Peter Called “Satan” or “adversary”

Posted by on Jun 23, 2016

The Hebrew word “satan” is one of the words in the Scripture that has been extremely misused in the Christian theology. This word does not denote a name of a fallen angel.

This word satan appears only twice in the Torah (in Num 22:22 and Num 22:32), but with total of 27 occurrences in the Tanak. Again, satan is not a personal name but a title. The Torah is very monotheistic in its approach to good and evil (Deu 32:39) that it is YHVH who brings life and death and besides Him there is none. There are no two rulers in the universe but One: the Creator YHVH Elohim.

So, what does the Hebrew word “satan” mean? We read from Mat 16:23 KJV Bible.

But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men. (Mat 16:23 KJV)

Did really Yeshua call His apostle Kepha Satan, the devil, or this is an example of a poor translation? If He did mean that Kepha was the evil one, after having promised him a few verses earlier:  you are a stone and I will build upon you my house of prayer. The gates of Gehenna will not prevail against you. (Hebrew Gospel of Matthew), then none of us is on safe ground.

But what did Yeshua actually say to Kepha? The word satan is a transliteration of the Greek Σατανᾶς , Satanas, hence satan in English. But the Greek satanas itself is a transliteration of the Hebrew word satan, as found in Hebrew text of the Gospel of Matthew and simply means “the adversary.”

When Yeshua told Kepha “go away hasatan”, He simply called Kepha His adversary in accomplishing His mission! The KJV translators over-literalized Yeshua’s statement ignoring the simple meaning of the Hebrew word satan.

Or, we can correctly read from Hebrew Gospel of Matthew, by George Howard, Mercer University Press, 1995, ancient Hebrew text of Matthew aka Shem-Tov’s Hebrew Matthew,

Go away the adversary. Do not disobey me because you do not regard the word of El but the words of man.

Kepha was not the devil himself or “demon-possessed” but an adversary in that particular situation.

We are all His adversaries, if we do not regard the word of El but the words of man.

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May we merit seeing the coming of our Mashiach speedily in our days.