What It Means
Śāṭān means “adversary” or “accuser,” and the related verb means “to oppose” or “to accuse.” In most of the Old Testament the word is ordinary. A human enemy can be a śāṭān: the Philistine commanders worry that David will become one in battle (1 Samuel 29:4), and God raises up adversaries against Solomon (1 Kings 11:14, 23). Even the angel of the Lord stands in Balaam’s road “as an adversary” (Numbers 22:22). In Psalm 109:6 the setting is a courtroom: an accuser standing at a man’s right hand.
In Job 1-2 and Zechariah 3, the word carries the definite article: haśśāṭān, “the adversary.” The article turns a common noun into something close to a title. This is not an adversary. This is the Accuser.
Where You Meet It
He appears in the heavenly court when the sons of God present themselves before the Lord (Job 1:6; 2:1). His work there is accusation. He questions Job’s motives (1:9), predicts that Job will curse God (1:11; 2:5), and asks permission to prove it.
And he has to ask. The limits are set by the Lord, not by him:
All right then, everything he has is in your power. Only do not extend your hand against the man himself! (1:12)
After chapter 2 he disappears. He is not mentioned in the dialogues, in the whirlwind speeches, or in the epilogue. The accuser gets no last word. He gets no word at all. God speaks last.
Zechariah 3 shows the same figure at work. The high priest Joshua stands before the angel of the Lord in filthy garments, and the Accuser stands at his right hand to accuse him. The Lord rebukes the Accuser, strips off the filthy clothes, and says he has taken away Joshua’s iniquity (Zechariah 3:1-5). The accusation is not refuted. It is answered by forgiveness.
What Confessional Lutherans Hear
The Accuser’s most effective weapon is the truth. Joshua’s garments really were filthy. The charges brought against a sinner’s conscience are usually accurate. That is why the Lutheran Confessions say the law always accuses (Apology IV, 38). The devil does not need to lie about your sin. He only needs to use God’s law against you without God’s gospel.
So the answer to the Accuser is never “I am not that bad.” It is a better word. Paul asks who will bring a charge against God’s elect, and answers that God is the one who justifies and Christ is the one who intercedes (Romans 8:33-34). Revelation shows the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them day and night before God, thrown down, conquered by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony (Revelation 12:10-11).
The Gospels even replay the scene from Job. Jesus tells Peter that Satan has demanded to sift the disciples like wheat, and then adds: “but I have prayed for you” (Luke 22:31-32). The Accuser still asks. But now there is an Intercessor in the courtroom. See ἄφεσις.
Where People Get It Wrong
Two equal powers. Some read Job as a contest between God and Satan with Job as the rope in a tug-of-war. The text will not allow it. Satan acts only within limits the Lord sets, and Job himself confesses, “The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away” (1:21), even though the reader knows Satan was the instrument. The narrator immediately adds that in all this Job did not sin (1:22). Job’s confession was right.
Just a prosecutor. The opposite mistake comes from the academy: haśśāṭān in Job is merely a loyal member of the heavenly court with an unpleasant job, and has nothing to do with the devil. It is true that revelation unfolds over time, and honest readers should admit that Job does not use the fuller vocabulary of the New Testament. But the New Testament identifies the ancient serpent as the devil and Satan, and describes him doing exactly what he does in Job: accusing believers before God (Revelation 12:9-10). Reading Job with the rest of the canon is not importing something foreign. It is Scripture interpreting Scripture.
Blaming the devil instead of confessing God’s hand. Christians sometimes attribute every trouble to Satan in a way that makes God a bystander. Job did not. He held that his suffering came under God’s hand, and he took his complaint to God, not to the Accuser.
So What
When your conscience is accused, the accusation may well be true. Do not argue your record. Point to the One who answered it. Luther’s advice for exactly this moment was to say, “I am baptized,” because Baptism is God’s own word spoken over you, and the Accuser cannot unsay it (Large Catechism, Baptism, 44). See βαπτίζω.
If You Want to Go Deeper
- Read Job 1:6-12, Zechariah 3:1-5, and Luke 22:31-32 together.
- Read Romans 8:31-39 and Revelation 12:7-12.
- Related Explorer entries: ἄφεσις, βαπτίζω, παράκλητος.