If the person of Satan is
undefined in Jewish theology, the existence of the yēṣer ha-rāʽ (in Baba bathra,
16a, identical with Satan and the
angel of death) is a Jewish dogma. This theologoumenon is based on the yēṣer of Gn 6:5; 8:21, rendered in the
AV ‘imagination,’ and connoting that faculty of the soul which is the cause of
rebellion against God. The yēṣer
became very early hypostatized in Jewish theology (cf. the antithesis in אוֹי לי מִיוֹצְדִי וְאוֹי לי מִיִצְדִי, ‘Woe to me because
of my Creator, woe to me because of my tempter’ [Ber. 61a]). He is the
‘strange god’ of Ps 81:9, dwelling in man (Shabb.
105b). As the source of sin, he was
already known to Sirach as ἐννόημα
(21:11), ἐνθύμημα (37:3), διαβούλιον (15:14). In these
passages, as well as in others in the Apocrypha, where human dichotomy is
asserted, such as Wis 9:15, an approach was made towards metaphysical dualism;
yet the spirit of legalism checked its further development. Whereas the very
virtues of the wicked (= Gentiles) are vices in the eyes of the righteous (Yeb. 103a), a Jew can keep the Law and be sinless. ‘Blessed are Israelites.
When they are occupied with the study of the Law and the performance of good
works, the yēṣer is delivered into
their hands, and not they into the hands of the yēṣer’ (ʽAbōda zara, 5b; Ḳid.
30a; cf. Sir 21:11). He is not a
human faculty and therefore not ante-natal, but an adjunct at birth (Sanh. 91b). He is situated at the left, the other deus ex machina, the yēṣer ṭôb,
being at the right (Taʽan. 11a). According to Ber. 61b, he resembles a
fly, and is placed between the valves of the heart. He was Divinely created for
a benevolent purpose. Unless he existed, ‘no man would build a house, or marry
or beget children, or transact any business’ (Gen. R. 897). At the end of the world God will slay him
in the presence of the righteous and wicked (Suk. 52b). (A.
E. Suffrin, “Dualism,” in Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, ed.
James Hastings, John A. Selbie, and Louis G. Gray, 13 vols. [Edinburgh: T.
& T. Clark, 1908-1916), 5:113-14)
Characteristics
“Yeẓer ha-Ra‘” does not refer
exclusively to the body; this can be inferred from its close association with
the Yeẓer Ṭob. It undoubtedly leads to sensual sins with great power; hence
both Akiba and Meïr were saved from its influence only by heavenly intercession
(Ḳid. 81a). It was to avoid the temptations of the Yeẓer ha-Ra‘ that women were
ordered to take separate seats in the galleries of synagogues (Suk. 5tb).
Revenge and avarice are also given as the outcome of the Yeẓer ha-Ra‘ (Sifre,
Deut. 33 [ed. Friedmann, p. 74a]); and anger is another of its manifestations.
Ps. 81:10 (A. V. 9) is interpreted as referring to the Yeẓer to whose influence
one should not yield (Shab. 105b), submission being, therefore, compared to
idolatry (Yer. Ned. 41b). It is with reference to anger that he is called
mighty who overcomes his Yeẓer ha-Ra‘ (Ab. iv. 2). Vanity is still another form
in which the Yeẓer ha-Ra‘ displays itself. When the Yeẓer sees a conceited man
it says: “He is mine” (Gen. R. 22:13). The Yeẓer ha-Ra‘ belongs only to this
world, and does not exist in angels or other higher beings (Lev. R. 26.). It is
for this reason that there is no eating or drinking, procreation or barter,
envy or hatred, in the world to come (Ber. 17a; comp. Mark 12:25, and synoptic
parallels).
In a discussion between Rabbi and
the emperor Antoninus, the latter contends that the Yeẓer ha-Ra‘ comes to man
at birth, and not before, and Rabbi agrees (Sanh. 91b). All the sportive
deviltry of young children is attributed to the Yeẓer ha-Ra‘ (Eccl. R. 4:13).
