True, but his comment is largely irrelevant to the question at hand. Heiser correctly notes that in most instances where the word satan shows up in the Hebrew Bible, it doesn’t refer the devil. There is no particular reason why the author of Job would need to make this connection. Heiser comments that the book of Job does not connect ha satan to the serpent of Genesis 3. In Germany in the 1940s, someone who spoke of the Führer (German title for “Leader”) would have been employing a title rather than a name to designate Adolf Hitler, but that doesn’t necessitate that the speaker was referring to two different entities. ResponseĮven if we grant that ha satan in Job is a title rather than a name, this does not necessarily entail that the being referred to is a different being from Satan.
Thus, in Job, ha satan cannot be a name, but must be a title. Heiser asserts that personal names in Hebrew do not include a definite article ha (“the”). What arguments does Heiser present for this alternative view of “the adversary” in Job? 1. He’s doing the job assigned to him by God.” In other words, ha satan is a member in good standing among God’s various heavenly attendants, and functions in a role that is something like a prosecuting attorney (pages 56-58). In his very popular book, The Unseen Realm, Heiser asserts that ha satan is a title (not a name) that means “adversary,” “prosecutor” or “challenger.” He claims that the title “speaks of an official legal function within a ruling body-in this case, Yahweh’s council.” He adds about ha satan, “He is, so to speak, Yahweh’s eyes and ears on the ground, reporting what he has seen and heard.” Heiser claims that ha satan is “not a villain.
Heiser (along with some other recent Old Testament specialists) claims that the character designated as ha satan (הַשָּׂטָן ) in the book of Job is not the same being we know as Satan or the devil in the New Testament. Such critique is necessary if we who love the Bible are to “handle accurately the Word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15). Rather, this post should be viewed as one student of the Bible analyzing and gently criticizing one particular idea that has been widely disseminated by another student of the Bible.
What I intend to communicate in this post should not be viewed as a general criticism of all of Heiser’s work, nor do I mean to engage his publications broadly in what is after all only a blog post (nor have I read all that he has written). But his view of the heavenly being labeled ha satan (Hebrew for “the satan”) in the book of Job is probably wrong. Michael Heiser has done some good academic work during his career as an Old Testament scholar, and I will not hesitate to draw upon his insights in the future.
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