Of course, the title should be something like, “The Fall of the Angel Who Came to be Satan,” but that and other more accurate titles are too cumbersome. The question is: who is Satan, and when and how did he become “Satan” (Adversary, Accuser) and the “devil” (slanderer)? By my count, the name “Satan” only appears 18 times in the Old Testament, 14 times of which are in the book of Job (Job 1:6–9, 12; 2:1–4, 6–7), where “Satan” makes his first named appearance. However, the book of Revelation makes it clear to anyone who might doubt that he first appeared to man in the Garden: “So the great dragon was cast out, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.” (Revelation 12:9).

Who is he? He is an angel who fell into sin and became an adversary to God and all that is good, as Jesus said to the Jews: “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his ownresources, for he is a liar and the father of it.” (John 8:44). In this verse, Jesus is obviously alluding to the story of the fall of Adam and the woman (she is not named “Eve” until after the fall) and indicting the devil as a murderer and liar, for he deceived Adam and the woman unto their death.

The sudden appearance of the serpent/dragon in Genesis 3 surprises the reader — in Hebrew serpent and dragon is the same word, but in Greek two different words, which is why John gives us both labels in Revelation 12. No explanation for this intruder is given in the context, but the continued importance of the serpent/dragon comes to emphatic statement in the curse pronounced upon him, making him a profoundly significant character in the Biblical worldview.

So the LORD God said to the serpent:
“Because you have done this,
You are cursed more than all cattle,
And more than every beast of the field;
On your belly you shall go,
And you shall eat dust
All the days of your life.
And I will put enmity
Between you and the woman,
And between your seed and her seed;
He shall bruise your head,
And you shall bruise his heel.” (Genesis 3:14-15)

The history of the world is prophesied to be the history of spiritual warfare between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent/dragon, culminating in the victory of the Seed of the woman. This was a promise for Adam and the woman because it meant that they and their race would not actually die on the day they ate the fruit — not because God rescinded the curse, but because He provided a substitute. It was a curse for the serpent/dragon because it meant he was doomed to fight a war that he would certainly loose. He sought to kill Adam and the woman, but only actually killed himself and anyone foolish enough to follow him.

Where did this most important Biblical character come from? We don’t have a narrative answer to this question. There is no “story” of the creation and fall of Satan with Satan as the main character. Therefore, we have to put together hints and suggestions from various passages and engage in godly speculation. The place to begin might be the book of Job, which shows him coming with the “sons of God” to present himself before Yahweh indicating that he himself is one of the angels appearing in God’s court, where he seems to be a central figure (Job 1:6-12).

Second, angels, including the one who became “Satan,” must have been created on day one at the very beginning when God created “the heavens and the earth,” in that order. The book of Job tells us that the “sons of God shouted for joy” when God laid the foundations of the earth (Job 38:4-7). They were watching and praising God for the next six days as God created the earth and filled it with wonderful creatures. Of course, this would have included the finale — the creation of Adam and the woman.

Third, at the end of the sixth day, “God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). This means that there was no fall of Satan or angels up to this point. At the end of God’s six day creation work, all was good — nothing but peace, harmony, and love. The fall of Satan, in other words, was apparently not before the fall of Adam and the woman.

Fourth, this all implies that the character who is introduced so suddenly in Genesis 3, the serpent/dragon, probably sinned with Adam and the woman. His fall and theirs coincided. How did he sin? To answer that, we have to ask why he appeared to Adam and the woman to begin with. The answer must be that since he was an angel, he, like all angels, was created to serve man (Hebrews 1:14). How serve man? Though the text is not explicit, considering where and when he appeared, the serpent/dragon must have been sent as a private tutor to Adam and the woman to lead them to understand good and evil. But when he saw them and actually stood before them, he despised them as far inferior to himself (cf. 1 Timothy 3:6). He rejected God’s commission and turned against God and them. When he decided to tempt rather than teach, the great angel fell.

Most of the speculation above is common in church history and Biblical interpretation, though elements of it are not.

However, after the introduction to the serpent/dragon in Genesis 3 as a profoundly important figure for all history, we are surprised again because he seems to have disappeared from the story. There is not another mention of him in the Pentateuch and very few references in the rest of the Old Testament. It is rather odd that a character so important to the Biblical story, one who is foundational to the whole history of man, should disappear from the narrative as suddenly as he appeared.

What happened? Well, careful attention to the curse makes it clear that his disappearance is only apparent. The curse on Satan was that his “seed” and the seed of the woman would be in perpetual warfare. That warfare begins in earnest in Genesis 4 with the story of Cain and Abel. God warned Cain that “sin” was “crouching at the door,” so he needed to master it (4:7). The “sin” that is personified here as desiring Cain has a distinctly reptilian odor. And so it goes throughout the stories in Genesis, over and over, powerful men appear and seek to ruin the seed of the woman. In this way, the serpent/dragon haunts the unfolding narrative through his seed, who hate and lust to destroy the God-promised Seed that would destroy them and their master, the serpent/dragon himself. Nimrod, Pharaoh, Abimelech, Nahash, Agag and all the other anti-God kings and great men belong to the seed of the serpent/dragon and owe their spiritual power and allegiance to him.

