Other Old Testament Books

The Old Testament as a whole makes up more than three-quarters of the Bible. Yet in all the Old Testament the devil is never mentioned by that name, not once.
Even the name "Satan" appears in only three or four places in the Old Testament. It seems from this as if Satan was not regarded as a very important part of Old Testament teaching. Let us try to discover who this "Satan" was, who played such a small part in the Old Testament story.

The name "Satan" was not just a meaningless label, like many of our names. It was a name with a meaning, like "Grace" or "Livingstone". The Old Testament was mostly written in Hebrew, and "satan" is a Hebrew word "meaning "accuser" or "enemy". (In many editions of the Bible it is translated "adversary", which is only an old-fashioned word for enemy.) When this word is used as a name, it generally has the Hebrew word for "the" in front of it. So the name means, "The Accuser", or "The Enemy".

The only places in the Hebrew Old Testament where we find this word Satan used in such a way that it might be intended as a name are these: Psalm 109:6; 1 Chronicles 21:1; Job, chapters 1 and 2; and Zechariah 3:1,2.

In the first of these passages most modern English Bibles do not use the name Satan, but translate it "an accuser". Scholars now think that the Hebrew writer did not intend us to take the word "satan" in this passage as a name. It is obvious that in this passage, at least, this "accuser" or "enemy" is an ordinary man.

Then there is 1 Chronicles 21:1, where most translations regard Satan as a name. But even so, some modern translations tell us that the word "Satan" can very well be translated here by the English phrase "the adversary" (enemy). The English Revised Version, for example, says this in a footnote. There is, in fact, a good reason for believing that in 1 Chronicles 21:1 the Hebrew name, Satan, "The Enemy", refers to an enemy army which scared David into counting his soldiers. Another account of the same event (2 Samuel 24:1) says that it was God who caused David to number his fighting men.

This does not mean that "The Enemy" was God Himself! In all the rest of the Bible when Satan is used as a name, that is to say, with the Hebrew or Greek word "the" in front of it—THE Enemy—it is never used of anything good. It always refers to that which is bad, such as the wickedness of human nature, or men opposing God or opposing God's people, and so it is most unlikely to refer to God in this passage.

Nevertheless, the Bible does not contradict itself. So we must try to explain how both "God" and "The Enemy" could have been the cause of David's action. This is not difficult if we look at what God said to Jerusalem in Isaiah 29:3: "I (God) will encamp against you round about, and will besiege you with towers, and I (God) will raise siegeworks against you."

Obviously God did not do these things Himself. It clearly means that God caused an enemy army to do it. Similarly, 1 Chronicles 21:1 and 2 Samuel 24:1 agree in telling us that a human enemy made David panic and do wrong, but that God was responsible for the presence of that enemy army.

But if you suppose that Satan is a great evil spirit you will find it impossible to explain the contradiction between 1 Chronicles 21:1 and 2 Samuel 24:1. Try doing it, and see for yourself that it can't be done unless you are prepared to argue that God directs the actions of that evil spirit, which is quite contrary to what most people believe about Satan.

Job and Zechariah
This leaves only two Old Testament passages where "Satan" is clearly intended as a name, and where it looks as if he might be some sort of supernatural being: Job 1 and 2, and Zechariah 3.

But this is not necessarily so. The Old Testament sometimes speaks of ordinary men as if they were supernatural beings, just for the sake of emphasis. Consider this passage, for instance:
"God has taken His place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods He holds judgment... I (God) say, 'You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you; nevertheless you shall die like men'." (Psalm 82:1,6,7). Who were these beings that God called "gods"? We do not need to guess the answer. The Lord Jesus Christ tells us. He quoted this passage, and explained that these "gods" were really only the human beings "to whom the word of God came" (John 10:34,35). In other words, they were Israelites, or, as we call them today, Jews. God called them "gods" to emphasise what highly privileged people they were.


Human Adversaries
In much the same way, it seems evident that the "Satan" in Job and Zechariah was not really a supernatural being. "Satan"—"The Enemy"—in these two books may have been one particularly bad man who was opposing God at the time. Or the name may have been used as a kind of symbol, to represent all the wicked human opposition to God and God's people. (There is an interesting parallel in Deuteronomy 32:15, where "Jeshurun" looks like the name of a man, but is actually a symbolic name, representing a whole community of people.)

