Mark Tabata’s Weekday Devotionals
Wednesday August 19 2026
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Job 1:6-7-Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them. 7 And the LORD said to Satan, “From where do you come?” So Satan answered the LORD and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking back and forth on it.”
In the Book of Job, there is an interesting detail about Satan that is often overlooked in many Bible translations. Every time he is mentioned in the Hebrew language of the Book of Job, Satan is identified as “the” Satan. Some have suggested that this could mean that this person identified in the opening chapters (and incidentally in the end of the Book under the name Leviathan) is not actually talking about the person that we know of by the name “Satan” from the New Testament. Instead, it is often argued that the person identified as “the Satan” is a godly angel of the Lord who serves God as a type of prosecuting attorney.
What shall we make of this?
Let’s study.
Throughout the Greek Old Testament of Job, “the Satan” is translated with the word “diablos,” which is the Greek word for the being we know of as Satan. The word “Satan” simply means one who is an accuser.
Before addressing these issues regarding the identity of hasatan, it will be helpful to briefly consider the root of satan in the OT. In Hebrew, satan generally refers to an accuser, often an adversary, enemy, or slanderer (noun), or one who opposes or accuses (verb), as in a legal context.88 Job 1–2 and Zechariah 3 are the only two OT passages where hasatan (satan with the article) appears. However, the root of satan appears thirty-three times in twenty-eight OT verses (in noun and verb forms).…Notably, the LXX consistently translates hasatan as diabolos with the article, which always refers to the devil in the NT.95 The identity of hasatan does not hinge on whether hasatan is taken to be a personal name or a description of an office or function in the heavenly council or something else. It could be that a description of this agent came to later be used as the name of that agent (perhaps by the time 1 Chron. 21 was written).96 The use of the article, then, does not by itself indicate whether hasatan should be identified with the person called Satan in the NT; it might only indicate that at the time of writing, satan was not a proper name. Further, even if one takes hasatan to be playing a prosecutorial role in the heavenly council, we need not conclude that hasatan is doing so as a loyal servant of Yahweh…The text itself indicates the disposition of the satan as an opponent of Yahweh.…Further, as in NT depictions of Satan, the satan of Job possesses power to bring about calamity within specified (but dynamic) limits and demands permission to test or antagonize a servant of God. This function comports well with the NT depiction of Satan as the “ruler of this world” (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11; cf. 2 Cor. 4:4), who “prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Pet. 5:8) and who “demanded permission to sift [Peter] like wheat” (Luke 22:31). (John C. Peckham, Theodicy of Love: Cosmic Conflict and the Problem of Evil, 77-81 (Kindle Edition): Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic: emphasis added, M.T.)
Just because Satan is identified as “the” Satan throughout Job 1-2 does not demand that the Scriptures are talking about someone other than the being known as Satan throughout the Bible. Likely, Job 1-2 is simply referring to Satan’s attributes as an accuser.
Thankfully, Satan’s lies are exposed in the light of God’s Word and through the remarkable courage and perseverance of Job. Just as the patriarch eventually came to better understand and trust in the goodness of God, so we may also. Indeed, the suffering that Job endured points us to the Messiah Who came as the Mediator that he so longed for.
The most significant question, however, is the third one: what kind of Savior do we need? Or to put it another way, what kind of man does the universe need? The more I have bashed my head against the text of Job year after year, the more deeply convinced I have become that the book ultimately makes no sense without the obedience of Jesus Christ, his obedience to death on a cross. Job is not everyman; he is not even every believer. There is something desperately extreme about Job. He foreshadows one man whose greatness exceeded even Job’s, whose sufferings took him deeper than Job, and whose perfect obedience to his Father was only anticipated in faint outline by Job. The universe needed one man who would lovingly and perfectly obey his heavenly Father in the entirety of his life and death, by whose obedience the many would be made righteous (Romans 5:19). (Christopher Ash (Edited by Kent Hughes), Preaching The Word: Job, 21 (Kindle Edition); Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway)
Thank You, Lord Jesus, for being our Advocate against the accusations of the enemy. We praise You. Amen.