Is God the Author of Evil?

The most extensive reference to the satan is also likely the oldest. In the prologue to the book of Job the satan appears when the b^enê ha’^elohîm (“sons of god”) gather for their council meeting with the Lord (1:6; 2:1). This satan questions God’s conviction that Job is serving God out of a pure heart. Rather, he suggests that Job reveres God because of all the “fringe benefits” (1:9-11; 2:4). In response, Yahweh allows the satan to test Job by destroying everything he possesses, including his children and his own health (1:12-22; 2:6-8). This sets the stage for the dramatic epic poem that follows.

While many exegetical and theological issues surround this famous prologue, one in particular concerns us presently. Many exegetes contend that the adversary in this prologue is that member of the heavenly council of gods who serves as Yahweh’s “public prosecutor,” “legal arm” or the one in charge of “quality control and testing.”2 According to this interpretation, the satan is merely performing the duties assigned to him by Yahweh when he puts Job through his nightmarish testing.

This understanding makes God the ultimate author of Job’s evil, something most of these theorists are willing to grant. According to this “demonic-in-Yahweh” theory, Yahweh was not considered perfectly good in the early stages of Israelite religion.3 At this stage, God was understood to be morally ambivalent. “In pre-exilic Hebrew religion,” says Russell, “Yahweh made all that was in heaven and earth, both of good and of evil.”4 On the strength of Isaiah 45:7, Forsyth concludes straightforwardly, “Yahweh creates evil.”5 Satan, in this scheme, is therefore viewed as “the shadow, the dark side of God, the destructive power wielded by God.”6

This understanding of the “development of Yahweh” is often combined with a Jungian understanding of the development of the self as a process of objectifying, and then integrating, evil within oneself.7 Attempts are made to support it by citing passages such as Isaiah 45:7, Lamentations 3:38 and Amos 3:6 (to be discussed below).8

We cannot here enter into a comprehensive discussion of this prevalent line of argumentation. But given the relevance of this issue to our understanding of the warfare motif of Scripture, at least a summary refutation of this theory is in order. Six considerations can be briefly made that seriously call this theory into question.

Six arguments against the “demonic-in-Yahweh” theory. First, whatever grounds there are for holding to the divine inspiration of the Bible are grounds against this position.9 For if there is anything that is clear from Scripture considered as a whole, it is that Yahweh is perfect: he is, among other things, perfectly holy, righteous, loving and just (e.g., Deut 32:4, 35; 2 Sam 22:31; Ps 48:1, 10; 89:1; 92:10; Mt 5:48; see 2 Chron 19:7; Ps 18:30; 33:5; 1 Sam 2:2; 1 Chron 16:10). While we must make liberal allowances for later revelation to augment earlier revelation, postulating that evil had its origin in Yahweh blatantly contradicts the central teaching of Scripture concerning Yahweh’s character. In the “progress of revelation,” later inspired material may reveal that aspects of earlier revelation were incomplete. But it surely cannot reveal that they were blasphemous!

The “demonic-in-Yahweh” position, therefore, is not an option for one who holds to a high view of Scripture. All historical and philosophical arguments that favor the inspiration of Scripture must be regarded as indirect refutations of this position.

Second, the Jungian model for understanding the conception of Yahweh as having gone through different stages of development presupposes a historical-critical understanding of the Old Testament that is, for many, highly questionable. In this view, the Old Testament material must be organized according to a chronology which postulates that all of the material portraying evil as something that God opposes comes late, after the exile, when the Israelites (per hypothesis) had come under the strong influence of Persian Zoroastrianism. Many scholars question this whole scheme, and they have good grounds for doing so.10

Third, even if one accepts the standard historical-critical chronology for the Old Testament literature, there are still difficulties with the “demonic-in-Yahweh” theory. It is undeniable that the cosmic warfare motif as well as the “Yahweh as warrior” motif that we examined in the last two chapters appears within the oldest material we have in the Old Testament.11 It is difficult to see how these motifs could coexist, and could in any sense be harmonized, with the view that Yahweh causes all things, good and evil. Are we to imagine that these authors conceptualized Yahweh fighting against the evil he himself had caused?

While it would be anachronistic to expect these ancient authors to have systematically thought through and rendered self-consistent all the implications of their theologies, it is certainly not too much to suppose that they would have noticed this blatant contradiction. “What sense would there be,” Lindström rightly asks, “in God’s punishing an evil action which he was himself in the last instance the cause of?”12 Whatever else one may say about these motifs, it is clear that the Old Testament authors never questioned that Yahweh was really fighting (not meticulously controlling) his various enemies. This point argues strongly against the “demonic-in-Yahweh” theory.

Fourth, turning specifically to the book of Job, it is not at all clear that this work portrays the satan as a “member in good standing” of Yahweh’s heavenly council. Job 1:6 says that on the day “the heavenly beings [lit. ‘sons of God’] came to present themselves before the LORD . . . Satan also came among them” (cf. 2:1). Some distinction between the “sons of God” who regularly form God’s council and the satan seems to be implied here.

Moreover, Yahweh asks the satan, “Where have you come from?” (1:7; 2:2), to which the adversary replies, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.” While the text does not require this explanation, it is natural to read in this an element of surprise on Yahweh’s part, and an uncontrolled dimension to the satan’s activity. The members of God’s council, we have seen, carry out their delegated duties in battling for Yahweh and watching over nations. The adversary, however, is simply roaming about, and God’s question, “Where have you come from?” implies that that was not a duty God had assigned him (see 1 Pet 5:8).

