Satan Quotes in the Bible, by The Religion Dictionary. We’ve been looking through the dictionary, and it turns out that The Devil is mentioned a lot more than we expected. In fact, he’s been around since just about the start of all time. Let’s take a look at some of the most interesting quotes about satan from the bible
If you’re anything like me, then you hate religion’s dominance over modern religions. Religion and politics are two sensitive subjects that you must avoid for fear of being cast into the outer darkness. It will have made so much sense to have done this blog post on my site, given that I am a Satanist. As far as I’m concerned, the slanderous misrepresentation of Satanism is a grievous wound on humanity’s sheer cheek. will give you all you want on Satan’s quotes in the Bible and much more.
Satan Quotes In The Bible
The Devil in the Bible
Although the Devil is present in some form in many religions and can be compared to some mythological gods, he’s arguably best known for his role in Christianity. In modern biblical translations, the Devil is the adversary of God and God’s people.
It’s commonly thought that the Devil first showed up in the Bible in the book of Genesis as the serpent who convinced Eve—who then convinced Adam—to eat forbidden fruit from the “tree of the knowledge” in the Garden of Eden. As the story goes, after Eve fell for the Devil’s conniving ways, she and Adam were banished from the Garden of Eden and doomed to mortality.
Many Christians believe the Devil was once a beautiful angel named Lucifer who defied God and fell from grace. This assumption that he is a fallen angel is often based the book of Isaiah in the Bible which says, “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations.”
Devil Names
Some biblical scholars, however, claim Lucifer isn’t a proper name but a descriptive phrase meaning “morning star.” Still, the name stuck and the Devil is often referred to as Lucifer.
Names for the Devil are numerous: Besides Lucifer, he may be referred to as the Prince of Darkness, Beelzebub, Mephistopheles, Lord of the Flies, the Antichrist, Father of Lies, Moloch or simply Satan.
The book of Ezekiel includes another Biblical passage Christians refer to as proof of the Devil’s existence. It admonishes the greedy King of Tyre but also refers to the king as a cherub who was once in the Garden of Eden. As a result, some Bible translators believe the King of Tyre was a personification of the Devil.
The Devil make more appearances in the Bible, especially in the New Testament. Jesus and many of his apostles warned people to stay alert for the Devil’s cunning enticements that would lead them to ruin. And it was the Devil who tempted Jesus in the wilderness to “fall down and worship him” in exchange for riches and glory.
The Devil in Other Religions
Most other religions and cultures teach of an evil being who roams the earth wreaking havoc and fighting against the forces of good. In Islam, the devil is known as Shaytan and, like the Devil in Christianity, is also thought to have rebelled against God. In Judaism, Satan is a verb and generally refers to a difficulty or temptation to overcome instead of a literal being.
In Buddhism, Maara is the demon that tempted Buddha away from his path of enlightenment. Like Christianity’s Jesus resisted the Devil, Buddha also resisted temptation and defeated Maara.
In people of almost any religion or even in those who don’t follow a religion, the Devil is almost always synonymous with fear, punishment, negativity and immorality.
The Devil and Hell
Perhaps the most lasting images of the Devil are associated with Hell, which the Bible refers to as a place of everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his angels. Still, the Bible doesn’t state the Devil will reign over hell, just that he’ll eventually be banished there.
1. “Satan” means “adversary.”
“Satan” is a transliteration of a Hebrew word, which means “adversary,” or “opponent.” The word satan is used multiple times in the Old Testament, often referring to anyone who is blocking or challenging someone else. For example:
- The angel of the Lord opposes Balaam (Numbers 21:22–32).
- Two of David’s bloodthirsty warriors, Joab and Abishai, make life difficult for the king (2 Samuel 19:22).
- Solomon faces political opponents after he turns from God (1 Kings 11:14–25).
In each of these episodes, the Hebrew Bible calls these figures satan, because they are acting as adversaries.
So how did the devil get the name “Satan”?
Over the centuries between Malachi and Jesus, Jewish writers began to use this label as a name for the biggest adversary of them all: a divine being who rebelled against God in the Garden of Eden by tempting Adam and Eve to eat the forbidden fruit.
