Satan: Lifting the Veil - Part 5: Accuser

Table of Contents:
Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: Two Case Studies
Part 3: Serpent = Satan?
Part 4: What is Satan's Real Name?
Part 5: Accuser
Part 6: A Son of God?
Part 7: God's State Prosecutor
Part 8: God’s Sifter
Part 9: Azazel
Part 10: Desert Temptation
Part 11: What Does a Jewish Messiah Look Like?
Part 12: Bow Down to the Domination System
Part 13: Proclaiming Jubilee
Part 14: The Evil One
Part 15: The Angels of the Nations
Part 16: The Gerasene Demoniac
Part 17: Further Lessons on Exorcism in the Bible
Part 18: Driving Satan from Heaven
Part 19: The Unveiling of the Beast of Rome
Part 20: Unveiling the Beast Today
Part 21: Jesus and the Domination System
Part 22: Violence
Part 23: Death
Part 24: The Advocate
Part 25: Conclusions?

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Accuser
I started my exploration of the Old Testament appearances of our ideas of Satan by declaring that Satan is only mentioned three times in the Old Testament as a character.  But what you might find interesting is that there are a number of other cases where Satan appears in the Old Testament as a word. 

You see, “Satan” comes from the Hebrew word for “accuser”, “adversary”, “challenger”, “difficulty”, or “distraction”.  Most often when you find “Satan” in the Bible, it actually originally appeared as hasatan (or ha satan) - with the leading “ha” providing a definite article, rendering the translation as “the accuser”, or “the adversary”.  But “satan” is just a word, like any other word in their language.  And you will find it used as such.

For example, in Numbers 22, there is a story set during the nation of Israel’s conquest of the land of Israel. The king of Moab - Balak - knows Israel is coming, and he’s heard of their successful battles - so he is afraid.  So Balak sends for Balaam, who is a sort of prophet.  Balak wants Balaam to put a curse on Israel.  At first, he cannot convince Balaam to do so, but in verse 20, God tells Balaam to go ahead and go with them.  Strangely enough, without any indication of why, we see God acting a bit bipolar and becoming very angry with Balaam in verse 22 when he obeys God's own command.  And if you check one of the more literal translations of this verse - such as the YLT version - you’ll see that the verse mentions God sending a messenger (translated in some versions as “angel”) to stand in the way as an adversary.  The original language here is “satan”.  You will see a similar use of the word in verse 32 as well.  So an angel performing a task that was given to him by God is a “satan”.  

Clearly, this word is not meant to denote a being of pure evil here, but rather is meant to convey the performance of a functional role - the role of an obstacle, or adversary.

Another interesting example of the use of this word appears in a story about David - in I Samuel 27, David decided that in order to be safe from Saul’s anger towards him, it might be a good idea to hide out for a while in the land of the Philistines.  So he takes some of his men and they hide out in Gath under the care of a man named Achish (gesundheit).  In chapter 29, we find that David and his men are even serving in the Philistine army during this time!  But the Philistine army in this chapter is preparing to attack Israel, and the fact that David and his men are amongst the forces makes one of the commanders a little uncomfortable, and so he asks about “these Hebrews”.  Achish sings the praises of David and his men, but in verse 4 we find that this doesn’t satisfy the commander, who wants David and his men to be sent away.  And once again, if you check a more literal translation of the verse such as the YLT version, you’ll see the word adversary  (literally: ha satan) is used.  The commander is saying that if they bring David and his men along into a fight against David’s own people, David and his men will surely take on the role of an adversary - the role of a satan.  Once again, this word is not meant to indicate that David is a supernatural being of pure evil, but merely speaking about a role he might perform under the circumstances.

You can also find similar uses of this word in 2 Samuel 19:22, I Kings 5:4, I Kings 11:14, I Kings 11:23-25, and Psalm 109:6 - and in none of these places do we find that the word is meant to convey the sense that a supernatural being of pure evil is present.

So when did the common, everyday word “satan” become a name?  How did the character of Satan develop? 

Who Did This - God or Satan?
The first appearance of “ha Satan” (the Accuser) as a character comes quite late in the game for the Old Testament.  Prior to this appearance, the early Jewish faith had no place for him.  There was no God but Yahweh, and thus whatever happened - whether it be famine or plenty, sickness or health, war or peace - was ascribed directly to the mighty hand of Yahweh.  We see this mindset portrayed in Deuteronomy 32:39:

[T]here is no god besides Me;
It is I who put to death and give life.
I have wounded and it is I who heal,
And there is no one who can deliver from My hand.