Fifth, it is not clear that the satan in this prologue is as innocuous as the defenders of the “demonic-in-Yahweh” theory suggest. It is important to note that his questions to Yahweh about Job (1:9-11; 2:4-5) reflect no concern for the genuineness of Job’s piety. Rather, the satan is calling into question Yahweh’s wisdom in the way he orders his creation. It is not Job who is on trial here, but God “for his conduct of world order, from the very beginning.”13 Job is the unfortunate victim of the unjust “accuser” who has raised his hand against the Almighty.

There is also something sinister about the eagerness of the satan to destroy Job. “Stretch out your hand now, and touch all that he has” (1:11), he cries. After his first assault fails, he again challenges God: “Skin for skin! All that people have they will give to save their lives. But stretch out your hand now and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse you to your face” (2:4-5).

This does not appear to be an angel who is simply intent on following God’s orders. When he carries out his own destructive desires, he clearly does it with excessive thoroughness (1:13-19; 2:7-8). Hence James Morgenstern concedes that Satan in this prologue “has become semi-independent of God, a true, creative power and source of evil in the world and the inveterate, malicious enemy of man.”14 Even E. Langton, who otherwise agrees that Satan in Job is simply a servant of Yahweh’s court, admits that “there appears to be an element in the character of Satan which is contrary to the will of God. . . . If not yet a malignant being, he is tending to become so.”15 In my estimation, the malignancy is already present.

Sixth and finally, it is also important to note that Yahweh, when he finally appears to Job (chaps. 38—41), does not defend his (supposed) right to inflict evil on people indiscriminately, as the “demonic-in-Yahweh” theory would suggest. The thrust of his speeches to Job is rather to drive home the point—the point of the entire epic poem—that neither Job nor his “friends” are in a position to understand the goings-on of the vast cosmos Yahweh has created. Hence neither Job, who accuses God, nor his friends, who accuse Job, are correct.16

In these majestic speeches the Lord emphasizes how far beyond human comprehension are his works in creation. But he does not stress how far beyond human comprehension is his character. Nor does he suggest that he has the right to do whatever he wants on whoever he wants. To the contrary, the divine speeches in this book make clear that, far from containing evil, Yahweh’s character is set against evil. In particular, the speeches reveal that one aspect of Yahweh’s incomprehensible task in creating and preserving order in the world is to contend against the cosmic forces that perpetually threaten it, as we saw in the last chapter.

For example, we read in Job that it is the Lord who “shut in the sea [yam] with doors when it burst out from the womb [of Tiamat?]” (38:8). It is the Lord (not Marduk) who “prescribed bounds for it [yam], and set bars and doors, and said, ‘Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stopped’” (38:10-11). It is the Lord who, unlike Job or any other human, has journeyed to the abysmal and chaotic “springs of the sea” (yam) and “walked in the recesses of the deep” (t^ehôm; 38:16), and who binds up and loosens the gods of the skies to set up his dominion upon the earth (38:31-32). It is the Lord who alone can capture and tame the mighty Behemoth and the ferocious Leviathan, whose “snorting throws out flashes of light” and whose “eyes are like the rays of dawn” (40:15-24; 41:1-24). “On earth,” the Lord says, “it has no equal, a creature without fear” who “is king over all that are proud” (41:33-34).

Running the cosmos, in short, is no easy matter, even for the Creator. There are forces of chaos (to say nothing of the satan) to contend with. Unless Job can do it himself, the poem suggests, he ought to refrain from arrogant accusations (38:1—41:34).

Whatever else may be said about these cosmic conflict passages, it is certainly clear that Yahweh, as portrayed in the book of Job, is not himself the creator of destruction. Rather, he is the One who fights against cosmic forces of destruction. If Job and his “friends” (as well as the readers) understood this better, the poem is saying, they would not be so quick to lay the blame for evil either on God or on each other. As we also learn from Daniel’s delayed answer to prayer (Dan 10) and Israel’s unexpected defeat by the fury of Chemosh (2 Kings 3:26-27), things go on behind the scenes of the human drama, sometimes thwarting the will of God, about which we know next to nothing—unless, of course, there is a prophet who is privy to the Lord’s council meetings (Jer 23:18-22), or unless one is told about them by an angel or in the prologue of an inspired book (Dan 10:4ff.; Job 1—2). The evil of the sort that Job experienced had its origin there.17

If any book of Scripture addresses the problem of evil, it is this book. The answer it gives as to why evil happens is decisively not that it is the will of God. Evil is a mystery, but it is not a mystery concerning Yahweh’s character. It is rather the mystery of what goes on among the gods in “the great assembly” and in an incomprehensibly vast cosmos threatened by cosmic forces. In other words, the mystery of evil is located not in the heart of God but in the heart of humanity and in the hidden world between humans and God.18

The questionable exegesis of the “demonic-in-Yahweh” theory. There are, we see, some good arguments against the prevalent scholarly view that the early Israelites viewed Yahweh as morally ambiguous. But we have not yet examined the scriptural exegesis that is used to defend this theory. Again, we cannot enter into a comprehensive discussion of this issue here, but a brief consideration of three foundational texts used by supporters of this view is in order.19

Isaiah 45:7 records the Lord as saying, “I form light and create darkness, I make weal and create woe; I the LORD do all these things.” The “demonic-in-Yahweh” theorists have made this one of their loci classici. From this text, for example, Westermann argues that

Such an interpretation, however, misses the explicitly historical and soteriological (hence noncosmological) intent of the passage. The context of this passage (see 45:1-6) is specifically about the future deliverance of the children of Israel out of Babylon; it is not concerned with God’s cosmic creative activity. Hence the “light” and “darkness” of this passage, Lindström argues, denote “liberation” and “captivity” (as in Is 9:1; Lam 3:2) and thus refer to “YHWH’s impending salvific intervention on behalf of his people.”21 The “prosperity and disaster” refer to Yahweh’s plans to bless Israel and to curse Babylon.

