Consider this one fact that the article notes. The article is freely available online, so I’ve posted it here as a PDF. There’s actually been a good recent article on why the satan in 1 Chron 21:1 is the Angel. This relieves the “is Yahweh Satan?” question and any notion of contradiction - since it would mean BOTH passages have Yahweh provoking David - one appears to be the invisible Yahweh the other is the visible Yahweh. The “satan” figure here is none other than the Angel of Yahweh - and so this instance without the article is akin to the two instances in the book of Numbers where “satan” was used of the Angel. If you’re familiar with my work on the two Yahwehs in the OT, the parallel (Yahweh-satan) is striking to you. Due to this parallel, and due to the fact that “satan” here has no article, this is viewed by some as the single instance of an evil, cosmic figure called “satan” in the OT. This is the famous passage where “Satan” provokes David to take a census, but in the parallel passage, 2 Sam 24:1-25, it’s Yahweh provoking David to take the census. Of these ten, seven refer to human beings and two refer to the Angel of Yahweh for sure. In terms of statistics, the noun “satan” occurs 27 times in the Hebrew Bible, ten times *without* the article. All of these examples have “satan” without the article, but the referent is a human being, not a divine being, so we don’t have “Satan” here either. The word can be used of human beings (1 Sam 29:4 2 Sam 19:23 1 Kings 5:4 1 Kings 11:14). It is generic, and means “the adversary”. This indicates quite clearly that “satan” is *not* a personal name. Without exception, the word “satan” in Job occurs *with* the article. As the well known biblical Hebrew reference grammar by Jouon-Muraoka notes: “No proper noun of person takes the article, not even when it has the form of an adjective or a participle.” 1 No one (except maybe Donald Trump 🙂 ) puts the word “the” in front of their first name. Biblical Hebrew does not, however, put the definite article (the word “the”) on proper personal nouns (personal names). Hebrew prefixes (attaches) the definite article to a noun (or participle to make it a substantive) so that, like all languages that have definite articles, the noun is made specific. In biblical Hebrew, the definite article (the word “the) is a single letter (heh). Here is a video presentation of the material that follows in case you’d rather watch (I also run a search through the OT for what I’m talking about). Several commenters to the last post asked for some information on the satan.Īlthough English Bibles continue the practice of capitalizing the word “satan” in passages like Job 1 and 2, those passage do not have a specific individual in mind - that is, “satan” in these passages should *not* be understood as a proper personal name.
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