to take God’s word that Job is righteous. But he does ask God for permission and does exactly what God allows him to do.
In the next chapter there is a second discussion in heaven. Satan wants to make life more challenging for Job. Again he gets God’s permission, this time to hurt Job, as long as he does not kill him. The rest of the book of Job discusses Job’s pain and struggles and how, no matter what, Job stayed faithful to God.
Let’s draw some conclusions about Satan’s role. And don’t forget to put everything you know about Satan out of your head. My conclusion is that Satan tests Job and thus proves that Job truly believes. In other words, Satan vindicates Job.
That’s a different conclusion to what we might have expected. And, let’s be honest, maybe God is just using Satan to achieve a goal that Satan does not want at all. But, if we take this narrative as the introduction to the book of Job, we clearly see that it is Satan who provides the evidence that Job is—without any doubt—a good person.
A Very Different Satan
This role for Satan is rather different to what we are used to from the New Testament. It is also very different to what you often hear in church or from theologians. Nevertheless, if we read more of the Old Testament, we actually see a similar role for Satan in Zechariah. In Zechariah 3, as an introduction to a baffling vision about Joshua and the Messiah, we see this passage:
Then he showed me the high priest Joshua standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him. And the Lord said to Satan, “The Lord rebuke you, O Satan! The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is not this man a brand plucked from the fire?” (Zechariah 3:1–2)
I imagine this as a court scene. We have the defendant, Joshua, we have an angel of the Lord, and we have Satan. Satan is standing at God’s right hand to accuse the defendant. That seems very similar to what the public prosecutor does. Satan is not a tempter or the source of all evil. He’s there to show the Lord what mistakes Joshua has made.
This is quite similar to Job. In Zechariah, a man who is righteous is proven righteous in a court case. Satan, as the prosecutor, attempts to show that Joshua is evil, but in the end Joshua is vindicated.
Apparently, the image of Satan as an evil tempter has not stuck among the Bible authors. Satan is an accuser, not a tempter. This is not very strange, because Satan is actually just a Hebrew word. It means accuser. In a wonderful tautology, Zechariah 3:1 literally reads “Satan standing at his right hand as satan.” And, now that we have started with Hebrew, there is more to learn about Satan—or more precisely, satan.
In the narrative of Balaam we also run into Satan, just not in English. The story of Balaam is very entertaining to read; do that by all means. Start in Numbers 22; I will only discuss it very briefly. Balaam sets out to do something that God does not want him to do. Balaam knows that very well. He’s riding along on his donkey and fleeing from God’s will. That can never end well.
Suddenly the donkey starts acting up. It does not want to move forward. Balaam gets agitated and hits the donkey, to no avail. Eventually the donkey speaks and tells Balaam what is happening, and then Balaam realizes what is going on:
God’s anger was kindled because he was going, and the angel of the Lord took his stand in the road as his adversary. Now he was riding on the donkey, and his two servants were with him. (Numbers 22:22)
That is the English, but the Hebrew is very different. A literal translation could be “The angel of YHWH stood in the road as satan.” That’s right, Satan, the great figure of evil, in the same sentence as an angel of the Lord. That’s quite something. An angel playing the role of Satan, at the very least a strange occurrence. What, then, does it mean?
Progressive Understanding
As I wrote above, the Bible is full of progressive understanding. This is specially the case with Satan. As you read backwards from the New Testament, everything falls into place. But without the New Testament, you would have a completely different view of Satan. He is not portrayed as rebellious. At most he is the devil’s advocate, testing the righteousness of individuals on God’s behalf. He does not tempt people to sin, but does keep a close eye on everyone to see if they are sinning. Maybe from his point of view it would be a victory if someone were to sin, but his divine task is proving that people are righteous. He shows that a person will be faithful no matter what, just as he did with Job. The word “satan” itself is not even a bad word in some contexts. Even an angel can be a satan when doing God’s bidding.
Now, I’m itching to step off the path. I see so many interesting things just out of reach. So many things that we can discover. Don’t get me wrong—the Old Testament has already shown us many intriguing perspectives but, trust me, where we are going is even more intriguing. If you were paying attention, and if you have a good knowledge of the Old Testament, you know that I have skipped a passage. The final place that Satan appears is in Chronicles.
First and Second Chronicles are the newest books in the Old Testament. If what I have been saying about progressive understanding is correct, we should see some of that in this book. It should show us a glimpse of the further revelation of God in the Bible. And, don’t worry, it does.
New and Improved Version
Chronicles is basically a retelling of the books of Samuel and Kings. You could call it Samuel & Kings: The New and Improved Version. Maybe we could compare it to a new Bible translation. When you read it, it feels a bit strange. The wording is different and unfamiliar, but often it is a lot easier to understand. Chronicles is the same: different and unfamiliar to Samuel and Kings, but often easier to understand. Read what 2 Samuel says and how Chronicles relates it:
Again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, “Go, count the people of Israel and Judah.” (2 Samuel 24:1)
Satan stood up against Israel, and incited David to count the people of Israel. (1 Chronicles 21:1)
David is going to hold a census. It is not entirely clear to me why counting the Israelites is so bad. Maybe David was planning to use this information to boast about how many subjects he had, or maybe David didn’t stick to the rules from the Torah for holding censuses. Whatever the reason, it is clearly very bad. Joab advises David not to count, and when David is done he is very sorry that he did.
In Samuel, David counts his people because God is angry. I can understand that God gets angry sometimes, but that God then makes David do something that both he and God regret is harder to understand. Especially if you read the rest of the chapter and see the terrible consequences of this census. This is even more mystifying if we consider that God is portrayed so lovingly in the New Testament. I find it hard to imagine that God does this. Apparently, so did the editor and author of Chronicles. They must have read this narrative and known that there was something else going on. Of course, it wasn’t God who put David on this track of destruction, it had to be Satan. In their version, they fixed the theology.
Let us leave the Old Testament behind us now. In fact, let’s step off that path and go exploring. As we walk, the undergrowth is getting thicker, the going is getting tougher. What do we see?
Jubilees
In the third week of that jubilee the polluted demons began to lead astray the children of Noah’s sons and to lead them to folly and to destroy them. And the sons of Noah came to Noah, their father, and they told him about the demons who were leading astray and blinding and killing his grandchildren. And he prayed before the LORD his God and he said, “God of the spirits which are in all flesh, who has acted mercifully with me and saved me and my
