The "Satan" in the Book of Job Isn't Actually the Devil

The Satan figure in Job 1 and 2 really isn't the devil. Hebrew does not attach the definite

article, that's the word "the," in front of a proper personal name and neither

does English. So I'm not the Mike. I wouldn't talk about myself as the Mike.

Every time the word Satan occurs, it has the definite article. So it's HaSatan,

the Satan. That tells you it's not a proper personal name. It's not a specific

entity. Are we gonna go with what the biblical text has or what our tradition tells

us? So what we have in Job 1 and 2 is we have a member of the spiritual

world, in this case, a, you know, sort of a functioning