temple, sees Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, with the satan standing at his right hand to oppose him. The LORD rebukes the satan, and Joshua's filthy garments are taken off and replaced with clean ones (Zechariah 3:1 to 5).
A book written after the exile shows the word on the move. 2 Samuel 24:1 says the LORD incited David to count Israel. When 1 Chronicles 21:1 retells the same story, it says a satan stood against Israel and incited David. There is no article this time, which is why many readers see the first step toward a proper name.
- Zechariah 3:1 to 5
- 2 Samuel 24:1
- 1 Chronicles 21:1
- Isaiah 6
Most translations picture a courtroom with a prosecutor. Dr. Stokes argues it may be an execution scene instead: a priest in filthy clothes about to be struck down for entering God's presence wrongly, read in light of Isaiah 6, where the prophet expects to die in that presence. Dr. Kelly's broader case is that the Old Testament satan serves in God's court and never switches sides.
Hear both readingsMastema, Belial and the Watchers
Between the Testaments the figure gets a backstory. The Book of the Watchers in 1 Enoch traces evil to angels who came down and corrupted the earth. Jubilees names a chief of the spirits, Mastema, who asks God to leave him a tenth of the spirits so he can test humanity. The Dead Sea Scrolls set the Sons of Light against Belial and his lot.
When Jewish scholars translated the Hebrew Bible into Greek, they rendered satan as diabolos, slanderer. That is where the English word devil comes from, and it is the word the New Testament writers would inherit.
- 1 Enoch 1 to 36
- Jubilees 10
- War Scroll
- Septuagint
Dr. Stokes traces how Jubilees and Second Temple Judaism reshaped the figure into the Prince of Mastema. In a separate conversation, Dr. Matthias Henze follows how angels, demons and Satan went from near silence in the Old Testament to the crowded spiritual world of the Gospels.
Dead Sea Scrolls and the Lost BooksThe adversary Jesus resists
By the first century, Satan works as a proper name, and the Devil is its Greek twin. Jesus is tested in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1 to 11), calls Peter "Satan" when Peter tries to turn him away from the cross (Mark 8:33), and describes his work as tying up the strong man (Mark 3:27). Revelation 12 gathers the threads: the great dragon, "that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan," is thrown down.
Paul can still use the older sense. In 1 Corinthians 5 he tells the church to hand a man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord. The handover is aimed at the man's rescue, not his ruin.
- Matthew 4:1 to 11
- Mark 8:33
- 1 Corinthians 5:5
- Revelation 12:7 to 10
Dr. Stokes explains what Paul means by handing a man over to Satan, reads Revelation 12 as a defeat story rather than an origin story, and walks through how the chapter says the victory is won. He argues the Satan that should frighten you is God's agent, not God's enemy.
Hear Dr. StokesLucifer, the serpent and Milton
Much of the popular story comes after the Bible. Genesis 3 never calls the serpent Satan. Isaiah 14:12 mocks the king of Babylon as the shining one, son of the dawn, which the Latin Vulgate rendered lucifer, light-bearer. Read together with Ezekiel 28, a lament over a Phoenician king cast out of Eden, these taunts became the fall of a proud angel.
Dante put Satan at the frozen bottom of his Inferno, and John Milton's Paradise Lost (1667) gave the Devil the speeches many people still half remember. By then the horns, the pitchfork and the rebel prince were fixed in Christian imagination, and most readers assumed they came from Scripture.
- Genesis 3
- Isaiah 14:12
- Ezekiel 28
- Paradise Lost
Dr. Kelly names names. He credits Justin Martyr's wordplay with fusing Satan and the serpent of Eden, and Origen with turning Isaiah's king of Babylon into the fallen Lucifer. He explains why Dante's Satan contradicts itself and how Milton made the Devil unforgettable, a story the Bible itself never tells.
Hear Dr. KellyTwo scholars,
two readings.
Both guests start from the same handful of Hebrew texts, and both reject the cartoon. They part ways on what the word satan meant in the first place.
Satan Used to Work for God
Dr. Ryan Stokes Associate Dean, School of Biblical and Theological Studies, Carson-Newman University. PhD, Yale. Author of The Satan: How God's Executioner Became the Enemy (Eerdmans).- The Hebrew satan is a noun, not a name, and in the oldest texts means attacker or executioner. It never means prosecuting attorney.