A close look at the first two chapters of Job reveals that this is so. This particular Satan—Job's "Enemy"—had no supernatural power of his own. Satan had to borrow from God the power that he then used to make Job suffer (Job 1:11,12). Job himself said that his sufferings actually came to him from God— not from some wicked supernatural being (1:21; 2:10). And the book of Job ends by telling us that his brothers and sisters "comforted him for all the evil that the LORD had brought upon him" (42:11). Evidently this Satan was an evil man, or a group of evil men, full of envy towards Job, to whom God gave the ability to make Job suffer, so that they might learn how wrong they were.

That leaves Zechariah 3, which tells how the high priest Joshua was confronted by Satan. Fortunately this chapter is explained for us in the Book of Ezra, which gives us a plain historical account of Joshua's struggle with "Satan". Ezra 3 describes how Joshua led the people to start rebuilding the ruined temple of God. But Joshua was not left to do this in peace. Ezra 4:2-4 says that "the enemies of the people of Judah and Benjamin heard that those who had returned from exile were rebuilding the Temple", and they "tried to discourage and frighten the Jews and keep them from building" (Today's English Version). These enemies are represented in the parable-language of Zechariah 3 by Satan, "The Enemy".


Who was Lucifer?
Those who believe in the fallen-angel devil are very disappointed by the Old Testament. They realise that the Old Testament ought to say that Satan is a fallen angel, if this really is what God wants His people to believe. And, since it does not say any such thing, they have searched for something the Old Testament that they can use as a basis for their belief. They can only find two passages to use, of which this is the first:

"How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! ... Thou hast said in thine heart, 'I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God' ... Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell" (Isaiah 14:12-15, King James Version). Only someone desperate to uphold a shaky theory would try to apply this passage to the devil. It clearly has nothing to do with an angel. The very next verse goes on to say:
"They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, 'Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms?' " (verse 16). So Lucifer was not an angel, he was a man. The beginning of the chapter tells us just who he was:
"Thou shalt take up this proverb [or parable] against the King of Babylon, saying ..." (verse 4).

It is easy to see why this great man was called "Lucifer". Lucifer is the old name of Venus, which is the brightest star in the sky. In those days the kings of Babylon were the mightiest kings on earth. The prophet Daniel said to one mous king of Babylon, called Nebuchadnezzar:
"You, O king, have grown and become strong. Your greatness has grown, and reaches to heaven, and your dominion to the ends of the earth" (Daniel 4:22).

But the last of the mighty kings of Babylon, whose greatness "reached to heaven", was to be brought low. His downfall was to be a world-shaking event -something as spectacular as if Lucifer (Venus) had fallen out of the sky.

The King of Babylon
Isaiah 14 is clearly a poetical description of the fall of the King of Babylon. People who say, "It says the King of Babylon, but it means Satan", are guilty ' rewriting the Bible to suit themselves. It may seem strange to our modern minds that God should tell this ancient king he would be cast down from heaven to hell. But this sort of language is quite common in the Bible. For instance, these are the words of the Lord Jesus to the wicked city of Capernaum, in the land of Israel:
"And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shah be brought
down to hell" (Matthew 11:23, King James Version).

Capernaum was not really in heaven; this was just the Lord's way of describing her as a great and proud city. Similarly, her collapse into hell is just the Bible's vivid way of saying that Capernaum would become a very lowly place.

The Prince of Tyre
The only other Old Testament passage that people sometimes wrongly apply to the fall of Satan in Ezekiel 28. But here again we are told very plainly that the person concerned is a human king. The chapter begins: "The word of the LORD came to me: 'Son of man, say to the prince of Tyre' " and continues, "Son of man, raise a lamentation over the prince of Tyre" (verses 1,2 and 12).
Ezekiel goes on to call this King of Tyre a cherub who had been in Eden, and this leads some people to think that this king was Satan in disguise. But there is no reason to think this. Three chapters later, Ezekiel said that the King of Egypt and some other kings were also in the Garden of Eden, and they cannot all have been the devil in person! Obviously, this language is just Ezekiel's poetic way of saying that these kings were especially privileged, through living in that part of the world where God was at work amongst His people, Israel.

So we see that there is not a word in the Old Testament to prove that Satan is a fallen angel. (Nor is there in the New Testament, either. There are only two New Testament passages that speak of Satan falling from heaven, and even they do not say that Satan was once an angel. These passages are examined in an Appendix at the end of this booklet.) .