Job 1:6 to 12 · Doctrine · Featured Study
Satan Across the Testaments
Scripture shows the adversary first as an officer of the heavenly court and later by his proper name, from Job's courtroom to Revelation's dragon.
On the mountain Jesus sent the tempter away by name: “Away from Me, Satan!”
- First taught
- Job 1:6 “…themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came…”
- Fullest statement
- Revelation 12:9 to 10 “…serpent called the devil and Satan, the deceiver…”
Ary Scheffer, The Temptation of Christ, 1854. Public domain.
Summary
The Bible discloses Satan in stages, and each stage adds a feature to one portrait.
- In the Old Testament the Hebrew word satan names human enemies as well as the accuser of Job and Zechariah.
- The Chronicler names Satan where the older account in 2 Samuel names the anger of the LORD.
- Readers differ on whether the idea of Satan grew across the canon or one person was disclosed by degrees.
- Revelation 12:9 names the ancient serpent, the devil and Satan as one being.
The Accuser Before the Name
Three scenes of the Old Testament set the accuser in the court of heaven.
The Old Testament introduces the enemy by what he does. The Hebrew satan means an adversary or an accuser, and in Job and Zechariah it carries the definite article, ha-satan, the accuser, which reads as the title of an office in a court.
One day the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came with them. “Where have you come from?” said the LORD to Satan. “From roaming through the earth,” he replied, “and walking back and forth in it.”The accuser comes in with the sons of God and must answer the LORD's question, so he stands in the court as one summoned.
“Very well,” said the LORD to Satan. “Everything he has is in your hands, but you must not lay a hand on the man himself.” Then Satan went out from the presence of the LORD.The LORD sets the limit of what the accuser may touch, and he goes out only within it.
In Job 1:9 to 11 the accuser charges that Job's piety is bought by God's blessing.
Then the angel showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, with Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him. And the LORD said to Satan: “The LORD rebukes you, Satan! Indeed, the LORD, who has chosen Jerusalem, rebukes you! Is not this man a firebrand snatched from the fire?”Satan takes the accuser's place in a court, and the LORD overrules him for the sake of Jerusalem.
“Very well,” said the LORD to Satan. “He is in your hands, but you must spare his life.”The second limit spares Job's life, so the worst of the trial still stands under the LORD's word.
In all three scenes the adversary is a creature under the LORD's hand, summoned to the bench and overruled there, and the two powers are never set as equals.
The Greek word for the accuserThe Septuagint and the New Testament
The Septuagint translates satan with diabolos, a slanderer or false accuser, the word the New Testament uses as its ordinary name for the devil.
Christ the advocate against the accuserJamieson, Fausset and Brown on Job 1:6
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read the accuser of Job 1 as one who has the law of God on his side because of man's sin. Christ has fulfilled the law, they write, so He pleads as an advocate against the adversary, and God still uses the adversary's work to chasten.
Zechariah 3:1 to 2, Job 2:6
One Adversary, Unveiled by Degrees
Three stations stand in the Old Testament, one between the testaments and three in the New Testament.
A chain of seven stations from Job 1 to Revelation 20, each with its text and what that text adds to the portrait of the adversary.
- Text
- Job 1 to 2
- What the text adds
- He reports on his roaming through the earth
- Text
- Zechariah 3
- What the text adds
- The LORD silences the case against Joshua
- Text
- 1 Chronicles 21
- What the text adds
- Satan incites David to take a census
4Between the testaments
- Text
- 1 Enoch, Jubilees and the Septuagint
- What the text adds
- Writings outside the canon add new names and a fall from heaven
- Text
- Luke 10:18 and the Gospels
- What the text adds
- Jesus names Satan and sees him fall
- Text
- Revelation 12:9
- What the text adds
- The dragon and his angels are hurled to the earth
- Text
- Revelation 20:10
- What the text adds
- The devil is thrown into the lake of fire
Each Greek name for the adversary stands more often in the New Testament than the Hebrew noun satan stands in the Old Testament.
