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SATAN

(Heb. śāṭān)

Lit., an adversary or plotter, one who devises means for opposing another. In the OT the term (usually accompanied by the article) is applied to both human and heavenly figures who have been assigned the role of blocking the way of the wrongdoer and to act as an agent of divine judgment (e.g., Num. 22:22, 32; 1 Kgs. 11:14, 23; Ps. 109:6; 1 Chr. 21:1; Job 1–2; Zech. 3:1, 2; cf. 1 Sam. 29:4, where it denotes a potential saboteur in the ranks). The sense here is clearly not a being or personality but a function or status which a being takes up temporarily.

In the prologue of Job and Zech. 3 “the” śāṭān is identified specifically as one of “the sons of Elohim,” a full-fledged member of the heavenly court, upon whom lies the task of indicting and prosecuting sinners before the bar of divine justice. Toward that end he takes up the mantle not only of the oriental spy, the intelligence gathering “eyes and ears of the king,” who wanders to and fro on the earth observing humans and reports back to court on the state of their loyalty to their suzerain; but also the agent provocateur who coaxes people into committing crimes for which they can then be punished. In 1 Chr. 21:1 he who acts as “a” śāṭān is also a heavenly being who may very well be God himself.

In intertestamental, NT, and contemporary Jewish (esp. apocalyptic) literature, the term is used as a proper name to denote a supramundane being who stands in complete opposition to God and is dedicated to frustrating his work. He is known also by such epithets as Azazel (1 En. 13:1), Mastema (1QM 13:4, 11; Jub. 10:8), Beelzebul (Mark 3:22; Matt. 10:25; 12:24), Sammael (Mart. Isa. 1:8, 11; 2:1), Belial/Beliar (2 Cor. 6:15; 1QS 1:18; 1QM 13:12; Mart. Isa. 2:4), “the devil” (Matt. 4:1; 25:41; Luke 4:2; 8:12; John 13:2; Acts 10:38; T. Job 3:3; cf. Wis. 2:24), “the evil one” (Matt. 13:19; John 17:15; 1 John 5:18, 19; cf. Matt. 6:13; 2 Thess. 3:3), “the ruler of the demons” (Mark 3:22 par.), “the enemy” (Matt. 13:25, 28, 39; Luke 10:19), and “the ruler of this world” (John 12:31; 14:30). Often regarded — along with “minioned” demons (called “satans” in 1 En. 64:4) and other evil spirits — as the cause of suffering, disease, frenzy, pestilence, and even national calamity, this figure was regarded primarily as one who “tests” the pious or the elect (never the “wicked” who are already in his grasp) by placing them in a forced position where the nature and extent of their dedication to God will be revealed — thus his designation in Matt. 4:3; 1 Thess. 3:5 as “the tempter.” His ultimate aim is to disrupt or destroy their faithfulness to, and trust in, God, and thereby induce in them the seeds, if not the flowering, of disobedience to convenantal obligations. According to classic descriptions of Satan “at work” (e.g., Matt. 4:1-11 par., Jesus’ wilderness temptation), Satan most frequently employs a tactic consonant with his character as both “a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44) and one who nevertheless often disguises himself as “an angel of light” (2 Cor. 11:14), namely, to use cunning arguments, often grounded in Scripture itself, to persuade those whom he “tests” to “see” and accept that what God has commanded them to do (or put their trust in) cannot possibly be “of God.” But afflictions, persecutions, and various other “trials” are also part of the arsenal used in the attempt to turn the pious from whatever task God has laid upon them (cf. 1 Pet. 5:8).

This same Satan seems also to have always been known as one who acts only within and under God’s permissive will (note the coordination of divine and satanic purposes in Matt. 4:1) and even in his wickedness functions still as a divine servant, wittingly fostering in the world various aspects of God’s righteousness. In Luke 22:31-34, e.g., Satan is described by Jesus as sifting out for God the impurities in the disciples’ commitment. In 1 Cor. 5:1-5; 1 Tim. 1:20 Satan is one who can aid the sinner and the blasphemer respectively in returning to the fold. According to CD 8:2 at the final judgment, when the wicked are punished and the righteous rewarded, it is Satan who shall “visit” all apostates with destruction (cf. Matt. 25:41). As Rev. 12:7-12 notes, until he was relieved of office by the atoning work of Christ which nullifies all charges against God’s elect, Satan was still God’s Satan who executed his appointed role as Great Accuser from heaven.

Nevertheless, except within Pharisaic Judaism (where Satan is strictly a servant of God), the emphasis upon Satan as primarily “the evil one” hostile to God and his people tends to predominate. Accounting for this are (1) identification of Satan in the intertestamental period with the serpent of Eden (2 En. 31:3; Life of Adam and Eve 15-16; cf. Wis. 2:24; cf. also Rev. 20:2) and with the chaos dragon of the creation myth; (2) the subjection of Jews, during Persian rule, to the machinations of overzealous surveillants and prosecutors who used entrapment to gain convictions and were satisfied only with a capital sentence (cf. Eccl. 10:20); and (3) the flowering within Jewish thought (due to contact with Persian Zoroastrianism?) of moral and ontological dualism, coupled with a growing dissatisfaction with traditional or orthodox explanations of the origin and persistence of evil which seemed no longer adequate to account for the sheer, massive amount of apparently undeserved, noneducative, and nonredemptive sufferings with which the faithful among postexilic Israel were continually confronted.

All sources agree, however, that at some point Satan’s activities will be halted, and Satan himself permanently restrained from pursuing any of his ends. Still, the depiction of the manner and means by which this will be brought about, as well as the degree to which Satan will resist his own curtailment and demise, varies considerably, even within a corpus emanating from an otherwise like-minded group, and seems to depend on how independent or hostile to the purposes of God Satan was thought to be. One such depiction deserves note, namely, that of Revelation. Here, within a work in which Satan’s opposition to God and his people is as implacable as it is furious, where Satan is said to strive mightily against his “casting out,” and where he is ultimately consigned for his wickedness to an eternal punishment, Satan is envisioned nonetheless as having to endure his torture not in the underworld (cf. Matt. 25:41; 1 En. 54:6), but in the throne room of the Ancient of Days. Satan is subdued by being lifted up to God.

Bibliography. P. L. Day, An Adversary in Heaven: śāṭān in the Hebrew Bible. HSM 43 (Atlanta, 1988); J. B. Gibson, The Temptations of Jesus in Early Christianity. JSNTSup 112 (Sheffield, 1995); L. Jung, Fallen Angels in Jewish, Christian, and Mohammedan Literature (1926, repr. New York, 1974); S. H. T. Page, Powers of Evil: A Biblical Study of Satan and Demons (Grand Rapids, 1995); E. Pagels, The Origin of Satan (New York, 1995); J. B. Russell, The Devil: Perceptions of Evil from Antiquity to Primitive Christianity (Ithaca, 1977); W. Wink, Unmasking the Powers (Philadelphia, 1986).

Jeffrey B. Gibson

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

SATAN

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)