Job's Satan: An Angel-Satan?

There is a quite different interpretation possible, which also has the ring of truth to it, just as much as the suggestion that the satan was a fellow worshipper, possibly Eliphaz, who infiltrated Job’s [assembly] through the weakness of his children. There is nothing in itself wrong with an angel being called a satan—we have examples of this in Numbers 22:22 and 1 Chronicles 21:1. We know that angels can’t sin: and yet they are limited in knowledge (e.g. Matthew 24:36). An angel commented that now he knew that Abraham feared God, after he had seen his willingness to offer Isaac (Genesis 22:12); Israel’s guardian angel lead them through the wilderness in order to learn about Israel’s spirituality (Deuteronomy 8:2,3). God Himself, of course, already knew the hearts of men. The “sons of God”, in the context of the book of Job, refer to the angels (38:7). The sons of God coming before Yahweh suggests a scene in the court of Heaven, similar to that of 2 Chronicles 18:19-21, where the angels appear before Yahweh to discuss the case of Ahab, and then one angel is empowered by God to carry out his suggestion. Satan going out from the presence of Yahweh, empowered by Him to afflict Job, would correspond with other references to angels ‘going out’ from God’s presence to execute what had been agreed in the heavenly assembly (Psalms 37:36; 81:5; Zechariah 2:3; 5:5; Luke 22:22; Hebrews 1:14). Satan describes himself as going to and fro in the earth, and walking up and down in it (1:7)—using exactly the language of Zechariah 1:11 concerning the angels. The way that the satan smote Job with a skin disease (2:7) would suggest that he was not only a mere man; accepting an angel-satan solves this problem. No unaided man could have brought a skin disease upon Job. If the satan refers to a righteous angel, it is likewise easier to understand why all the problems which the satan brought are described as God bringing them (especially as Job may have conceived of God in terms of an angel). It is also understandable why there is no rebuke of the satan at the end.

Numbers 22:22 describes how an angel of God stood in a narrow, walled path before Balaam, so that his donkey fell down beneath him. That angel is described as a “satan”, an adversary, to Balaam. Job comments how the sufferings which the ‘satan’ brought upon him were God ‘walling up my way that I cannot pass’ (Job 19:8). The connection is clear—and surely indicates that Job’s satan was a satan-angel, acting as an adversary to Job just as such an angel did to Balaam. Job and Balaam have certain similarities—both were prophets (in Job’s case see 4:4; 23:12; 29:4 cp. 15:8; Amos 3:7; James 5:10,11); both had genuine difficulty in understanding God’s ways, but they to varying degrees consciously rebelled against what they did understand; both thus became angry with God (in the angel), and were reproved by God through being brought to consider the angel-controlled natural creation. One suspects there are more links than this.

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Author: Duncan Heaster

Keywords: Satanology, Adversary, diabolos, Evil angel, Seducer, devil, Job's Satan

Bible reference(s): Job 1:6-9, Job 1:12, Job 2:1-7

Source: “The Real Devil A Biblical Exploration.”

Page indexed by: inWORD Bible Software.