StrongerBible

satan

שָׂטַן

HebrewH7853“accuse, oppose, ...”

Appears 6 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Psa 38:20(21)Psa 71:13Psa 109:4Psa 109:20Psa 109:29Zec 3:1
Root family
Word studyResearch-gradesah-TAHNverb

What satan means

to stand against someone as their adversary, whether by open hostility or by bringing a charge against them

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyContested

This word describes taking up a position against a person. It is not a private feeling of dislike but something done out in the open, and in every one of its six uses the target knows he is being stood against. The noun built from it, the word for an adversary (שָׂטָן), names the person who does this; this verb names the doing of it.

The six places it appears fall into two settings. In two psalms the opposition is plain enmity: people repay the speaker's kindness with harm and hunt him down. In the other four the setting is a court. Psalm 109 asks that an adversary be posted at the accused man's right hand, the spot where a prosecutor stood, and the same picture appears in Zechariah 3, where a figure stands at the right hand of the high priest to press a charge against him and God overrules the charge.

That courtroom scene is where the later idea of Satan starts, but the later idea is not yet here. In five of the six verses the ones doing the opposing are human enemies of the person praying. In Zechariah the accuser is a member of God's own court carrying out a role inside it, and he loses the case.

Nuances

1ato set yourself against someone as an enemy: to be hostile toward a person and act on it
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong
Psa 38:20(21)Psa 71:13
1bto oppose someone in a legal case: to stand against them as their accuser and press a charge
Psa 109:4Psa 109:20Psa 109:29Zec 3:1

What scholars say about satan

The verb שׂטן occurs six times, all in the qal (Pss 38:21; 71:13; 109:4, 20, 29 in Hebrew numbering; Zech 3:1), alongside the noun שָׂטָן (27x) and שִׂטְנָה (Gen 26:21; Ezra 4:6). BDB glosses it "be or act as an adversary, resist, oppose"; HALOT and DCH register both a general hostility sense and a forensic sense, DCH noting the shared collocation עָמַד עַל־יְמִינוֹ at Ps 109:6 and Zech 3:1, the standing place of the prosecutor in Israelite legal procedure (so Hamilton in TWOT). Wanke in TDOT is more cautious, taking the root as "be hostile to, treat as an adversary" and the noun as "opponent in legal matters" rather than "accuser" strictly. The etymology is unresolved: an Akkadian šaṭānu "to oppose" is not securely attested in CAD, and Arabic šayṭān and Ethiopic sayṭān are now generally treated as loans from Northwest Semitic rather than independent cognates, so Day, Wanke, and DDD² all build the semantics from inner-Hebrew usage alone. The live debate concerns whether "accuse" is ever the correct gloss: Stokes argues in JBL and in his 2019 monograph that both verb and noun denote physical attack, the courtroom figure being an executioner rather than a prosecutor, while Day's forensic reading in legal contexts remains the majority position among commentators on Job and Zechariah, and Silverman faults Stokes for insufficient engagement with the legal parallels. On Zech 3:1, Meyers and Meyers, Petersen, and Boda read the figure as a functionary of the divine court whose accusation is disqualified rather than a demonized adversary; the LXX renders לְשִׂטְנוֹ there with the double gloss τοῦ ἀντικεῖσθαι αὐτῷ.

Where scholars disagree about satan

Whether this verb ever means "to accuse" in the Hebrew Bible, or only ever means to attack a person physically. The question decides how the four courtroom occurrences are read, and with them how the adversary figure of Zechariah 3 is understood.

  • majorityIn legal settings such as Psalm 109 and Zechariah 3 the verb denotes accusation, and elsewhere it denotes political or personal hostility.; Peggy L. Day, An Adversary in Heaven: śāṭān in the Hebrew Bible (HSM 43; Scholars Press, 1988), 17-43, 128; C. Breytenbach and P. L. Day, "Satan," in Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, 2nd ed., 726-32; Victor P. Hamilton, "śāṭan," in Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, §2252
  • minorityThe verb denotes physical attack rather than accusation, and in a courtroom setting the adversary is the one who carries out the punishment rather than the one who brings the charge.; Ryan E. Stokes, "Satan, YHWH's Executioner," Journal of Biblical Literature 133/2 (2014): 251-70; Ryan E. Stokes, The Satan: How God's Executioner Became the Enemy (Eerdmans, 2019)
  • minorityThe root means to be hostile to or to treat as an adversary, and even in legal settings the word names the opponent in the litigation rather than an accuser specifically.; G. Wanke, "שׂטן," in Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, vol. XIV, 73-78
In-depth research

This is a research paper, so it may be hard to read without scholarly background. It is useful if you want to dig even deeper into this word.

Sources

  • BDB, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, 966-67, s.v. שׂטןlexicon
  • Koehler-Baumgartner, HALOT 3:1316-17, s.v. שׂטןlexicon
  • David J. A. Clines, ed., Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, vol. 8, 148-50lexicon
  • G. Wanke, "שׂטן," in Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, vol. XIV, 73-78theological-dictionary
  • Victor P. Hamilton, "śāṭan," in Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, §2252theological-dictionary
  • Peggy L. Day, An Adversary in Heaven: śāṭān in the Hebrew Bible (HSM 43; Scholars Press, 1988), 17-43, 128monograph
  • C. Breytenbach and P. L. Day, "Satan," in Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, 2nd ed., 726-32theological-dictionary
  • Ryan E. Stokes, "Satan, YHWH's Executioner," Journal of Biblical Literature 133/2 (2014): 251-70article
  • Ryan E. Stokes, The Satan: How God's Executioner Became the Enemy (Eerdmans, 2019)monograph
  • J. M. Silverman, "Vetting the Priest in Zechariah 3: The Satan Between Divine and Achaemenid Administrations," Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 14 (2014), art. 6article
  • Carol L. Meyers and Eric M. Meyers, Haggai, Zechariah 1-8 (AB 25B; Doubleday, 1987), 183-84commentary
  • David L. Petersen, Haggai and Zechariah 1-8 (OTL; Westminster, 1984), 189-90commentary
  • Mark J. Boda, The Book of Zechariah (NICOT; Eerdmans, 2016), on 3:1-2commentary

AI-generated word study · claude-opus-4-8

All attested forms of שָׂטַן

qal participle m p construct

שׂוֹטְנַ, שֹׂטְנַ, שֹׂטְנֵי

Psa 109:29, Psa 109:20, Psa 71:13

qal imperfect 3mp

יִשְׂטְנוּ

Psa 38:20, Psa 109:4

qal infinitive-construct construct

שִׂטְנ

Zec 3:1