Creating “light and darkness” and bringing “weal and woe,” then, are not arbitrary activities, but rather flow from the moral character of God in direct response to the unjust captivity of his people in Babylon. The Lord creates light and darkness, prosperity and disaster, in just response to human behavior. The implication of this verse, then, is precisely the opposite of what the “demonic-in-Yahweh” theorists suggest.

In Lamentations 3:38 Jeremiah the prophet asks: “Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and bad come?” Taken out of context, and made into a general statement, the verse could support the view that evil originates from God. But if read in its proper context, it says nothing of the sort.22

The preceding verse (v. 37) indicates that the subject matter of this verse concerns inspired prophecy. Israel had been warned that calamity was going to come upon them. Why was this calamity going to come? The three verses preceding verse 37 tell us: “When all the prisoners of the land are crushed under foot, when human rights are perverted in the presence of the Most High, when one’s case is subverted—does the LORD not see it?” (vv. 34-36).

In other words, the Lord had seen the injustice of Israel and had prophetically warned them. Most ignored this prophecy, wanting to believe only prophecies that announced “good things.” When calamity did strike, they blamed it on God! In response, Jeremiah reminds them of their sin and of the warning that had come “from the mouth of the Most High.” Their present dire situation was not God’s fault—precisely the opposite point that the “demonic-in-Yahweh” theorists want to make with this verse.23

A third verse that is cited in support of the “demonic-in-Yahweh” theory is Amos 3:6: “Is a trumpet blown in a city, and the people are not afraid? Does disaster befall a city, unless the LORD has done it?” Again, this verse can be understood to imply that God causes all disasters only if it is taken out of its original context. As with Lamentations 3, when it is read in its context it becomes clear that the verse is addressing the subject of prophecy.

The central point of this chapter, and really of the whole book of Amos, is to warn the people in the northern kingdom that their materialism, greed and practices of injustice would ultimately lead to their downfall, though at the present time they were experiencing prosperity. In chapter 3 Amos communicates this warning by posing a series of rhetorical questions. After announcing God’s promise to punish the sins of the people he has chosen (v. 2), Amos asks, “Does a lion roar in the forest, when it has no prey? Does a young lion cry out from its den, if it has caught nothing? Does a bird fall into a snare on the earth, when there is no trap for it? Does a snare spring up from the ground, when it has taken nothing?” (vv. 4-5).

After he climaxes his series of questions with verse 6, he then applies the point of his rhetorical teaching in verses 7-8: “Surely the Lord GOD does nothing, without revealing his secret to his servants the prophets. The lion has roared; who will not fear? The Lord GOD has spoken; who can but prophesy?”

In the light of this context, two things about this passage mitigate against the “demonic-in-Yahweh” understanding of verse 6. Amos’s argument here is designed to make the point that disaster does not arbitrarily come from the hand of God. Lions do not roar unless there is something to roar about. If this were the case, if Yahweh’s supposed disastrous activity were arbitrary, what good would it do to try to warn the people (under the prophetic inspiration of God!) to change their ways in order to avert disaster? Rather, God’s punishment comes as a result of the sins of his people.

But even as such it does not come without warning, and this is the second point that needs to be made. God had been trying to turn the people of the northern kingdom around by sending prophets who “roared” out against their injustices, who warned them that their behavior was going to lead to disaster (3:7-9), and who pointed out that the disasters they and others (e.g., the southern kingdom) had already experienced were themselves the direct consequence of sin (4:6-11). But the people foolishly missed this connection and rather insisted, “Evil shall not overtake or meet us” (9:10).

It is to reinforce this connection between their national misfortune and their sin that Amos proclaims that the disaster that has befallen them and the southern kingdom is caused by God. His (and God’s) hope is that the people will see this connection and turn from their wicked ways. As such, this verse can hardly be made to support any view that would suggest that all disasters on any cities are caused by God, or that any Old Testament author ever thought this. In Amos this verse has a particular and precise application.24

An analysis of other major texts used to support the “demonic-in-Yahweh” theory would bear similar results.25 Neither the textual evidence in general nor the prologue of Job in particular supports it. If we further consider other grounds for regarding the Bible as being inspired and thus as being at least reasonably self-consistent, the case against this theory must be regarded as very strong.

The adversary in the prologue of Job, then, is not to be taken as just one of the many servants in Yahweh’s council or as an (evil) extension of Yahweh himself. While at this early stage of revelation he has not yet acquired the proper name “Satan,” the uncontrolled dimension of his being (roaming about), his arrogance toward God and his zealous malice toward Job reveal him to be a being who is not on God’s side. While the main forces God is explicitly against in Job (and elsewhere) are the common cosmic forces of the Near Eastern warfare myths (Leviathan, Behemoth), the later Jewish and Christian traditions were certainly justified in eventually relating these forces with Satan: Satan was himself Leviathan.26

The fallen morning star. Beyond the book of Job, Satan is explicitly mentioned in only two other passages in the Old Testament.27 One is Zechariah 3:1-10, which portrays “the high priest Joshua standing before the angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him.”28 Either in response to the adversary’s accusation or in response to the prospect of the satan accusing Joshua, the Lord twice cries out, “The LORD rebuke you!” (v. 2). The Lord then takes off Joshua’s “filthy clothes” and places on him “festal apparel” (vv. 3-4).

As one might expect, there is a great deal of discussion about what Zechariah is getting at in this passage. For our present purposes, however, only one issue need concern us: the nature of the satan spoken of here. Once again many scholars have assumed that the satan here is simply a member of Yahweh’s court who is in charge of legal affairs and who is carrying out his assigned duties in pointing out the shortcomings of Joshua as a high priest.29

While nothing about this text rules out such an interpretation, neither does it explicitly support this. It may just as well be that the satan is present in this scene simply because Joshua is an extremely prominent person whom the satan wishes to condemn. As some commentators suggest, in coming against Joshua the satan would be coming against the whole priesthood of Israel and against the nation of Israel itself. In any case, nothing requires us to suppose that this satan was supposed to be present or that he was simply a “member in good standing” of Yahweh’s heavenly council.

