Job 1:6 to Revelation 12:10 · Doctrine · Featured Study
The Names of Satan
Scripture rarely gives the adversary a plain name. It gives him titles, and each one is a claim about what he does.
The enemy of God first speaks as a serpent in Eden and is last seen thrown into the lake of fire, and the Bible calls him by many titles between the two.
- First taught
- Job 1:6 “One day the sons of God came to…”
- Fullest statement
- Revelation 12:9 to 10 “And the great dragon was hurled down—that ancient…”
Raphael, Saint Michael Vanquishing Satan, 1518. Public domain.
Summary
The Bible calls the adversary Satan, the devil, the ancient serpent, the dragon, Beelzebul, Belial and the accuser of our brothers.
- Satan is a Hebrew word meaning adversary, and devil comes from the Greek diabolos, a slanderer.
- The New Testament uses Satan and the devil as one name, more than thirty times.
- In John 12:31 Jesus names him the prince of this world and foretells his casting out.
Titles in Place of a Name
Satan and devil come from a Hebrew and a Greek word, and both words describe a work.
In the oldest scenes of the Hebrew Bible the enemy is ha-satan, the satan, with the article. The word is a common Hebrew noun meaning adversary or accuser, and in Job and Zechariah he stands in the heavenly court as the one who accuses.
One day the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came with them.This verse is the first time the title stands with the article, and the book of Job opens its story with it.
When the Greek translators of the Old Testament rendered satan, they chose diabolos, a slanderer or false accuser, and English carries that word as devil. Gregory the Great wrote that the word angel names an office, and William Kent applies his rule to the word devil in the Catholic Encyclopedia of 1908.
And the great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.Four of his names stand together in this one sentence, and Revelation 20:2 repeats them when he is bound.
Whether the satan of Job and Zechariah is the devil of the New Testament is a question of its own, and the page Satan sets out both readings.
The Roll of the Enemy
The titles run from the serpent of Genesis 3 to the accuser of Revelation 12.
A table of thirteen titles of the enemy in the order of the first verse each row gives, with the Hebrew or Greek word behind each title, the work it names and its verses.
| Title | Original word | What it says he does | Verses |
|---|---|---|---|
| That ancient serpent | Hebrew nachash; Greek ophis | He deceives, as the serpent deceived the woman in Eden. | Genesis 3:1; Revelation 12:9 |
| Belial | Hebrew beliyyaal; Greek Belial | He stands for worthlessness and lawlessness, set against Christ. | Deuteronomy 13:13; 2 Corinthians 6:15 |
| Beelzebul | Hebrew Baal Zebub; Greek Beelzeboul | He is called the prince of demons, and Jesus answers with the name Satan. | 2 Kings 1:2; Matthew 12:24 |
| Satan, the adversary | Hebrew satan; Greek Satanas | He opposes God's people and accuses them before the LORD. | Job 1:6; Zechariah 3:1 |
| The tempter | Greek peirazo, to tempt | He tempts, as he tempted Jesus in the wilderness. | Matthew 4:3; 1 Thessalonians 3:5 |
| The evil one | Greek poneros, evil | He holds the world under his power, and disciples pray to be delivered from him. | Matthew 6:13; 1 John 5:19 |
| The devil | Greek diabolos | He slanders, murders and lies, and he prowls like a roaring lion. | John 8:44; 1 Peter 5:8 |
| The prince of this world | Greek archon, ruler | He rules this world until he is cast out. | John 12:31; John 14:30 |
| The god of this age | Greek aion, age | He blinds the minds of unbelievers to the gospel. | 2 Corinthians 4:4 |
| The ruler of the power of the air | Greek archon, ruler | He is at work in the sons of disobedience. | Ephesians 2:2 |
| Abaddon and Apollyon | Hebrew abaddon; Greek Apollyon | The angel of the Abyss bears these names, and readers differ over whether he is Satan. | Revelation 9:11 |
| The great dragon | Greek drakon | He makes war in heaven and is hurled down to the earth. | Revelation 12:7 to 9; Revelation 20:2 |
| The accuser of our brothers | Greek kategoros, accuser | He accuses God's people day and night before God. | Revelation 12:10 |
The devil, The prince of this world, The god of this age, The ruler of the power of the air, Abaddon and Apollyon, The great dragon, The accuser of our brothers
The Names Surveyed
Jesus, Paul and John name his rule, his disguise and his fall.
Now judgment is upon this world; now the prince of this world will be cast out.Jesus says this in the week of His death, and John 12:33 ties His words to the kind of death He would die.
Paul also warns that the enemy can come under a bright appearance.
And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.Paul is warning a church about false apostles, and he explains their disguise by their master's.
Revelation gives the last title of the roll, the accuser.
