Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

DEVIL

English translation of Gk. diábolos, which in both Hellenistic and Classical Greek signified an evil (human) adversary, false accuser, slanderer, calumniator. In all but four of its 21 appearances in the LXX diábolos (usually with the article) translates Heb. (haś)śāṭān, “an adversary or plotter, one who devises means for opposing another.” In a few of these instances (ho) diábolos denotes (1) a (divine/heavenly?) agent assigned the role of precipitating God’s wrath against Israel (1 Chr. 21:1); (2) a wicked human plotter and false accuser (Ps. 109:6; Esth. 7:4; 8:1); or (3) an obstacle to Israel’s faithfulness (1 Macc. 1:36). In the majority of cases, however, diábolos (always with the article) signifies specifically a celestial being, in particular a member of the heavenly court, responsible for indicting and prosecuting sinners before the bar of divine justice. This being is envisaged as a rigorous legalist who pursues his duties with the single-mindedness of the zealot (e.g., Job 1:6, 7, 9, 12; 2:1-7; Zech. 3:1, 2). If, as often claimed, Wis. 2:24 bears an allusion to Gen. 3 and its story of the Fall, then diábolos may also stand as a cipher for the beguiling serpent of Eden.

In the NT, other early Christian writings, and some contemporary Jewish pseudepigraphical literature, diábolos is used primarily as one among many proper names or epithets for the figure most generally known as Satan, the supernatural enemy of God and adversary of his people, who in addition to causing suffering and other ills that beset humankind, strives mightily to divert the pious from the path of obedience to God and thus break the bond between God and his servants (e.g., Mark 4:15; 8:33; 1 Cor. 7:5; cf. Eph. 4:27; 1 Tim. 3:7; 2 Tim. 2:26; 1 Pet. 5:8). His main instrument in this is peirasmós (usually translated “temptation,” but better “a proving,” “trial”), an ordeal of one sort or another which “tests” one’s trust that God is faithful and thus reveals the nature and extent of one’s own faithfulness to God (cf. Matt. 4:1-11 par.; 1 Thess. 3:5). The Devil is presented here as ruler of the world (Matt. 4:8-9 par.; cf. 1 John 5:19) and as chief of a host of wicked spirits (Matt. 25:41) and unseen forces (Eph. 6:12), some of whom, along with their master, are said to stand behind and direct not only the foreign nations who oppress God’s people, but all apostates within Israel as well. All sources testify that in due course this diábolos will be subdued or vanquished, either by a divine agent such as God’s Messiah or an archangel or by God himself. In the meantime, ho diábolos remains active, beguiling and bedeviling the elect. It is faithfulness to God and his ways that will prevent the pious from “failing in the test” and from being “delivered over” to “the evil one” (cf. Matt. 6:13; Eph. 6:11; Jas. 4:7).

In some NT occurrences diábolos seems to mean only “(human) calumniator,” “slanderer” (1 Tim. 3:11; 2 Tim. 3:3; Tit. 2:3). Also, despite the notice of the Devil’s influence upon Judas in John 13:2, in 6:70 diábolos (no article), referring to Judas, may mean nothing more than “wicked (human) adversary.”

The choice by the LXX translators to use a term laden with connotations of malevolence as the equivalent of (haś)śāṭān may have been a factor in accelerating the “fall” of “the Satan” of Job and Zechariah from function to personality and from servant to opponent of God. On the other hand, it may reflect an identification that at the time of the translators’ work was already (or just beginning to be) made.

Bibliography. S. H. T. Page, Powers of Evil: A Biblical Study of Satan and Demons (Grand Rapids, 1995); E. Pagels, “The Social History of Satan, the ‘Intimate Enemy,’” HTR 84 (1991): 105-28; G. J. Riley, “Devil,” DDD, 244-49; J. B. Russell, The Devil: Perceptions of Evil from Antiquity to Primitive Christianity (Ithaca, 1977).

Jeffrey B. Gibson

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

DEVIL

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)