IV. Old Testament Demonology

It has been .pointed out that Satan appears only three times in the Old Testament and that unclean spirits appear only once. The three appearances of Satan take place not in hell, but in heaven. The Old Testament conception of Satan is not that of the ruler of an underworld diametrically opposed to God, but instead of a "fallen angel" who still appears to be on speaking terms with God:

Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them.(14)
The idea of evil spirits in the form of serpents is not an uncommon one in primitive demonologies, and Numbers 21:6 seems to show the traces of ceremonies to ward them off:
And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died. ..and the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole; and it shall come to pass, that everyone that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live.
The serpent of Genesis 2, who tempts Eve just as Satan does Jesus, was not equated with Satan until after the time of Jesus.

In Isaiah the vengeance of God will turn cities into waste lands filled with evil spirits. Concerning the coming destruction of Babylon, the King James translation reads as follows:
But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there: and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there. And the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant palaces.(15)
The quotations above throw little light on New Testament demonology. There are no references to evil spirits causing madness and dumbness, no rites of exorcism, no hell ruled over by Satan and his angels, no apocalyptic prediction of the overthrow of Satan by the coming Messiah.

There is one reference to the exorcism of an evil spirit in the Old Testament, but surprisingly enough the evil spirit is sent from God:
And it came to pass, when the evil spirit from God was upon Saul, that David took an harp, and played with his hand: so Saul was refreshed and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him"(16)
God speaks with Satan about Job; God sends the evil spirit upon Saul; God tells Moses how to combat the fiery serpents; God turns offending cities into the habitations of evil spirits. This is a remarkable illustration of how the Old Testament reconciles an inevitable recurrence of demonology with the requirement that there be only one God. If there are such things as evil spirits, then they must be directly answerable to God.

***************

14. Job 1:6.
15. Isaiah 13:21.
16. I Samuel 16:23.

previous section ..|.. back to contents page ..|.. next section