And I heard a loud voice in heaven saying: “Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of His Christ. For the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down—he who accuses them day and night before our God.This is the one verse that names him the accuser.
A murderer and the father of liesJohn 8:44 and Irenaeus
You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out his desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, refusing to uphold the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, because he is a liar and the father of lies.Jesus says this to men who claimed Abraham as their father, and He names another.
“He had indeed been already accustomed to lie against God, for the purpose of leading men astray.”
Irenaeus · Against Heresies Book V · on John 8:44Patristic
The god of this age and the ruler of the air2 Corinthians 4:4, Ephesians 2:2, Wesley and Irenaeus
The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers so they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.Paul is explaining why his gospel is veiled to some hearers, and he lays the cause on this title.
in which you used to walk when you conformed to the ways of this world and of the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit who is now at work in the sons of disobedience.Paul is describing the readers' life before Christ, so this ruler belongs to a past they have left.
“The evil spirits are united under one head, the seat of whose dominion is in the air. Here he sometimes raises storms, sometimes makes visionary representations, and is continually roving to and fro.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament · on Ephesians 2:2Evangelical
“Just as if any one, being an apostate, and seizing in a hostile manner another man's territory, should harass the inhabitants of it, in order that he might claim for himself the glory of a king among those ignorant of his apostasy and robbery; so likewise also the devil, being one among those angels who are placed over the spirit of the air, as the Apostle Paul has declared in his Epistle to the Ephesians, becoming envious of man, was rendered an apostate from the divine law: for envy is a thing foreign to God.”
Irenaeus · Against Heresies Book V · on Ephesians 2:2Patristic
The Lucifer Question
The name comes from one verse of Isaiah, and the church reads that verse in two ways.
The word in Isaiah 14:12 is helel ben shachar, shining one, son of the dawn. Jerome's Latin Vulgate rendered it lucifer, light bearer, and the Latin word slowly became an English proper name.
The Catholic Encyclopedia of 1910 records that the Fathers took Lucifer to name the state from which the devil fell.
We also have the word of the prophets as confirmed beyond doubt. And you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.The Latin Bible gives Peter's morning star, which is Christ, the same word lucifer that it gives Isaiah 14:12.
The full case for each reading stands on the page The Origin of Evil.
The near readingIsaiah 14:4, Wesley and Easton
Isaiah 14:4 names the king of Babylon as the song's target, and the New Testament never quotes the chapter of Satan. John Wesley's Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765) read lucifer here as a figure for that king, and M. G. Easton's Bible Dictionary (1897) calls it a title given to the king of Babylon to denote his glory.
The double referenceOrigen, Tertullian, Jerome and Missler
This reading sees the fall of Satan behind the king. Origen holds it in On First Principles 1.5.5, Tertullian reads Ezekiel 28 the same way in Against Marcion 2.10, and Jerome made Lucifer the name of the chief fallen angel in his commentary on Isaiah. It is read with Luke 10:18 and Revelation 12:7 to 9. Chuck Missler taught it in his expositional commentary on Isaiah, which heads Isaiah 14:12 to 17 Lucifer's pride and rebellion. Read as a pattern of the proud fall, this reading is strongest beside Luke 10:18 and weakest where Lucifer is treated as a proper name.
Beelzebul and Belial
Two of his titles began as the name of a Philistine god and as a Hebrew word for worthlessness.
John Francis Fenlon, in the Catholic Encyclopedia's article Beelzebub (1907), gives the common reading of Baal-zebub, the lord of the flies, and notes that the god is known only by his oracle.
Now Ahaziah had fallen through the lattice of his upper room in Samaria and injured himself. So he sent messengers and instructed them: “Go inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron, whether I will recover from this injury.”This is the one chapter of the Old Testament that names this god, and an Israelite king turns to him in sickness.
In the Gospels the name is Beelzebul. Fenlon reports Thomas Cheyne's proposal that the Gospel form keeps an older name, Baal Zebul, the lord of the high house, and he answers that the text of Kings favours zebub.
But when the Pharisees heard this, they said, “Only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, does this man drive out demons.”Jesus answers two verses later by speaking of Satan driving out Satan, so the Gospel treats Beelzebul as his name.
Belial travels the other way. In the Hebrew Bible beliyyaal is a common noun for worthlessness, and in the New Testament it stands once, in 2 Corinthians 6:15, where Easton's Bible Dictionary takes it as a name of Satan.
What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever?Paul sets the name opposite Christ in a list of things that cannot be joined.
