I'm writing a paper on Ezekiel 28 this week for one of my seminary courses. The question is: Who is Ezek 28 talking about?

The chapter directly addresses the "king of Tyre," and says he is a "man" (Hebrew adam, a word most people know). Yet some of the ways in which it describes this "man" suggest he may be more than a man. He was in Eden (v. 13), he was a cherub (14), and he is said to have been "created" (Hebrew bara, vv. 13, 15) where we would expect "born". Consequently, many interpreters of the Bible believe that the "king of Tyre" is really a reference to Satan. So I've been examining the evidence for whether Ezek 28 is really talking about Satan or the literal king of Tyre.

My study got me wondering: What do we actually know about Satan? What does the Bible really tell us about who he/it is and where he/it came from?

I start by looking at Old Testament (OT) references to "Satan." In Hebrew this is the word שטן (satan). Now it's important to know that this is not a proper name like "Samuel" or "Billy." Satan is just an ordinary noun that means "adversary." So for instance in 2 Samuel 19:22, David says to the sons of Zeruiah, "Why should you be an adversary (satan) to me." There's no spiritual idea here—David's just complaining that these men are hassling him. Likewise in 1 Kings 5:4 Solomon describes the peace his kingdom is experiencing by saying, "YHWH my God has given me rest on every side; there is neither adversary (satan) nor misfortune." Life is good. Nobody is fighting against him.

Indeed, if you look through the twenty-three verses in the OT where the word satan appears, only a handful even have a chance of talking about the being that Christians refer to as Satan. 1 Chronicles 21:1 says that "A satan stood up against Israel and moved David to number Israel." Note that satan here is indefinite: it's a satan not The Satan. Nonetheless translators often see this as a reference to The Satan and put it into English as, "Satan stood up against Israel and moved David..."

If this is a reference to Satan, it's the first time the Old Testament names him as Satan and the only place in the historical books where he is identified by name. Doesn't that strike you as rather unlikely? Usually the Bible introduces characters and concepts first before using them in an offhand way later, but Satan hasn't been introduced—not by name—up until this point.

Moreover, in the parallel account to 1 Chronicles 21:1 which appears at 2 Samuel 24:1, there is no mention of Satan. Rather, God himself "incited" David to number Israel. It doesn't say how God incited David to do this. There has been a lot of handwringing over this apparent contradiction between 1 Chron 21:1 and 2 Sam 24:1. Did God incite David to number Israel or did Satan? Or did God use Satan to incite David?

Yet there's a rather simple solution to this conundrum staring us in the face. Remember that the word satan in 1 Chron 21:1 was indefinite: a satan. Well up until this point in the Bible, everywhere that a satan is used the translation is always "an adversary"—usually a military opponent. And that makes perfect sense here. A military adversary came up against David and this motivated him to number Israel—that is, to count his troops. 2 Sam 24:1 reveals that it was God who ordained the arrival of this adversary, and this is a common theme in the Old Testament. So the NET Bible, following this same reasoning, translates 1 Chron 21:1 as "An adversary opposed Israel, inciting David to count how many warriors Israel had." It seems pretty clear to me that this is what the verse means.

If you take out all the references to the word satan in the Old Testament that clearly don't refer to the Devil, you're left with just two passages: Job 1–2 and Zechariah 3:1–2.

Now in Job we have a very clear description of a spiritual being—one who accompanies the "sons of God" as they report before YHWH—who is refered to as the satan. Here we have the definite article, and that makes all the difference. This is The Adversary. Not just any old adversary that a person might encounter in life, but the adversary par excellence. We learn a fair bit about him from these chapters. In this story he has been spending his time "walking back and forth across the earth." We hear his words to God, and they are clearly adversarial. He undermines God's admiration of Job. He proposes to harm Job. He doubts the sincerity of Job's faith. He seems to be against everything. He leaves the impression of a sulky rebel disgusted by God's little picnic of mutual love. But he doesn't just talk—he has power. He brings the Sabeans and Chaldeans to raid Job's household, sends fire down from the sky, brings a blast of wind that flattens a house, and later makes Job terribly sick.