So with the knowledge that the Israelites gave credit for everything to Yahweh, it should come as no surprise that He would send Moses out with a holy mission in Exodus 4:21-23, and then turn right around and try to murder him in verse 24!  Yes, did you catch that?  Moses did nothing - absolutely nothing at all - between verses 23 and 24, and yet once again, God appears to be bipolar and fickle!  What really happened here?  

This is the story of the first circumcision - which would later become a ritualistic sign of Jewishness for the males of the tribe.  So we might wonder if perhaps Moses had developed an infection, and not knowing the science behind such things concluded that God had changed His mind and become angry with him...for...some strange reason.

This sort of thinking obviously caused problems for the early Jewish theologians.  After all, Yahweh was supposed to be a God of justice (see Genesis 18:25)!  How could these early Jewish theologians claim that their God was just, and then turn around and claim that He was the cause of everything that happened - good or evil?

And so, gradually, the Jews began to talk about the supernatural in more dualistic terminology - there were angels and there were demons; God and Satan.  But the introduction of this terminology happened so late in the game that there are only three references to the character of Satan.

The first is a very interesting case indeed - and we can see how Jewish theologians at the time were not unanimous in this new form of thinking.  In 2 Samuel 24:1, it says that God’s anger kindled against Israel, and He incited David to take a census of the people.  This is some very descriptive language, and the casual reader might wonder: what’s the big deal with taking a census?  Indeed, if you continue reading this passage, you’ll find that David feels extremely guilty about the census in verse 10, and then what proceeds is an account of God prescribing a pestilence as a sort of penance.  So what’s so bad about a census?

The answer to this might be in Numbers 1:2-3:

Take a census of the whole congregation of Israelites, in their clans, by ancestral houses, according to the number of names, every male individually; from twenty years old and upward, everyone in Israel able to go to war.

So one purpose of a census is to find out how big of an army you have - in preparation for war.  The census in 2 Samuel 24:1 might indicate that David is contemplating his nation’s military strength - perhaps David was considering widening Israel’s borders by invading the neighboring nations.  Or perhaps David simply wished to have peace of mind - but felt he needed to find it through military strength rather than through trust in God. 

Another passage - Exodus 30:11-16 - shows that the census was used as a method for taxation.  So perhaps this census presented a harsh economic burden upon Israel.

Whatever the case, the writer of 2 Samuel struggled to explain the situation.  And what makes the story even more interesting is that another Biblical writer who told the same story came up with a much different explanation for what happened.

In 1 Chronicles 21:1, the same story is being told, but this time it is not God who incited David, but Satan.  Interestingly enough, this passage does not have the preceding “ha”, but merely uses the word “satan” - as if it were a name for a character.  This is the very first appearance in the Bible of this character - and it should be interesting to note that the writers of 1 Chronicles and 2 Samuel were not in agreement of the particulars of the story.

Actually, if you do a careful comparison of the way the Chronicler, the writer of 1 and 2nd Samuel, and the writer of 1 and 2nd Kings tell the stories they share in common, you will find a number of differences.  In particular are the theological differences between the Chronicler and the writer of 1 and 2nd Samuel.  The Chronicler has a more rosy view of David and skips the story of Bathsheba altogether, and in general seems to have a much less wrathful version of God.  In contrast, 1 and 2nd Samuel are speculated to have been written by a member of king David’s court, as there is plenty of juicy gossip to be found, with many intimate and gritty details that do not appear within the Chronicles.

Keeping this in mind, we can see that the writer of the Chronicles deals with the problem of explaining the same story that 2 Samuel tells by displacing God’s wrath upon a divine scapegoat - Satan.  Satan plays the role of chief executor of God’s wrath - doing the things that God Himself is not comfortable with doing.  Satan thus becomes a convenient theological tool - an explanation for everything that is hard to explain.

But, interestingly enough, the other two appearances of Satan in the Old Testament are quite a bit more nuanced.

In the next section, we will examine the appearance of Satan among the sons of God.

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Table of Contents:
Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: Two Case Studies
Part 3: Serpent = Satan?
Part 4: What is Satan's Real Name?
Part 5: Accuser
Part 6: A Son of God?
Part 7: God's State Prosecutor
Part 8: God’s Sifter
Part 9: Azazel
Part 10: Desert Temptation
Part 11: What Does a Jewish Messiah Look Like?
Part 12: Bow Down to the Domination System
Part 13: Proclaiming Jubilee
Part 14: The Evil One
Part 15: The Angels of the Nations
Part 16: The Gerasene Demoniac
Part 17: Further Lessons on Exorcism in the Bible
Part 18: Driving Satan from Heaven
Part 19: The Unveiling of the Beast of Rome
Part 20: Unveiling the Beast Today
Part 21: Jesus and the Domination System
Part 22: Violence
Part 23: Death
Part 24: The Advocate
Part 25: Conclusions?