In The Unseen Realm, Dr. Michael S. Heiser says, “The dark figure of Genesis 3 was eventually thought of as the ‘mother of all adversaries,’ and so the label satan got stuck to him. He deserves it.”
2. Pride fueled the devil’s origin story.
Perhaps the last place you’d look to find information about Satan is in a list of pastoral qualities. And yet, as the apostle Paul lays out the qualities he expects of church leaders, he makes specific mention of the devil.
The apostle warns Timothy that any elder “must not be a recent convert, or he may become conceited and fall under the same judgment as the devil” (1 Timothy 3:6).
The Bible doesn’t give us a great deal of specifics when it comes to Satan’s rebellion against God. But in the passages that do seem to touch on the devil’s fall from grace, pride is a predominant theme.
Clue: Ezekiel’s oracle against the prince of Tyre
In the Old Testament, the prophet Ezekiel takes up an oracle against the human ruler of Tyre, an arrogant person smug enough to claim to be a god himself (28:2). God plans to bring this prince down a notch.
But while Ezekiel preaches against this ruler, he seems to make several allusions to a similar story on a cosmic scale. In fact, the prophet says a few things that point all the way back to the Garden of Eden:
“You were the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God […] you were anointed as a guardian cherub, for so I ordained you. You were on the holy mount of God; you walked among the fiery stones” (28:12–14).
Later in the oracle, Ezekiel tells us that this being had a pride problem similar to the prince of Tyre’s: “Your heart became proud on account of your beauty, and you corrupted your wisdom because of your splendor” (28:17).
This being is punished: he’s expelled from Eden to a new domain: earth and the underworld.
Clue: Isaiah’s parable against the king of Babylon
The prophet Isaiah compares the arrogant king of Babylon to a particularly ambitious divine being who has “fallen from heaven” (Isaiah 14:12).
This character at one point said to himself: “I will ascend to the heavens; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of Mount Zaphon. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High” (14:13–14).
Heiser notes that this passage reads like “an attempted coup in the divine council. […] He wanted to be “like the Most High” (elyon). But there can be only one of those.”
3. Satan’s domain is earth and Sheol.
In the third chapter of Genesis, the serpent persuades Adam and Eve to eat the forbidden fruit, expelling them from Eden and sealing their doom.
But although Adam and Eve are punished, Satan gets the fiercest curse from the God he rebelled against.
The Lord says to him: “Cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life” (Genesis 3:14).
What does this curse mean for Satan?
The serpent was cursed to crawl on its belly. This is strikingly similar to the fate of our villain in Ezekiel 28 and Isaiah 14, who is cast down to the ground (Ezekiel 28:8, 17; Isaiah 14:11–12, 15).
But it’s worse than just getting knocked to the ground. The prophets say this rebel was cast to ʾerets, a Hebrew term Heiser says can refer literally to the dirt and metaphorically to the underworld.
Heiser goes on to explain the serpent’s fate: “The curse also had him ‘eating dirt,’ clearly a metaphorical reference, since snakes don’t really eat dirt as food for nutrition. It isn’t part of the ‘natural snake diet.’ The point being made by the curse is that the nachash [Hebrew word translated “serpent” in our Bible], who wanted to be ‘most high,’ will be ‘most low’ instead—cast away from God and the council to earth, and even under the earth. In the underworld, the nachash is even lower than the beasts of the field. He is hidden from view and from life in God’s world. His domain is death.”
4. Satan rules the nations of the earth.
The author of 1 John states that “the whole world is under the control of the evil one” (5:19), and other passages of the New Testament specifically point to the devil’s control over the nations of the world.
For example, pay attention to Satan’s final offer as he tempts Jesus in the wilderness:
Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. “All this I will give you,” he said … (Matthew 4:8–9).
There’s no indication that Satan was bluffing here. In fact, in John’s gospel, Jesus calls him the “prince of this world” (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11).
When did Satan get so much power?