Even more significantly, Yahweh rebukes the adversary twice, then takes measures to invalidate his accusations (vv. 3-5). Indeed, through Joshua, Yahweh promises that there will come a time in which “I will remove the guilt of this land in a single day” (v. 9). In other words, there will come a time when “the accuser” will have nothing to accuse the people of God of. Christians throughout the ages have justifiably found in these verses a prophetic reference to the work of Christ on the cross and a beautiful prophetic illustration of how believers are freed from the accuser and “robed” in Christ’s righteousness. It is clear that, once again, God and the satan are not on the same side. God is for mercy, and for Joshua’s high priesthood; Satan wants only condemnation.30

The only other explicit reference to Satan—and the one time where satan is apparently used as a proper name—is in 1 Chronicles 21:1: “Satan stood up against Israel, and incited David to count the people of Israel.”31 The point seems to be that Satan was motivating King David to place more trust in his military power than in the Lord. Given the fear and guilt of David and his court after they gave in to Satan (see 2 Sam 24:3, 10), it seems clear that David knew that the deed was wrong.32 In any event, Satan is clearly portrayed here as a malicious being who is “against Israel” and against God’s plans.

This analysis is complicated by a parallel passage in 2 Samuel 24 which says that it was God, rather than Satan, who incited David to take the census because “the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel” (24:1). The standard explanation given in historical-critical commentaries for the discrepancy is that the author of 2 Samuel had a morally ambiguous view of Yahweh (in accord with the “demonic-in-Yahweh” theory) while the author of 2 Chronicles held to a loftier and purer view of God. Hence the author of 2 Samuel could attribute to God the activity of inspiring David to sin, but the author of 2 Chronicles found this offensive and hence changed the reference to Satan.33

It is obvious that the author of 1 Chronicles edited the passage in 2 Samuel to fit his own theology and purpose for writing, something he does in a number of places. But it is less obvious that this scenario entails that the author of 2 Samuel held to a morally ambiguous view of God, or even that there is here an irreconcilable contradiction between the two accounts. It may just be that the two authors are approaching the same event from significantly different perspectives.34

Unlike what we find in Zechariah 3, it is possible to suppose that God’s plan and Satan’s desire came into surprising alignment with one another. The Lord was burning with anger toward Israel on a number of counts, and Satan was (as usual?) looking for any opportunity he could to incite David to rebel against God and thereby bring the nation of Israel under God’s judgment. God wants to judge Israel; Satan wants Israel judged. Thus God allows Satan to motivate David to carry out an act that is going to result in Israel’s judgment. From one perspective it was Satan who incited judgment, but from a broader perspective it was God himself.

It is in this context that we are to understand the several references to Yahweh “sending forth an evil spirit,” or to an evil spirit “coming forth from the Lord” that we looked at in chapter two (Judg 9:23; 1 Sam 16:14ff.; 18:10-11; 19:9-10; 1 Kings 22:19-23; Is 29:10). As the Lord did with Joseph’s evil brothers, and as Christ did with Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” that originated from Satan, God can sometimes use the evil wills of personal beings, human or divine, to his own ends (Gen 50:20; 2 Cor 12:7-10).

This by no means entails that there is a divine will behind every activity of an evil spirit—for usually we find that God and evil spirits (whether called angels, gods or demons) are in real conflict with each other. It certainly does not entail, as the “demonic-in-Yahweh” theorists (and, ironically, conservative Calvinists) hold, that the evil spirits are nothing more than extensions of Yahweh’s own will. But it does entail that Yahweh is the sovereign Lord of all history and can therefore at times employ evil divine beings in his service—even Satan himself.

Other Possible References to the Devil

While neither the role of the satan nor Satan as a proper name is elsewhere mentioned in the Old Testament, three other passages have traditionally been interpreted as referring to him and thus warrant brief consideration. The first of these is the notorious narrative of the Fall in Genesis 3:1-6.

Genesis 3: The deceptive serpent. The serpent in this passage is identified simply as being “more crafty than any other wild animal that the LORD God had made” (v. 1). It deceives Eve about God’s character, her own potential, and the promise of the forbidden fruit (vv. 2-4), and thereby influences her to disobey the Lord (vv. 6-13). As a result, the serpent is cursed “among all animals and among all wild creatures,” and is made to slither on its stomach and eat dust all the days of its life (vv. 14-15). The consequences for Adam and Eve and their descendants were not much better.

Many critical scholars regard this story as simply providing a primitive explanation for why human life is “cursed” and an etiological tale for why snakes crawl on the ground and are so repulsive to humans.35 This view is similar to how later rabbinic thought sometimes interpreted the passage. The serpent, some rabbis thought, was originally a beast created by Yahweh that was beautiful, stood upright (two feet tall), had arms and legs, and had the ability to speak.36 Because of his deception, however, he lost these limbs and his capacity to reason and speak. He must now crawl on the ground and “eat dust.”

