Who Is Satan
The short answer
The question "who is Satan" often assumes the Bible opens with a fully formed devil, horns and all. It doesn't. The name itself is a job description: in Hebrew, "satan" means accuser. In the book of Job, "the satan" appears among the "sons of God" in the heavenly council (Job 1:6), functioning something like a prosecutor—testing whether Job's faithfulness is genuine. Zechariah 3 shows a similar scene, with the satan standing ready to accuse the high priest Joshua.
But across scripture the role darkens. The accuser stops merely reporting wrongdoing and starts provoking it—luring people into the very sins he can then hold against them. By the time of the Gospels, this figure stands in open opposition to God's purposes, working to derail Israel and to turn Jesus himself away from his calling. The tempter in the wilderness is the accuser gone rogue: no longer an officer of the court, but an enemy of the whole rescue plan.
Revelation widens the lens further. There, Satan's signature activity is deceiving the nations—not just whispering to individuals, but warping entire peoples and social structures. That's a crucial shift in scale. It means evil in the Bible isn't only a personal problem; whole systems can be captured by lies, and the people inside them are victims as well as perpetrators. So when Revelation 20 pictures the "binding of Satan," the point isn't only that individual temptation ends. It's that nations and institutions are finally set free from deception—healed, and gathered in as God's people. Who is Satan, then? A name that means accuser, a role that curdled into rebellion, and a power whose defeat scripture describes as cosmic, communal, and ultimately certain.
What scholars say
These two excerpts answer the question at two different scales: N. T. Wright traces how the accuser of Job and Zechariah oversteps his role and becomes an open rebel against God's saving plan, while M. Eugene Boring shows Revelation treating Satan's chief work as the deception of whole nations—so that his binding frees not just individuals but social structures.
“We must remind ourselves who or what ‘the satan’ is in Jewish thinking. The word ‘satan’ literally means ‘accuser’, and ‘the satan’ appears in scripture as the director of public prosecutions in God’s heavenly council (Job 1.6–12; 2.1–7; Zechariah 3.1–2). At some point he seems to have overstepped the role, not only bringing unfounded accusations, but inciting people to do things for which he can then accuse them. Finally, in flagrant rebellion against God and his plans of salvation for the world, the satan seeks to pervert, distort and overthrow Israel, the chosen bearers of God’s promise, and to turn aside from his task Israel’s true Messiah , the bringer of fulfilment. He has gained enormous power because the world in general, and Israel’s leaders too, have been tricked by his cunning.”
“Here, he singles out “deceiving the nations” as the work of Satan in this world. The devil’s work is not merely tempting individuals to sin. (See the “Reflection: Interpreting Revelation’s Satan Language.” ) “The nations” is in John’s language the same as “the Gentiles,” “the pagans,” the “heathen.” They are destined to be “healed” and considered as people of God (see 21:3; 22:2). Just as individuals are part of God’s good creation, and therefore not inherently evil or rebellious but have been victimized by the evil structures in which their lives are enmeshed, so the nations themselves are not only the perpetrators of evil but its victims. With the “binding of Satan” this deceitful activity is brought to an end, and not only individual persons but, above all, national and social structures get to breathe the free air of an undemonized existence.”
What it means for you
Knowing that "satan" means accuser changes how you hear the inner voice that keeps a running tally of your failures. Scripture consistently treats relentless accusation—especially the kind that provokes the very failure it condemns—as the enemy's voice, not God's.
The Revelation picture adds a second habit worth forming: look for deception at the level of systems, not just individual choices. If nations and structures can be captured by lies, then part of faithful living is asking what falsehoods your own culture has absorbed—and remembering that the people caught inside those systems are often victims too, awaiting the same healing you are.
In context
Satan's story unfolds across the whole canon rather than in one passage. Job 1–2 and Zechariah 3 show "the satan" as an accusing figure in God's heavenly council. In the Gospels—notably the temptation narratives, where N. T. Wright's comment sits—he appears as the tempter opposing Jesus' mission. Revelation 20, the setting of M. Eugene Boring's comment, pictures Satan bound so that he can no longer deceive the nations, just before the book's closing vision of a healed creation in chapters 21–22.