In the Hebrew Bible, as in mainstream Judaism to this day, Satan never appears as Western Christendom has come to know him, as the leader of an “evil empire,” an army of hostile spirits who make war on God and humankind alike. As he first appears in the Hebrew Bible, Satan is not necessarily evil, much less opposed to God. On the contrary, he appears in the book of Numbers and in Job as one of God’s obedient servants–a messenger, or angel, a word that translates the Hebrew term for messenger (mal’āk) into Greek (angelos). In Hebrew, the angels were often called “sons of God” (benē ‘elōhīm), and were envisioned as the hierarchical ranks of a great army, or the staff of a royal court.

In biblical sources the Hebrew term the satan describes an adversarial role. It is not the name of a particular character. Although Hebrew storytellers as early as the sixth century B.C.E. occasionally introduced a supernatural character whom they called the satan, what they meant was any one of the angels sent by God for the specific purpose of blocking or obstructing human activity. The root śțn means “one who opposes, obstructs, or acts as adversary.” (The Greek term diabolos, later translated “devil,” literally means “one who throws something across one’s path.”)

The satan‘s presence in a story could help account for unexpected obstacles or reversal of fortune. Hebrew storytellers often attribute misfortune to human sin. Some, however, also invoke this supernatural character, the satan, who, by God’s own order or permission, blocks or opposes human plans and desires. But this messenger is not necessarily malevolent. God sends him, like the angel of death, to perform a specific task, although one that humans may not appreciate; as the literary scholar Neil Forsyth says of the satan, “If the path is bad, the obstruction is good.” Thus the satan may simply have been sent by the Lord to protect a person from worse harm.