The four counts as a table
| Word | Uses in the Bible | What it means | Verse |
|---|---|---|---|
| satan (H7854), the noun | 27 | an opponent, and with the article the accuser of Job 1 | Job 1:6 |
| satan (H7853), the verb | 6 | to attack or accuse, as the adversary stands to accuse Joshua | Zechariah 3:1 |
| Satanas (G4567) | 36 | the accuser, the name Jesus uses when He sees him fall | Luke 10:18 |
| diabolos (G1228) | 37 | a slanderer, the devil who tempts Jesus in the wilderness | Matthew 4:1 |
Four words for the adversary, each counted across the Bible, with one verse where it stands.
The Hinge and the Naming
1 Chronicles 21:1 and 2 Samuel 24:1 tell of one census, and the New Testament calls the enemy by many names.
Then Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a census of Israel.Without the article, satan reads here as a proper name, the seam where an accusing office moves toward a name.
Again the anger of the LORD burned against Israel, and He stirred up David against them, saying, “Go and take a census of Israel and Judah.”Samuel's account of the census is the source the Chronicler worked from.
So He told them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.Jesus answers the report of the seventy-two on the demons with the fall of their master.
The names multiply across the New Testament, and every one of them names the same figure.
Six names of the enemy in the New TestamentMatthew 4:1 to Revelation 20:2
A table of six names the New Testament gives the enemy, each with the verse where it stands.
| Name | Text |
|---|---|
| The devil (diabolos) | Matthew 4:1 |
| The tempter | Matthew 4:3 |
| The prince of this world | John 12:31 |
| The god of this age | 2 Corinthians 4:4 |
| The accuser of our brothers | Revelation 12:10 |
| That ancient serpent | Revelation 20:2 |
Albert Barnes on the first namingNotes on the Old and New Testaments, on 1 Chronicles 21:1
Albert Barnes notes that in the order of the English Bible this verse is the first to introduce Satan by name. He finds Satan here as a tempter who works from within by suggesting sin, and he calls this the most advanced revelation of him in the Old Testament.
The Centuries Between the Testaments
Jewish writings after the exile filled out the portrait of the adversary before the Gospels named him.
The identification of Eden's serpent with the adversary, and a developed teaching on demons, grew sharper in writings outside Scripture. 1 Enoch belongs to these centuries, and Jubilees calls the adversary Mastema. Wisdom of Solomon 2:24 says that death entered the world through the devil's envy.
These books stand outside the canon, and they are read as witnesses to what Jews of the period believed.
Alfred Edersheim marks a considerable progression in the teaching on angels and devils from the latest books of the canon to the Apocrypha, and again from these to the Pseudepigrapha. He records that Rabbinic writing calls the enemy Satan or Sammael, and that of the New Testament's names for him only Satan occurs there.
The same centuries sharpened the question of the sons of God in Genesis 6, which the study of the Watchers and the Nephilim traces.
What the Text Leaves Unsaid
Scripture leaves three questions about the adversary open.
Scripture gives no account of when Satan was made or of the hour of his fall.
It gives no description of his form beyond the serpent of Genesis and the dragon of Revelation.
Genesis 3 calls the tempter a serpent and gives him no other name.
The Dragon Thrown Down
Revelation shows the accuser thrown down, and the cross has already disarmed him.
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.John names the serpent of Genesis 3 the devil and Satan, and so ties Genesis to Revelation.
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.The accuser who stood before God day and night loses his place in the court.
And having disarmed the powers and authorities, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.Paul places the defeat of the powers at the cross, before the end.
Now since the children have flesh and blood, He too shared in their humanity, so that by His death He might destroy him who holds the power of death, that is, the devil,Hebrews names the devil as the one Christ destroys by sharing our flesh and dying.
And the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur, into which the beast and the false prophet had already been thrown. There they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.The last station of the adversary is the lake of fire, where the deceiver is judged for ever.
Colossians 2:15, Hebrews 2:14, Revelation 20:10
How the Accuser Has Been Taught
Four commentators from the second century to the nineteenth on the accuser and his fall.
died 202 · Irenaeus
Against Heresies Book V
The quotation1 quotation, 1 paragraph
Irenaeus reads John 8:44 as the devil's old practice of lying against God.
