Halloween is just around the corner. As I decorate my house with hideous diabolical symbols, my thoughts return to a book historian Albert Hernandez and myself wrote a few years back, titled “The Quest for the Historical Satan.”

Śātān appears nine times in the Hebrew Bible as a noun and six times as a verb. The word signifies “adversary(ies)” or “accuser(s)” and means “oppose,” “accuse” and/or “slander.”

Anyone or any creature can be a satan, an adversary. King David (1 Sam. 29:4) and even God’s messenger (Num. 22:22) were referred to as śātān. In time, śātān was personified, appearing 18 times throughout the Hebrew Bible, although limited to only three books (1 Chronicles, Zechariah, and Job).

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