The Hebrew Word for “Satan” is three letters ש Shin ט Tet ן Nun ( שטן ).
This clearly means Opposer, Accuser and even Destroyer, it can be a noun for a Person or an Angel, and can be a verb. As can be seen from Numbers 22:22, where Elohim sent an Angel in the path of Balak L’Satan Lo ( in this context to oppose / to slaughter him / Be an Adversary to him).
כב וַיִּחַר-אַף אֱלֹהִים, כִּי-הוֹלֵךְ הוּא, וַיִּתְיַצֵּב מַלְאַךְ יְהוָה בַּדֶּרֶךְ, לְשָׂטָן לוֹ; וְהוּא רֹכֵב עַל-אֲתֹנוֹ, וּשְׁנֵי נְעָרָיו עִמּוֹ.
22 And God's anger was kindled because he went; and the angel of the LORD placed himself in the way for an adversary against him.--Now he was riding upon his ass, and his two servants were with him.
Another good place to look would be Zechariah 3:1-7. In these verses the Prpphet ( Nabi) is relating a vision of a heavenly court trial of the High Priest Yehoshua. Here we have a defence and a prosecution / Accuser. We see שטן mentioned as first a noun, then a verb:
Zechariah Chapter 3 זְכַרְיָה
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וַיַּרְאֵנִי, אֶת-יְהוֹשֻׁעַ הַכֹּהֵן הַגָּדוֹל, עֹמֵד, לִפְנֵי מַלְאַךְ יְהוָה; וְהַשָּׂטָן עֹמֵד עַל-יְמִינוֹ, לְשִׂטְנוֹ. |
1 And he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, and Satan (accuser/ Prosecution)standing at his right hand to accuse ( Satan) him. |
If you look at the Hebrew you will see the root word being used as accuser ( noun) then as accusing ( verb) Yehoshua the High priest. At this time, ( around 519 B.C.E. ) the high priest had children who were married to women forbidden to them, and many of his generation had taken foreign wives without proper conversion. (Ezra 10:18) They repented, and the Priests divorced their wives.
We need to put Job into Context as well. Eyob /Job was considered a righteous man as mentioned in Yechezkiel / Ezekiel 14: 12-21. In these verses Noah, Daniel, and Job would have been only righteous enough to save their own selves from destruction, but not their families or the community at large ( speaking in terms of the pending destruction of the First Temple due to the wickedness of that generation at large). While this is surprising in terms of Noah, in the case of Job it is exactly what happened to him, he lost all his family! Here Elohim himself showes he is the ultimate Judge.
In the Book of Job itself, it is clear Elohim gave power to the Accuser שטן to test Job, to see if everything was taken from him, would he curse Elohim? A test he passed. In Job 1:1-20 we see Satan is no “fallen Angel” but an accuser in the heavenly court, appears before Elohim, and needs Elohim for permission to do anything:
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11 But put forth Thy hand now, and touch all that he hath, surely he will blaspheme Thee to Thy face.' |
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יב וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֶל-הַשָּׂטָן, הִנֵּה כָל-אֲשֶׁר-לוֹ בְּיָדֶךָ--רַק אֵלָיו, אַל-תִּשְׁלַח יָדֶךָ; וַיֵּצֵא, הַשָּׂטָן, מֵעִם, פְּנֵי יְהוָה. |
12 And the LORD said unto Satan: 'Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thy hand.' So Satan went forth from the presence of the LORD. |
So too in Isiah / Yishiah chapter 14 verses 4-27, this is the verse most often quoted to “prove” that Satan שטן is some kind of “ fallen angel”...but reading from verse one you see this refers ONLY to the King of Babylonia, and Satan is not mentioned at all, only that the King of Babylonia would fall, just as the other kingdoms Babylonia destroyed in earlier times.
“4 that thou shalt take up this parable against the king of Babylon, and say: How hath the oppressor ceased! the exactress of gold ceased!” Issiah 14:4
Please Note: In the link below to a 1917 Jewish publication Society Hebrew-English Bible; the word שְׁאוֹל in verses 9-14 is translated as “Nether world” in verses
However, anywhere else would be more correctly translated as a Grave. Even if it was “nether world” it would still not change the fact that we are talking about Babylon and Assyria, and not Satan.
See:
https://mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt1014.htm
So we see שטן does nothing but the will of Elohim. שטן (Satan) has no power by itself, nor is it any one entity; Understand that every Angel has a mission to carry out, then the angel takes the name of the mission. For example Raphael is not any one Angel, but any Angel sent to Heal.
For a deeper Understanding we need to look at the “Oral Tradition” that was only written down much later as the Talmud. In the Talmud, Bava Batra 16 a-b ( Rabbi) Reish Lakish says: hu satan, hu yetzer ha-ra, hu malakh ha-mavet — the satan of the Iyov story, the evil inclination, the angel of death are all one and the same.
Yehuda ben Betzalel Loew, ( aka the MaHaRaL of Prague, 1525-1609 C.E.) suggests that this can be understood as a statement of the different manifestations of evil in the world. The evil that operates within every human soul (the yetzer ha-ra) is the very thing that plays the role of prosecutor against the person (the satan), which is ultimately the evil force that destroys life (the malakh ha-mavet).
We are on this planet to prove ourselves worthy of returning to Elohim. If we did not have an evil (aka animal) inclination, we would would be like angels ourselves, and there would be no test to pass. So when we sin we make a “Satan” (accuser / opposer / Destroyer) as we bring ourselves and the world closer to destruction, both spiritually and physically.