Heiser suggests that Satan accumulated this power over the time between the Tower of Babel incident and the Jesus’ ministry:
“As the original rebel, the nachash [the Hebrew word for “serpent”] of Genesis 3 (cf. Rev. 12:9) had, by New Testament times, achieved the status of the lead opposition to Yahweh. This was part of the logic of attributing the term saṭan to him as a proper personal name. Recall as well that the nachash has been cast down to the ʾerets, a term that referred not only to ‘earth’ but also the realm of the dead, Sheol.
“The ‘original rebel,’ whose domain became earth/Sheol, nachash/Satan was perceived by Second Temple and New Testament theology as primary authority over all other rebels and their domains.”
5. Satan commands his own host of demons.
By the time of Jesus’ ministry, Satan had not only attained power over all the nations of the earth, but he had also amassed a following of demons.
The Jews of Jesus’ time believed that Satan was the ruler of the demons. In fact, some even claimed that it was only by Satan’s power that Jesus could cast out demons the way he did.
But Jesus says this isn’t the case: “How can Satan drive out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand. And if Satan opposes himself and is divided, he cannot stand” (Mark 3:23–26).
Freeing people from the influence of these demons was a major part of Christ’s earthly ministry—which makes sense, as Jesus came into the world to destroy the devil’s work (1 John 3:8).
6. The Bible doesn’t say he rules ALL the demons.
Scripture doesn’t give us a cut-and-dry picture of the divine hierarchy, good or evil. So while we can assume Satan is the most prominent of God’s adversaries, we shouldn’t necessarily assume that all God’s divine opponents are under Satan’s control.
Here’s how Heiser puts it: “It is clear that Satan is leader of at least some of the powers of darkness. As the original rebel, he likely ranked first (or worst) in terms of example in the minds of ancient readers. The fact that he is the one who confronted Jesus in the desert and offered Jesus the kingdoms of the world suggests as much. “The lack of a clearly delineated hierarchy leaves the possibility that there are competing agendas in the unseen world, even where there exists the common goal of opposition to Yahweh and his people.”
7. The devil tried to make at least one deal.
Making deals with the devil is a common storytelling motif. And although the Bible doesn’t say anything about fiddles made of gold, Scripture does tell us of at least one attempted bargain Satan tried to make.
We looked at Satan’s attempts to tempt Jesus earlier in this list. Satan offered all the kingdoms of the world to Jesus.
But there was a catch: Jesus would have to bow down and worship the devil.
Lucky for us, the Son of God will not be bartered with in this way. Jesus tells the tempter, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only’” (Matthew 4:10).
Why is Jesus’ refusal to bargain important?
Heiser explains that Satan’s offer was a clever attempt to get Jesus to pay for something Satan stole. “Had Jesus given in, it would have been an acknowledgment that Satan’s permission was needed to possess the nations. It wasn’t. Satan presumed power and ownership of something that, ultimately, was not his but God’s. The messaging behind Jesus’ answer is clear: Yahweh will take the nations back by his own means in his own time. He doesn’t need them to be given away in a bargain. Jesus was loyal to his Father. Since reclaiming the nations was connected with salvation and redemption from the effects of the fall in Eden, accepting Satan’s offer would have undermined the necessity of the atonement of the cross.”
8. Satan is on the defensive
From the Garden of Eden until the time of Jesus, Satan continued to accumulate power. Like we saw earlier, he had grown powerful enough to demand that Jesus worship him in exchange for the nations Jesus had come to redeem.
But after Jesus resisted his temptations, the game changed.
In all three synoptic gospels, Jesus does three things after his trial in the wilderness:
- He proclaims that the kingdom of God is at hand.
- He begins choosing his disciples.
- He begins casting out demons.
You can already start to see Satan’s power coming undone. But it gets even better.
Later, Peter famously confesses that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God (Matthew 16:16). Jesus responds, “I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it” (16:18).
This is a dramatic statement of Jesus’ (and our) impending victory over the devil. This should inform our outlook on Satan and spiritual warfare in general. We’re not holed up in a bunker, waiting for some heavenly air raid to rescue us from an all-too-powerful foe. We’re already winning.
Heiser puts it this way: “Gates are defensive structures, not offensive weapons. The kingdom of God is the aggressor. […] It is the gates of hell that are under assault—and they will not hold up against the Church. Hell will one day be Satan’s tomb.”