Other scholars, however, have argued that the serpent in this passage does not symbolize evil; rather, it symbolizes life, wisdom and fertility.37 This positive estimation of the serpent, while utterly foreign to orthodox Christianity, was quite common in early Christian Gnostic circles.38

In the intertestamental apocryphal literature and in early Christian thought, however, the serpent in this passage most frequently came to be identified with a cosmic evil figure, and often explicitly with Satan himself (e.g., Wisdom of Solomon 2:24; Psalms of Solomon 4:9; 1 Tim 3:13ff.; Rom 16:20; Rev 12:9; 20:2). Satan’s designations as “the Tempter” (Mt 4:3; 1 Thess 3:5) and “the old serpent” (Rev 12:9) presumably refer back to this passage as well, though the context of the last passage also unmistakably includes images of the cosmic serpent Leviathan. Thus, throughout church history, the serpent of Genesis 3 has been taken to refer to Satan, or at least to a beast that was at this time possessed by Satan.39

Is this reading justified? From the evangelical hermeneutical circle within which I read Scripture and out of which I write, the explicit designation of the serpent as Satan by later inspired New Testament authors is enough to settle the question on a theological level, however one interprets the author’s original intent. In this case, the theological import of the passage is to teach that Satan deceived Adam and Eve and thereby brought about the fall of humankind. But there are other grounds as well for taking even the original meaning of this passage to refer to a demonic type of creature.

First, it is significant that demons and other anticreation beings were frequently pictured in the form of serpents throughout Near Eastern cultures. For example, according to R. S. Hendel:

Further, the close literary connection we sometimes find between serpents and chaos, evil, and destruction throughout these cultures is also highly significant, as K. J. Joines, F. Landy and several other scholars have convincingly argued.41 So too is the association sometimes made between serpents and human mortality. In this light, Joines seems justified in concluding that “the underlying purpose of this serpent is to deceive and to destroy mankind; consequently, it basically symbolizes chaos.”42

Closely related to this is the argument of Flemming Hvidberg in his exploration of the Canaanite background to Genesis 1—3. Against those scholars who argue that the story is either an etiological tale about snakes or is portraying the serpent in a positive light, he concludes:

In sum, the background of Genesis 3 thus lends credence to the traditional Christian identification of the serpent with Satan.

A close reading of the text itself lends further weight to this interpretation. For one thing, while the author twice compares the serpent to wild animals (viz., it is more crafty, and more cursed, than the animals, 3:1, 14), he does not explicitly identify the serpent as a natural animal. For another, the author seems to set this creature apart from the other creatures insofar as he has previously concluded that all the creatures that the Lord made were good (1:24-25), whereas the serpent is clearly not good.44 That the serpent can talk, reason and deceive also seems to set it apart from the animal kingdom. Significantly, these abilities are not taken away with its curse, a point that further indicates that the author was not simply identifying the cursed serpent with a natural snake. He presumably would have known that snakes do not talk!

The references to the cursed serpent crawling on his belly, eating dust, striking at the heels of people but ultimately having his head crushed by them (3:14-15) do not necessarily refute this view. Crawling on one’s belly and “eating dust” (something snakes do not do) were idiomatic ways of referring to defeat and humiliation in ancient Semitic culture (e.g., Mic 7:17). Such references clearly refer to the loathsome behavior of snakes, but they do so metaphorically. So too with the picture of the serpent striking at people’s heels but having his head crushed. They are most easily taken as metaphorically depicting the animosity between humans and “the serpent” by referring to the natural enmity between people and snakes. They strike out at us, but we crush their heads.

Concerning the serpent in this passage, I would argue that the author is neither trying to explain why snakes crawl on the ground nor portraying the serpent as a symbol of goodness and fertility. He is rather seeking to illustrate the cursed nature of a demonic serpent (later identified as Satan) by referring to ground-crawling snakes. The author is saying that the serpent, the master of “seditious chaos” (F. Landy), now faces certain defeat and humiliation (like a snake), though he can yet inflict wounds on us (strike our heel). In this light, the later Jewish and Christian traditions were justified in linking this demonic creature with the prince of all demons, Satan.

Isaiah 14:1-23. This passage contains a prophecy against Sennacherib, who after conquering Babylon proclaimed himself as its king (v. 4). Verses 4-11 address his humiliating end. Though he is mighty now and able to inflict suffering and turmoil on his subjects (v. 3), he shall be brought down to the grave and mocked (vv. 9-11). Then follows a passage that has traditionally been taken to apply more profoundly to Satan than it does to the king of Babylon.

How you have fallen from heaven, O morning star, son of the dawn!

The traditional argument has been that the wording of this passage goes beyond what can be appropriately applied to any human being, even to the king of Babylon. What human could ever “fall from heaven” and “be brought down to the earth?” Who would ever think they could ascend to heaven, rise above the stars of God (viz., the gods, here seen as stars), and ascend above the clouds? Hence the church has traditionally tended to see this passage as extending beyond Sennacherib and applying ultimately to Satan, the evil cosmic force working through Sennacherib.45 Is this interpretation valid? Two things may be briefly said.

First, the traditional exegesis is certainly not required by the text as it stands, which is why the majority of modern critical exegetes dismiss it outright. While the language of Isaiah goes beyond what could be literally intended of any human being, nothing in the text itself suggests that Isaiah is here talking literally. Isaiah is simply comparing the king of Babylon to the planet Venus, the morning star (hêlel = shining one; ben-ša?ar = son of dawn). It rises bright at dawn and climbs to the highest point in the sky, only to be quickly extinguished by the brightness of the rising sun. Thus, Isaiah says, shall be the career of the presently shining king of Babylon. He appears on the stage of world history as the brightest star, ascending higher and higher. But in the end he shall quickly disappear in the light of the sun.

Hence nothing in the text requires that we take Isaiah’s poetic language as referring to anyone other than the man Sennacherib. The fact that every verse following this passage speaks about this fallen star as a mere mortal further confirms this point: “You are brought down to Sheol. . . . ‘Is this the man who made the earth tremble, . . . who made the world like a desert?’ . . . You are cast out, away from your grave, like loathsome carrion, . . . like a corpse trampled underfoot” (vv. 15-19). Such language, obviously, could hardly apply to a spiritual, cosmic force like Satan. But this is not to say that the central insight of the traditional teaching was misguided, and this is my second point.