“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
1662 to 1714 · Matthew Henry
Commentary on the Whole Bible
The quotation1 quotation, 1 paragraph
Henry sets out what the accuser's charge against Job put at stake.
“God declared Job the best man then living: now, if Satan can prove him a hypocrite, it will follow that God had not one faithful servant among men and that there was no such thing as true and sincere piety in the world, but religion was all a sham, and Satan was king de facto--in fact, over all mankind.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible · on Job 1:11Puritan
1703 to 1791 · John Wesley
Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament
The quotation1 quotation, 1 paragraph
Wesley reads Job under the hand of Satan as a type of Christ.
“Job, in being thus maligned of Satan, was a type of Christ. He had permission to bruise his heel, to touch his bone and his flesh; yea, and his life also; because by dying he was to do what Job could not do, to destroy him that had the power of death.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament · on Job 2:6Evangelical
1802 to 1910 · Jamieson, Fausset & Brown
Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
The quotation1 quotation, 1 paragraph
They read Luke 10:18 as Jesus lifting the eyes of the seventy-two from one victory to the whole kingdom of evil.
“When therefore the Seventy say, ‘the devils [demons] are subject to us,’ and Jesus replies, ‘Mine eye was beholding Satan falling,’ it is plain that He meant to raise their minds not only from the particular to the general, but from a very temporary form of satanic operation to the entire kingdom of evil.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible · on Luke 10:18Reformed
John Wesley, Jamieson, Fausset & Brown
Development or Unveiling
Readers differ on how the figure of Satan grows across the canon, on the serpent of Genesis 3, on Ezekiel 28 and on Isaiah 14.
A concept that took shape after the exileThe Jewish Encyclopedia, volume 11, article Satan · Jewish historical scholarship
On this reading the satan of Job and Zechariah is an office in the divine council, and Satan becomes a figure in his own right only after the exile. The case rests on the text, since the grammar does shift.
The Jewish Encyclopedia's article Satan calls the satan of Job the celestial prosecutor, who acts only by God's permission. It says that the Chronicler treats Satan as an independent agent where his source, 2 Samuel 24:1, names God Himself. It holds that the teaching on Satan grew with Jewish teaching on angels and demons, and that the Chronicler may have been influenced by Zoroastrianism.
The objection is Matthew Henry's: God is not the author of sin and tempts no one. When 2 Samuel says that He moved David, it means that for wise and holy ends He permitted the devil to do it.
One person disclosed by degreesJustin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 103; Matthew Henry on Job 1:6 · Historic Christian reading
Progressive revelation expects early disclosure to be partial, and on this reading the same personal adversary is present from Eden and is named more fully as the canon grows.
Justin Martyr wrote that Moses calls him the serpent, that Job and Zechariah call him the devil, and that Jesus addresses him as Satan. Matthew Henry read Job 1:6 the same way, and he compared the accuser in that assembly to the serpent in paradise.
R. T. Kendall, in Understanding Theology (2000), calls the law of first mention a time-honoured method, by which the way a word is first used in the Bible is the way it is largely understood thereafter. Read by that method, the enmity Genesis 3:15 sets between the serpent and the woman's offspring is the seed of the conflict, and the New Testament's naming builds on it.
The objection is the Jewish Encyclopedia's: in Numbers 22:32 the angel of the LORD comes out to oppose Balaam as a satan, an adversary. The word named a role before it named a distinct being.
The serpent of Genesis 3 is Satan's instrumentAugustine, The City of God 14.11 · Latin theology
Augustine wrote that the fallen angel chose the serpent as his mouthpiece in Paradise, because a creature slippery and moving in windings suited his purpose.
The objection is Rashi's: Genesis 3:1 calls the serpent more crafty than any beast of the field that the LORD God had made, which places it among the creatures.
The serpent of Genesis 3 is a creatureRashi on Genesis 3:1, after Genesis Rabbah 18:6 · Rabbinic commentary
Rashi, following Genesis Rabbah, reads the serpent as a creature that saw the man and the woman naked and unashamed and coveted her.
