The Bible Nerd

My son decided last night to ask me a Bible question.  I was so stoked that he cared about the Bible and had a question for me, that I couldn’t wait to hear what that question would be.  So, he turns to me and says, “Wasn’t Satan the music minister in heaven?”  I was expecting either the humorous, “Do pets go to heaven?” or perhaps the more serious, “Can we trust the Bible Dad?”  Instead, I got one of the all time urban legends of Christianity.  This falls somewhere in between the Nephilim and UFO’s in the Bible.

The bottom line is that the Bible simply doesn’t say much about Satan before his fall.  In fact, the Old Testament has almost nothing to say about him at all.  That is where the true rub is.  We want to know.  We must know.  In that curiosity, we must be careful, however, not to read to much into certain Scriptures.  After studying the Bible at school for 9 months, I still could not figure out where the music minister thing came from.  Then, I was preparing to teach the book of Ezekiel, and stumbled upon a commentator who said that some people have said that chapter 28:11-19 is speaking about Satan. I was puzzled by this, because in 28:11 Ezekiel tells us who this passage is about, “Son of man, raise a lamentation overthe king of Tyre, and say to him, Thus says the Lord God”.  It seemed clear to me, so why Satan, and still where is the music deal?

As you read the passage, God uses figurative language to describe the position of power God gave the king, the king’s pride, and then his eventual fall.  In verse 13, he says of the king, “You were in Eden, in the garden of God.” Ah ha, here is the first thing people point to as proof it is talking about Satan.  The king of Tyre wasn’t in Eden, but Satan was!  The second piece of evidence they give is in verse 14, “You were a guardian cherub, I placed you; you were on the holy mountain of God;”  Ok, we know for sure that the king of Tyre wasn’t a cherub, and definitely wasn’t on the mountain of God.

The problem with these interpretations is that they completely ignore the type of literature that we are dealing with.  Ezekiel is prophetic literature, which heavily utilizes Hebrew poetry, imagery, figurative language, and allusions to get their meaning across.  In chapter 31:8-9, Ezekiel tells us that Assyria was a tree in the garden of God.  I am pretty sure this is figurative since the nation of Assyria was not a tree.  In 29:3, he calls the Pharaoh, king of Egypt, a “great dragon”.  Describing the king of Tyre as a cherub is figurative language to help the reader see that God gave the king a privileged position of power just like a cherub.  The garden of Eden language also points to the blessing God gave the king in Tyre and his kingship.  However, the pride of the king will bring his downfall as verse 17 says “I exposed you before kings”.

Still waiting for the music deal?  In verse 13, Ezekiel describes the ornate dress and opulent jewels adorning the king.  In the list is “in gold were your settings and your engravings.”  Most translations put a footnote by “engravings” and say that the meaning of the Hebrew word is unclear.  When they translated the King James, they gave it their best guess as “tabrets and pipes”, thinking that musical instruments were being described.  The truth is that scholars really don’t know what these Hebrew words are.  So there you are.  In a passage that doesn’t seem to be talking about Satan at all, using Hebrew words that even scholars admit have unknown meaning, we have the whole teaching about Satan being music minister in heaven.

Normally, I try to stay inductive and give options of interpretation.  You have to think for yourself.  But with this urban legend about Satan, I can only offer one humble conclusion:  lame.  The truth is that the Old Testament only mentions Satan in Genesis 3, Job 1 – 3, 1 Chronicles 21, and Zechariah 3.  That’s all, and none of them mention his origin or describe his fall in any detail.  They just tell us that he is a liar, deceiver, accuser, and all around bad angel who tries to bring man down with him.  That simply is not enough detail for us, so we choose to listen to urban legends rather than study the Bible for ourselves.  The whole time, Satan is laughing himself silly.  Would he rather be just a rebellious angel who can only do what God allows him to, has to take the form of lowly snakes, and gets rebuked by God OR would he rather be a beautiful cherub, the music minister of heaven, ascending to the throne of God, and basically an equal with God?

I end this post with the picture in Revelation 12.  God doesn’t even come and fight Satan himself.  Satan is already defeated by Jesus at the cross, and God simply sends Michael and a few angels to toss him out on his rear.  Clean up on aisle 7!