Read in the context of other Near Eastern conflict myths, Isaiah’s use of Venus as a metaphor for a rebellious and arrogant king does not seem simply to draw attention to something that shines, rises and then diminishes. The curious association of the God-created natural behavior of this bright morning star with something rebellious is significant. One of the recurring themes we find in the Near Eastern cosmic conflict myths is that of a young god who aspires to advance himself beyond his powers and appropriate domain, and who is thereby vanquished. In several contexts this god is associated with Venus.

For example, we know of one Canaanite story of a god named Athtar the Rebel, who wanted to rule on the throne of Baal. Unfortunately, he was too small for the throne. “His feet did not reach the footstool, his head did not reach the top.” Apparently in frustration, he says, “I will not reign on the reaches of Zaphon” (the sacred mountain). Thus he is instead given rulership over the earth (or underworld), a much smaller affair that he can presumably handle.46

What is most interesting about this for our purposes is that Athtar’s name means “Shining One, Son of Dawn.”47 Indeed, in another story about Athtar, his aspirations to reign with the god El by disclosing Yamm’s plans on building a palace for himself are thwarted by none other than the sun-goddess Shapash.48 The morning star, again, is vanquished by the sun! Variations on this theme seem to have found their way onto Greek soil as well, where stories of rebels (such as Phaeton, whose name means “shining”) being defeated by rising too close to the sun were not uncommon.49

Understood against this background, Isaiah’s poetry takes on new significance. The very fact that Isaiah associates the rising morning star with an act of rebellion suggests that he is tapping into some dimension of the Near Eastern cosmic conflict motif. That Isaiah further specifies that this rising star wanted to rise above “the stars of El,” to sit enthroned on “the recesses of Zaphon” and “become like Elyon”—all of which play a role in the Canaanite stories of Athtar—strengthens the conviction that Isaiah is intentionally drawing on familiar Canaanite themes to make a point to his audience.50 As Forsyth argues, the point seems to be the identification of “the king of Babylon, the power responsible for the fall of Jerusalem . . . with the figure of the cosmic rebel.”51

In this light, we can interpret Isaiah as reworking the cultural stories about the rebellious rising star in the same way as other Old Testament authors reworked the cultural myths of Baal’s battle with the raging Yamm, or Marduk’s battle with Tiamat. Isaiah portrays the arrogant activity of the king of Babylon as representing and reenacting the arrogant activity of a cosmic rebel, just as other authors had seen Yahweh’s parting of the Red Sea as a reenactment of Yahweh’s primordial defeat of Yamm or Rahab (Ps 77:16; 89:9-10; Is 51:9-11).

Isaiah is not thereby endorsing any particular story about Athtar. But he is using this known story to reveal a truth that the Athtar story illustrates: there is a cosmic rebellion, and the rebellious and arrogant extension of Sennacherib’s kingdom beyond its legitimate domain is both a participant and a prototype of it.

We can therefore concede that Isaiah’s prophecy is from beginning to end about none other than the man Sennacherib while also affirming that this prophecy has a cosmic dimension to it. Earthly battles correspond to heavenly battles. Hence we may consider the drama of Sennacherib’s illegitimate kingship as a participant in and a prototype of a much vaster drama of another oppressive conqueror who attempted to set up an illegitimate kingship on a cosmic scale.

As such, in the words of Bertoluci, this passage about one particular hostile king also points toward “an archetype of the political and religious powers which through the ages are hostile to God and His people, and is, as well, the impellant force behind every evil activity.”52 Or, in the words of K. L. Schmidt, both a “heavenly and earthly . . . demonic and human” event is being alluded to in this passage. Schmidt continues, “Such a myth applies to a finally enigmatic incident, to a demonic . . . event, which illuminates the foreground and background of the history of the doings of mankind.”53

When we consider the cosmic dimension of the mythological motifs Isaiah was alluding to in this passage, the later church tradition seems quite justified in identifying Helel ben-Shahar (translated as “Lucifer” in the Vulgate) with Satan. In its own fashion, the story of the rebellious king of Babylon illumines the story of the rebellious king of the whole world, and thus provides a cosmic backdrop for a warfare understanding of “the history of the doings of mankind.”

Ezekiel 28: The fall of the perfect one. The case for the traditional Christian reading of Ezekiel 28 as referring to the fall of Satan is similar to that of Isaiah 14. Here too we find a person, in this case the king of Tyre, about whom things are said that do not seem applicable to a mere human being. He is said to be “wiser than Daniel”; indeed, no secret is hidden from him (v. 3).54 He sees himself as having “the mind of a god” (v. 6) and even refers to himself as “a god” (v. 2).

Far more significant, however, is what the Lord himself says of this king:

But because this guardian cherub’s “heart was proud because of [his] beauty” and because he became “filled with violence,” the Lord “cast [him] from the mountain of God” (vv. 16-17).

It is not difficult to see why the church quickly hit upon the interpretation that this prophecy was at once speaking about the fall of the king of Tyre and the fall of Satan. When Ezekiel speaks of the Garden of Eden, the holy mount of God and a guardian cherub walking among the fiery stones, he seems to have moved beyond the realm of “thisworldly” history, even after an allowance is made for Semitic hyperbole. When he speaks of this pagan king as being “the model of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty,” someone other than the king of Tyre seems to be intended.