The objection rests on Revelation 20:2, which calls the dragon that ancient serpent.
Ezekiel 28 speaks of the devil in EdenAmbrose, On Paradise 2.9; Origen, On First Principles 1.8.3 · Early church
Ambrose read the prince of Tyre in Ezekiel 28 as the devil, since the prophet says he was in Eden, the garden of God. Origen read the same chapter of a being who fell away from good by his own choice.
The objection is Adam Clarke's: he reads Ezekiel 28:13 as irony, likening the king of Tyre to Adam in Eden.
Isaiah 14 speaks of the king of BabylonJohn Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, on Isaiah 14:12; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament, on Isaiah 14:12 · Protestant commentary
Wesley reads the day star of Isaiah 14:12 as a figure for the mighty king of Babylon. Gill reads the fall from heaven as that king's fall from his throne, with an allusion to the fall of Satan at most.
The objection is Matthew Henry's, who applies the cry of Isaiah 14:12 to Satan himself in his notes on Job 1:6.
Books to Read Next
Five works on the accuser, each free to read online.
Dialogue with Trypho, translated by Marcus Dods and George Reith
Justin Martyr · 1885
The translation was printed in volume 1 of the Ante-Nicene Fathers.
Read at New AdventThe City of God, translated by Marcus Dods
Augustine · 1887
Augustine traces the fall of the first man to pride in book 14.
Read at New AdventCommentary on the Whole Bible, volume 3
Matthew Henry · 1706 to 1710
Henry reads the accuser's work in Job 1 and 2 verse by verse.
Read at the Christian Classics Ethereal LibraryThe Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah
Alfred Edersheim · 1883
Appendix XIII sets out Jewish teaching on angels and on Satan in the time of Jesus.
Read at the Christian Classics Ethereal LibraryThe Jewish Encyclopedia, volume 11
Isidore Singer, managing editor · 1905
The article Satan, signed L. B., follows the adversary from Job and Zechariah to Wisdom and the Book of Jubilees.
Read at the Internet ArchiveThe Accuser Overcome
The enemy Scripture first shows as an accuser in the court of heaven is the enemy Christ has disarmed and will at last destroy.
Revelation says the brothers conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and James asks the reader to submit to God and resist the devil.
Sources
Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible.
- Strong's lexicon entries.
- The Hebrew text of Job 1:6, 1:7, 1:12, Zechariah 3:1 to 2 and 1 Chronicles 21:1, tagged word by word.
- Lancelot Charles Lee Brenton, The Septuagint Version of the Old Testament, with an English translation, London, Samuel Bagster and Sons, 1879.
- Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871, on Zechariah 3:1.
- Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871, on Job 1:6.
- Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, volume 3, on Job 1:6.
- Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, on 1 Chronicles 21:1.
- Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, chapter 103, translated by Marcus Dods and George Reith, Ante-Nicene Fathers, volume 1, 1885.
- Augustine, The City of God, book 14, chapter 11, translated by Marcus Dods, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, volume 2, 1887.
- Rashi on Genesis 3:1, Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A. M. Silbermann, 1929 to 1934, public domain.
- Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, 1883, Appendix XIII, Jewish Angelology and Demonology.
- The Jewish Encyclopedia, volume 11, article Satan, signed L. B.
- Ambrose of Milan, On Paradise 2.9, on Ezekiel 28:12 to 13.
- Origen, On First Principles 1.8.3, on Ezekiel 28:13.
- John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, 1765, on Isaiah 14:12.
- John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament, 1748 to 1763, on Isaiah 14:12.
- Tim Chaffey, Is the Law of First Mention a Legitimate Interpretive Principle?, Answers in Genesis, 19 October 2018, quoting R. T. Kendall, Understanding Theology, volume 2 (2000), page 178.
- Irenaeus, Against Heresies, book 5, on John 8:44.
- Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, on Job 1:11.
- John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, 1765, on Job 2:6.
- Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old and New Testaments, on 1 Chronicles 21:1.
- Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, on Ezekiel 28:13.
- Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871, on Luke 10:18.
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