So Job is the first clear reference in Scripture to who Satan is and it gives us some hints about his character and abilities.

In Zechariah 3:1–2 we have another pretty clear but far more cryptic reference to Satan. Here again the word is definite: The Adversary. We see him acting in a courtroom scene as a sort of prosecutor toward Joshua the high priest, and YHWH comes to Joshua's defense. But The Adversary doesn't say or do anything, and we don't learn much about him. Yet this scene reinforces the image we had from Job: The Adversary appearing in the court of God arguing against a human whom God honors and defends.

That's it. Those two passages are the only clear references we have to the Devil as the satan in the OT. That's not a lot to go on.

Here's the first point I want to make. Satan is a title, not a name. You don't go up to the Devil and say, "Hey, Satan, old buddy..." Satan is not his name—not in the OT, at least. You might go up to him and say, "Hey, aren't you the Adversary? I mean like The Adversary." Now he'll know what you're talking about. The word satan is a perfectly ordinary Hebrew word. It usually just means an "adversary." It only means The Adversary in a couple of places. And it never means the proper name Satan. So don't go calling him Mr. Satan when you meet him.

There are several other places in the OT where Christians think they catch glimpses of him, just not under the title satan. In Gen 3 "The Serpent" tempts Eve. Most Christians think this is more than just a talking snake, and I won't disagree.

In Isaiah 14:12–17, the prophet speaks to the king of Babylon, but as in Ezekiel 28, the language sounds a little lofty for a mere human king. "How you have fallen from heaven, O morning star, son of the dawn." Many scholars believe this may be a veiled reference to The Adversary. Yet as I read over the passage, I don't see anything to make me think it's speaking of a supernatural being. The passage explicitly addresses the king of Babylon (v. 3), it calls him a "man" (v. 16, Hebrew ish this time) and says he will be buried in a tomb only to be cast out of it (18–20). It looks to me as if the lofty language in vv. 12–14 simply reflects the king's own self-deifying thoughts. It's the king of Babylon who calls himself "The Star of the Morning" and who fantasizes about setting his throne "above the stars of God." This sort of kingly deification (not to mention hubris) is commonplace in ancient cultures. So I think Isa 14 is just talking about the king of Babylon, not The Adversary.

The same reasoning makes me think Ezekiel 28 is also talking about who it says it's talking about: the human king of Tyre. This self-important king thinks of himself as equal with God, as a divine being who lives on Mount Olympus, and the passage reflects his own fantasies. Note that many of the references that make us think this passage refers to a supernatural being—that he lived in Eden, for instance—are also applied to other kings in Ezekiel (see 31:2–9, 16, 18), yet we don't think these other passages sneakily refer to The Adversary. I see no reason to find him here.

So what do we know about Satan from the Old Testament? Not a lot, it seems to me. We have clear references in Job and Zechariah and a pretty clear reference in Gen 3 ("The Serpent"). That's it. The other possible references are profoundly cryptic at best, and I'm highly skeptical they refer to The Adversary at all. Indeed, perhaps it's the lack of information about The Adversary in the OT that makes us want so badly to find him where he isn't.

Now the New Testament sheds a great deal more light on this shadowy character. But I haven't gotten there yet. In the meantime, my study of the Old Testament references to "Satan" lead me to be more cautious about what I think I know about him.

For instance, the name "Lucifer" comes from a Latinized version of Isa 14. But it's highly questionable that Isa 14 is talking about The Adversary, so he was probably never called "Lucifer" until Bible interpreters made this mistake. The Christian belief that Satan was created as a cherub comes from Ezek 28, but I don't think that passage is talking about him either. Even our name for Satan isn't really a name in the OT but simply a description or title.

So what do we know about Satan—what he is or when he was made or even what his name is? As far as the OT is concerned, not much.

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