As with Isaiah, it is likely that Ezekiel is here appropriating aspects of the Near Eastern cosmic battle motif as a way of communicating the cosmic significance of the fall of the king of Tyre. The portrayal of the garden of God as the holy mountain surrounded by precious stones (sometimes conceived of as the stars) fits with various aspects of some Canaanite cosmic conflict stories. The theme of the rebel who possesses secrets is very common, and the notion that he is bright and beautiful fits well with other aspects of these myths (such as the rebellious Shining Son of Dawn stories mentioned above).55 The mention of Eden and the cherub, however, suggests that features of these cosmic conflict stories have been combined with elements of the Genesis account of the fall of humans as well (Genesis 2—3). Such would be an understandable, and indeed clever, literary device if indeed the author is depicting the fall of a cosmic being.56

In any event, while little can be said with certainty about the exact background to this passage, it seems probable that Ezekiel, like Isaiah, is making both a historical and a cosmic point within this passage. The fall of the king of Tyre illustrates and reenacts the cosmic fall of some unnamed “guardian cherub” (one of the gods of the nations?) who was, among other things, the model of perfection before his fall.

What lends further credence to the interpretation of this passage as a fusion of cosmic and historical themes is that, in the passages that follow, Ezekiel appears to do the same thing with other kings and with other cosmic figures. Thus he portrays Pharaoh as the great monster of the sea (Ezek 29:3; 32:2) and then applies a version of the Babylonian and Canaanite battles between Marduk (or Baal) and Tiamat (or Yamm) to him—except, of course, that Yahweh is the vanquisher. In Ezekiel 29 the monster will be captured with a hook and fed to the beasts (vv. 4-6).57 Chapter 32 says it will be captured with a net and left on dry land, where God “will cause all the birds of the air to settle on you, and I [God] will let the wild animals of the whole earth gorge themselves with you” (v. 4).

The cosmic dimensions of Pharaoh’s (viz., the sea monster’s) demise are then brought full circle when the Lord says, “When I blot you out, I will cover the heavens, and make their stars dark; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give its light. All the shining lights of the heavens I will darken above you” (vv. 7-8).

It seems, then, that throughout this section Ezekiel portrays historical events as illustrating and intersecting with cosmic events. More specifically, he envisages Yahweh’s overthrow of his present historical enemies as examples of his overthrowing his cosmic enemies. In this light, the Christian understanding, derived from later revelation that clearly depicts Satan as God’s archenemy, can be considered justified in sensing that the fall of Satan himself is intimated in the fall of the king of Tyre (and we might add, the pharaoh of Egypt) as portrayed in this book.

Conclusion

We may summarize our investigation of the warfare motif in the Old Testament throughout the last four chapters by reviewing six conclusions.

First, while all the Old Testament authors are intent on expressing the sovereignty of Yahweh, they understand this sovereignty to entail that Yahweh does genuinely battle cosmic foes. In the only terms that they, in their ancient Near Eastern culture, could understand, it was revealed that hostile, proud, raging, destructive forces of chaos oppose God’s will and threaten the very foundations of the earth. In short, Yahweh must battle the hostile waters, Yamm, Leviathan, Rahab and Behemoth.

While Yahweh has unquestionably already vanquished these monsters and will continue to do so on a cosmic scale, this victory never undermines the genuineness of Yahweh’s present and future battles in the eyes of Old Testament authors. As in other Near Eastern myths, some authors understood Yahweh to have battled and defeated these forces prior to creation, a fact that I tentatively tried to square with the Genesis 1 creation account by entertaining a form of the restoration theory. Yet through the voluntary forfeiture by humans of their rightful rule, these anticreation forces continue to engulf and threaten the earth.

Indeed, so authentic is the ongoing cosmic spiritual battle that in a few instances Old Testament authors suggest that these forces successfully resisted God’s will in opposing nations or individual persons. For three weeks the “prince of Persia” successfully blocks God’s answer to Daniel’s prayer (Dan 10); the demonlike Chemosh, feeding on a king’s sacrificed son, successfully routs Israel (2 Kings 3:26-27); and Yamm at times successfully mocks God by engulfing Israel as he earlier (Gen 1:2?) engulfed the earth (Ps 74:10-13). Hence, as Levenson notes, the psalmist has to continually remind himself—in the face of evidence to the contrary—of Yahweh’s primordial victory.58 We shall shortly see that this conception of the power of hostile forces to thwart God’s will becomes much more intensified in the apocalyptic period and in the New Testament.

Second, while only a small amount of attention is given to evil spirits (“demons”) in the world, a significant amount of attention is given to the existence of gods who form a council of Yahweh and collectively constitute his army. While every Old Testament author unequivocally affirms that there is only one Creator and one Supreme God, they also assume the existence of other created gods. In so doing, they reestablish (not originate) a primal form of creational monotheism.

What is more, the Old Testament assumes that a significant amount of authority has been given to these gods to oversee the welfare of various nations (Deut 32; Ps 82). Others seem to be identified, or at least closely associated, with “natural” phenomena such as the sun, stars, moon, wind and thunder (Deut 4:19-20; 17:13; Judg 5:20; Job 38:7; Is 14:13; 40:26; 45:12; 104:4; 148:1-6; Hab 3:11). These gods, then, like humans (but on a larger scale), are in a position to carry out Yahweh’s will for the good of others. But if they choose, they are also in a position to temporarily thwart Yahweh’s will to the detriment of others, particularly those under their authority (Dan 10; Ps 82). If they choose the latter, they are, or at least shall be, judged accordingly (Ps 82). They shall eventually die “like mortals” and “fall like any prince” (v. 7).

Third, while Satan will later become the example par excellence of a god who went wrong (and the greatest of the gods beneath Yahweh at that!), in the Old Testament he remains a relatively minor figure, being mentioned by name only once (1 Chron 21:1). Nonetheless, against the views of many contemporary scholars, I have argued that he is, in the Old Testament, not seen as being a legitimate member of Yahweh’s assembly, nor is he portrayed as simply carrying out Yahweh’s orders. Rather, he is an adversary against God even more than he is an adversary against humans. His character is consistently seen as malicious.

It is this malicious element in his character at this early stage of revelation that lays the foundation for later perspectives. Here, we shall find, the figure of Satan comes to absorb within himself the chaotic cosmic characteristics previously attributable to Leviathan and other anticreation beasts.