Remigius on the name BeelzebubAquinas's Catena Aurea on Matthew 12:24
“Beelzebub is the same as Beel or Baal, or Beelphegor. Beel was father of Ninus king of Assyria; Baal was so called because he was worshipped on high; he was called Beelphegor from the mountain Phegor; Zebub was the servant of Abimelech the son of Gedeon, who, having slain his seventy brothers, built a temple to Baal, and set him up as Priest therein, to drive away the flies which were collected there by the abundant blood of the victims; for Zebub means, a fly.”
Remigius of Rheims · Catena Aurea by Aquinas · on Matthew 12:24Patristic
Belial in the Old TestamentDeuteronomy 13:13 and the sons of Belial
Easton's Bible Dictionary takes the men of beliyyaal in Judges 19:22 and 1 Samuel 2:12 as worthless and lawless men, and the Berean text renders them wicked men.
that wicked men have arisen from among you and have led the people of their city astray, saying, “Let us go and serve other gods” (which you have not known),This is the first verse in which the Hebrew word stands, and it describes men who turn a town to idols.
What the Names Leave Unsaid
Scripture records no name from before his fall and leaves the identity of the angel of the Abyss open.
A name before his fallIsaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28
Origen read Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28 for his state before the fall, and no verse gives that state a name.
Is the angel of the Abyss Satan?Revelation 9:11
Revelation 9 gives the angel a name and makes him king over the locusts, and it says no more of who he is. Easton's Bible Dictionary reads the name as a personification of destruction or of the place of the dead, and the Catholic Encyclopedia reads him as the angel-prince of hell.
They were ruled by a king, the angel of the Abyss. His name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek it is Apollyon.John gives the name in two languages, and both words name destruction.
The Rest of the Roll
The tempter, the evil one and the adversary like a lion each come with a scene, a prayer or a warning.
Paul names him the tempter in 1 Thessalonians 3:5, and the title first stands in Matthew's account of the wilderness.
The tempter came to Him and said, “If You are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”The tempter's first words to Jesus put His sonship in question, as the serpent's first words in Eden questioned what God had said.
John writes that the whole world is under the power of the evil one (1 John 5:19), and he writes it to readers who know that they are of God.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’The title stands in the prayer Jesus gave His disciples, so they would name the enemy each time they prayed it.
Peter draws his picture of the enemy from an animal of the wild, and he sets it in a letter to churches that were suffering for their faith.
Be sober-minded and alert. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.Peter gives the picture as the reason for his call to watchfulness, and in the next verse he tells his readers to resist.
Read together, these titles are the nearest thing Scripture gives to a full account of the enemy. Easton's Bible Dictionary sums them up in the words of an older writer as the constant enemy of God, of Christ, of the divine kingdom, of the followers of Christ, and of all truth.
Books to Read Next
Four works on the enemy and his titles, each free to read online.
Easton's Bible Dictionary
M. G. Easton · 1897
The entries Satan, Devil, Beelzebub, Belial and Abaddon give the word behind each title with its verses.
Read at CCELThe Catholic Encyclopedia, Devil
William Kent · 1908
Kent gathers the scattered texts on the devil from Genesis to Revelation and reads them with the Fathers.
Read at New AdventAgainst Heresies, Book 5
Irenaeus of Lyons · c. 180
Chapter 24 answers the devil's claim that the kingdoms of the world are his to give, and says that God appoints them.
Read at New AdventOn First Principles, Book 1
Origen · c. 220
Chapter 5 reads the prince of Tyre and the fallen day star of Isaiah 14 as opposing powers that fell from a holy state.
Read at New AdventNamed and Overcome
The New Testament says the Son of God came to destroy the devil's works, and it asks the reader to resist him.
The one who practices sin is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the very start. This is why the Son of God was revealed, to destroy the works of the devil.This verse states the purpose of the incarnation in terms of the enemy, and it answers every title he bears.
They have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony. And they did not love their lives so as to shy away from death.This verse answers the accuser's charge with the death of Christ and the confession of the saints.
Paul writes that believers are not unaware of Satan's schemes (2 Corinthians 2:11), and James tells them how to meet the one who devises them.
Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.The order matters in James, since the one who resists the enemy has first come under God.
Sources
Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible.
- M. G. Easton, Easton's Bible Dictionary (1897)
- William Kent, Devil, The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 4 (1908)
- Beelzebub, The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 2 (1907)
- Belial, The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 2 (1907)
- Abaddon, The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 1 (1907)
- Lucifer, The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 9 (1910)
- Origen, On First Principles (c. 220), translated by Frederick Crombie.
- Tertullian, Against Marcion (c. 207), translated by Peter Holmes.
- Irenaeus, Against Heresies (c. 180)
- John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)
- John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755)
- Remigius of Rheims, in Thomas Aquinas, Catena Aurea on Matthew.
- Chuck Missler, Isaiah: An Expositional Commentary (Koinonia House)
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