- The angel of the LORD is called a satan in Numbers 22 while carrying out God's judgment.
- Zechariah 3 may be an execution scene, not a trial, and the Satan material in Job 1 and 2 may be a later addition.
- Jubilees turns the figure into the Prince of Mastema, and Revelation 12 tells of his defeat, not his origin.
The Devil We Invented
Dr. Henry Ansgar Kelly Distinguished Research Professor, UCLA, and former director of its Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. Author of numerous books on the history of Satan, the Bible and the medieval church.- A supernatural satan appears in only three places in the Old Testament, one of them the comic scene with Balaam's talking donkey.
- That satan serves in God's court as obstacle, tester and accuser, and never switches sides.
- Justin Martyr fused Satan with the serpent, and Origen made Isaiah's king of Babylon into Lucifer.
- Dante and Milton built the Devil an empire the Bible never gave him.
Six words to know
- HebrewsatanAdversary or opponent, used of people and of an angel. Stokes reads it as attacker.
- Hebrewha-satanThe satan, with the article: a title for the figure in Job 1 to 2 and Zechariah 3.
- GreekdiabolosSlanderer. The Septuagint's word for satan and the root of the English word devil.
- JubileesMastemaHostility. The name of the chief of the spirits in Jubilees.
- Dead Sea ScrollsBelialWorthlessness. The leader of the Sons of Darkness in the scrolls, and, as Beliar, a name Paul uses once (2 Corinthians 6:15).
- LatinLuciferLight-bearer. The Vulgate's word for the morning star in Isaiah 14:12, a taunt against Babylon's king.
Who is
Satan?
The questions that bring most people to this topic, answered from the text first and then from the guests.
Who is Satan in the Bible?
In the Hebrew Bible, satan means adversary. The word describes human opponents, the angel of the LORD blocking Balaam's road, and, as ha-satan, a figure in God's heavenly court who tests Job and opposes the high priest in Zechariah 3.
In the Jewish writings between the Testaments that figure becomes the leader of the forces opposed to God, and in the New Testament Satan and the Devil name the adversary Jesus resists. Dr. Ryan Stokes argues that the oldest meaning is closer to attacker or executioner than accuser, while Dr. Henry Ansgar Kelly reads the figure as God's tester and accuser.
Where does Satan first appear in the Bible?
The noun first appears in Numbers 22, where the angel of the LORD stands in Balaam's road as a satan. The figure called the satan first appears in Job 1 and 2, and again in Zechariah 3.
1 Chronicles 21:1 uses the word without the article, in a retelling of 2 Samuel 24 where the earlier book says the LORD incited David. Many readers see that verse as the first step toward Satan as a proper name.
Is the serpent in the Garden of Eden Satan?
Genesis 3 never says so. It calls the serpent the most cunning of the wild animals the LORD God had made. Later readers linked the two, and Revelation 12:9 calls the dragon "that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan."
Dr. Henry Ansgar Kelly credits the second-century writer Justin Martyr with fusing Satan and the serpent of Eden in Christian teaching.
Is Lucifer another name for Satan?
Not in the Hebrew text. Isaiah 14:12 is a taunt song against the king of Babylon, who is mocked as the shining one, son of the dawn. The Latin Vulgate translated that phrase as lucifer, light-bearer, and the King James Version kept Lucifer as a name.
Dr. Kelly argues it was Origen who read the verse as the fall of a rebel angel, and the idea stuck.
Does Satan work for God in the book of Job?
In Job 1 and 2 the satan arrives with the sons of God to present himself before the LORD, and he can touch Job only within limits God sets.
Dr. Kelly reads him as God's tester and accuser, an officer of the court who never switches sides. Dr. Stokes reads him as God's executioner turning, for the first time, on an innocent man. Neither reads him as a rebel against God in Job.
What does the word devil mean?
Devil comes from the Greek diabolos, slanderer. Jewish translators used it for the Hebrew satan when they produced the Greek Septuagint, and the New Testament uses Satan and the Devil for the same figure. Revelation 12:9 puts the two names side by side.
Read the text,
not the cartoon.
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