Fourth, with some justification (in the light of subsequent revelation), the serpent of Genesis 3 can be interpreted as either symbolizing or embodying Satan. Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28 can also be understood as referring not only to the fall of human kings but also to the fall of Satan. While we are told virtually nothing about the time and circumstances of this cosmic fall, we are told enough to infer that it should not have happened.

These two prophetic passages are both spoken as lamentations for someone gone wrong. Drawing on familiar Near Eastern images, both passages depict someone created great who became prideful in his heart and rebellious in his spirit, and who then was cast down. Something similar can perhaps be inferred about the pride of Yamm, the waters, Rahab and Leviathan, as exemplified in other passages. These cosmic forces, it seems, ought not to be forces of chaos and destruction, and God ought not to have to oppose them.

All of this has significant repercussions for our understanding of the problem of evil. While an unambiguous “free will defense” is obviously not provided here, the Old Testament is laying the foundation for seeing evil as originating in the heart of free creatures—human and divine. It is, at the very least, certainly disallowing any understanding of evil as an eternal feature of the cosmos or of God. Evil is from the start construed as a tragic intrusion into God’s otherwise good creation.

Fifth, the only place where anything like the problem of evil is explicitly addressed at length in the Old Testament is the book of Job. The central point of the entire epic is that neither Job’s friends nor Job himself are correct in their explanations of his misfortunes. Job’s sorry plight was neither punishment for his (supposed) sin nor part of some wise, righteous and judgmental divine plan, as his friends insisted. But it was also not the result of an arbitrary irrational streak in God, as Job (and contemporary “demonic-in-Yahweh” theorists) suspected.

Rather, the point of the book is to say that these are not the only two options, a point that the post-Augustinian philosophical tradition lost and has yet to regain consistently. Both the prologue to Job and Yahweh’s speeches in Job leave us with the acute awareness that there is much more to this cosmos than just us and God. As almost all primordial peoples have realized, and as the New Testament makes even more explicit, there is also an incredibly vast, magnificent, complex and oftentimes warring and hostile “world in between” that we must factor in. Without undermining the sovereignty of God, the Bible generally portrays the cosmos as more like a divinely governed democracy than a divinely controlled dictatorship, and this democracy encompasses, but greatly transcends, free human beings.

But the book of Job and the entire Bible also assume that we know next to nothing about the goings on of this “world in between.” For example, in the whole of Scripture, and in direct contrast to much other literature in the ancient world and throughout history, we are given the names of only two angels.59 It is only through direct revelation that one gains a perspective like Daniel’s on warring cosmic “princes,” or the prophetic perspective Jeremiah speaks of as one who is privileged to listen in on the assembly of Yahweh’s council of gods (Jer 23:18; see 1 Kings 22:19-20; Is 6:8; Ps 82:1; 89:7; 103:20-21; 148:2; Job 1:6; 2:1). It is because of our near total ignorance—not on the basis of his sheer divine authority—that Yahweh instructs Job and his friends to remain silent in the face of evil.60 It is, in the end, neither God’s fault nor Job’s fault.

One of the primary reasons why the problem of evil is so intellectually intractable for us is precisely that we have not learned the lesson of Job, or of other primordial peoples. We have not moved beyond the false dichotomy of Job and his friends: evil in our culture is still generally seen as being either our fault or God’s will, or both. We are yet caught in an Augustinian, classical-philosophical model of God’s providence and an Enlightenment model of our aloneness in the cosmos.

This is, in a less direct way, also a lesson we can learn through the Old Testament motifs of Yahweh’s battle with the sea monsters, Yahweh’s struggle to control the gods, and even from the multitude of nonbiblical conflict myths that are found in most cultures throughout history. There is a “world in between”; it is largely characterized by warfare; and, for better or for worse, it significantly affects the world as a whole, and therefore each of our lives. It is my conviction that, until this “world in between” is factored into the equation, no attempts to render evil intelligible within a monotheistic context will significantly advance beyond where Job and his friends were (mistakenly) some thirty-five hundred years ago.

There are, of course, a multitude of questions this “world in between” poses for us Western Christians that need addressing, issues that we shall address later.61 For example, how is this view of things compatible with a belief in God’s omnipotence? Why would God create a world in which his will is not necessarily carried out? Why would God create beings who have the power to hurt so many others? How are we to conceptualize God being influenced by our prayer? Can God guarantee ultimate victory over his rebellious foes and our spiritual cosmic nemeses? If so, why does he not simply destroy these rebel forces now? Why does he tarry while the innocent suffer?

For now, however, it is enough to demonstrate the too frequently minimized truth that the Bible does hold to this warfare worldview, and thus to this understanding of evil. It is enough to demonstrate that the Bible does not assume that every particular evil has a particular godly purpose behind it. It is presently enough to show that the Bible attributes the responsibility for evil to forces that are hostile to God—especially to Satan—not to God himself. These are the primary data that any Christian theoretical understanding of God and evil must be founded on, and it is this foundation that this study seeks to establish.

If the material that composes this foundation creates tensions with our standard Western assumptions about reality, and perhaps even with some of our Western Christian assumptions about God and his control of the world, we must at this point simply let those tensions remain. In no case should we allow ourselves to revise the data merely because they cause us discomfort.

If all this is true of the Old Testament, it is, we shall now see, much more apparent in the New Testament. The relatively marginal concept of Yahweh battling cosmic forces here takes center stage. The awareness of and appreciation for the existence, influence and significance of “the world in between” intensify significantly. With it, the understanding of evil as not coming from God’s hand but directly or indirectly originating in forces that oppose God gains greater clarity.

To this understanding of God, angels and evil in the New Testament, then, we now turn.