In other words, just as we see Messianic typology in almost every story of a righteous prophet, priest, or king — Jesus is the true son of David, the prophet like Moses, the true Joseph, one like Jeremiah and Ezekiel, etc. — we should also see anti-Messiah typology almost everywhere. Thus, just as the seed of the woman is manifested in every righteous man, the seed of the serpent/dragon is manifested in every evil ruler and oppressor, every demonically inspired man or woman in the whole Biblical story. This is the right way to read the unfolding story of the two seeds and to re-read the Old Testament in the light of the New.

Keeping this anti-Messiah typology in mind might help us in reading two very mysterious passages in the Old Testament: Isaiah 14:12-21 and Ezekiel 28:11-19. On the surface each of these passages is addressed to a wicked but powerful ruler — the king Babylon in Isaiah and the king of Tyre in Ezekiel. But included in the taunt against the kind of Babylon and the lamentation for the king of Tyre is language that seems to go beyond what might be said about a mere evil king. Some commentators see the language as borrowing from ancient Near Eastern myths.¹ James Jordan proposed that the king of Tyre in Ezekiel is actually the Jewish high priest² and Peter Leithart suggests that Ezekiel points “more deeply to Adam himself.”³

Jewish Rabbis also “connected the text with Adam” but “the majority of rabbinic literature concerns itself not with Adam’s downfall but with his superabundant wisdom, righteousness, and glorious appearance prior to this.” So, who is it who fell and sinned? “Despite being famed as a hero of Israel for the assistance he gave to Solomon in building the Temple, these rabbinic traditions mark Hiram out as a deplorable example of hubris — guilty of self-glorification to the point of blasphemously claiming divinity for himself — comparable to the bitterest enemies of Israel’s past . . .”⁴

By contrast, many of the church fathers, including Augustine, saw in these passages an allusion to Satan.⁵ Isaiah and Ezekiel, while speaking of earthly kings might also address or allude to the dark power behind them — “Lucifer, son of the morning” and “the anointed cherub” whose heart became proud because of his beauty and who was filled with violence — referring to Satan’s pride and fall at the time he decided to tempt Adam and the woman. These evil kings, like all others, are the seed of the serpent/dragon and the lust of the serpent/dragon they also pursued (cf. John 8:44).

Israel’s first king, Saul, illustrates the fact that the various allusions overlap. Saul was definitely, as Jordan has expounded, another Adam, whose fall repeated the original fall.⁶ But there is no doubt that Saul, like Pharaoh, was inspired by Satan to seek the death of the seed of the woman, David, and like Pharaoh, he was devoted to that murderous enterprise with demonic passion. Saul’s fall, like the fall of all kings and leaders, imitates the fall of Satan. Allusions to Adam or the king of Tyre do not exclude allusions to the fall of Satan, for all of the seed of the serpent/dragon — great or small — do the deeds of their father (John 8:44).

Ralph Smith is pastor of Mitaka Evangelical Church.

^[i] John Day, Yahweh and the Gods and Godesses of Canaan (London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002), pp. 166-84. Day’s discussion is full and detailed. After discussing the mythological language he sees as the background for Isaiah 14:12-15, Day goes on to propose his own interpretation: “I shall now propose a view never previously discussed, so far as I am aware, that in the passage with which we are here particularly concerned, Isa. 14.12-15, the attempted usurpation of Zaphon is not simply a symbol of the king’s hubris in general, as is usually supposed, but specifically reflects Nebuchadrezzar’s capture of Jerusalem and destruction of the temple in 586 BCE.” p. 183. Day believes that the passage in Ezekiel borrows from a different and unrelated myth and argues against those who see the same myth behind both passages. On Ezekiel, Robert Jenson suggested, “But throughout Israel’s and the church’s history, broken pieces of mythic narrative have provided dramatic language with which to evoke an absolute and continuing formative beginning.” Excerpt From: Jenson, Robert W. “Ezekiel.” Apple Books.

1. John Day, Yahweh and the Gods and Godesses of Canaan (London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002), pp. 166-84. Day’s discussion is full and detailed. After discussing the mythological language he sees as the background for Isaiah 14:12-15, Day goes on to propose his own interpretation: “I shall now propose a view never previously discussed, so far as I am aware, that in the passage with which we are here particularly concerned, Isa. 14.12-15, the attempted usurpation of Zaphon is not simply a symbol of the king’s hubris in general, as is usually supposed, but specifically reflects Nebuchadrezzar’s capture of Jerusalem and destruction of the temple in 586 BCE.” p. 183. Day believes that the passage in Ezekiel borrows from a different and unrelated myth and argues against those who see the same myth behind both passages. On Ezekiel, Robert Jenson suggested, “But throughout Israel’s and the church’s history, broken pieces of mythic narrative have provided dramatic language with which to evoke an absolute and continuing formative beginning.” Excerpt From: Jenson, Robert W. “Ezekiel.” Apple Books. ↩︎
2. James B. Jordan, “The Abomination of Desolation Part 1: An Overview” in Biblical Horizons, No. 25, May, 1991, “The High Priest, described in Ezekiel 28:11-19 as the true spiritual King of Tyre, is called a cherub.” ↩︎
3. Peter J. Leithart, Revelation 12-22 (London: Bloomsbury, T & T Clark, 2018), p. 33. ↩︎
4. See Hector M. Patmore, Adam, Satan, and the King of Tyre The Interpretation of Ezekiel 28:11-19 in Late Antiquity (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2012). p. 212. ↩︎
5. Ibid. ↩︎
6. James B. Jordan, “Three ‘Falls’ and Three Heroes,” Biblical Horizons, No. 22, February 1991. ↩︎