The Yeẓer ha-Ra‘ was not due to man, but to God as the Creator of all; but man
is responsible for yielding to its influence, since he, as has been seen above,
is able to put it to a good use. Hence the Yeẓer ha-Ra‘ is placed on a level
with the woman and the child: the left hand should reject it, while the right
hand draws it near (Soṭah 47a; Sanh. 107b). Under the Second Temple the Yeẓer
ha-Ra‘ continued to exist because needed in the world. The Rabbis interpret
Neh. 9:4 as referring to the call of the people: “Wo, wo, it is the Yeẓer
ha-Ra‘. He destroyed the sanctuary, killed the righteous, drove the Israelites
out of their land, and still dances among us. Why was he given unto us? Only
that we may receive reward for conquering him.” The Israelites are then
reported to have got rid of the Yeẓer of idolatry and of the grosser forms of
unchastity, but found it necessary to preserve the Yeẓer ha-Ra‘ lest the world
should come to an end (Yoma 69b; comp. Sanh. 64a). It has been conjectured by
Taylor that the clause in the Lord’s Prayer, “Deliver us from evil,” is
probably “Deliver us from the evil Yeẓer” (“Sayings of the Jewish Fathers,” pp.
128–130, 186–192).
Personification
There is a tendency to give
personality and separate activity to the Yezer, as in the case of the angel of
death and of Satan, with each of whom, indeed, it is identified (B. B. 16a).
Objections to the Law which in Sifra 86a are attributed to the Yeẓer are in
Yoma 67b attributed to Satan. According to R. Jonathan, the Yeẓer, like Satan,
misleads man in this world, and testifies against him in the world to come
(Suk. 52b). Hence in the prayers one asks to be delivered “from evil man and
from evil act, from evil Yezer, from evil companion, from evil neighbor, and
from Satan” (Ber. 16b). Here, however, the Yeẓer is clearly distinguished from
Satan. On other occasions it is made exactly parallel to sin. Thus, in Gen. R.
22:11 the parable of 2 Sam. 12:4 is applied to sin, though elsewhere it is
applied to the Yeẓer (see above). Similarly, Akiba interprets Isa. 5:18 as
applying to sin, while Rab Ashi applies it to the Yeẓer (Suk. 52a). “At the
beginning they are like the thread of the spinning web, at the end like a cart
rope.” The connection of the Yeẓer with habit is exactly parallel to the growth
of sin through habit. Man’s Yeẓer overpowers him every day (Ḳid. 30b). At first
it befools him; then it dwells in him (comp. Hos. 4:12, 5:4). So too Ps. 36:2,
“sin speaks to the wicked,” is applied to the Yeẓer ha-Ra‘ (Ab. R. N. 32). In
the same passage all men are divided into three classes: the righteous, under
the rule of the Yeẓer Ṭob; the wicked, under the rule of the Yeẓer ha-Ra‘; and
the middle class, ruled now by one, now by the other. According to others,
there are only two classes: the righteous with the good Yeẓer; and the wicked,
who submit to the evil Yeẓer (Eccl. R. iv. 15, 16). The first part of Eccl.
11:9 is said to relate to the joy of youth derived from the Yeẓer ha-Ra‘; the
latter part indicates that God will bring all transgressors under judgment to
the Yeẓer Ṭob (Shab. 63a). (“YEẒER HA-RA’,” in The Jewish Encyclopedia: A Descriptive Record of the History, Religion,
Literature, and Customs of the Jewish People from the Earliest Times to the
Present Day, ed., Isidore
Singer, 12 vols. [New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1906], 12:601-602)
Satan, or Sammael, as the seducer of man. The statement in Baba B.
16 a which identifies Satan with the Yetser haRa, or evil impulse in man, must be regarded as a
rationalistic attempt to gloss over the older teaching about Sammael, by
representing him as a personification of the evil inclination within us. For,
the Talmud not only distinguishes between a personal Satan without, and evil
inclination within man, but expressly ascribes to God the creation of the Yetser haRa in man as he was before the Fall, the occurrence of two י׳ י׳ in the word וייצר (‘and He formed,’
Gen. 2:7) being supposed to indicate the existence of two impulses in us—the Yetser Tobh and the Yetser haRa (Ber. 61 a).
And it is stated that this existence of evil in man’s original nature was of
infinite comfort in the fear which would otherwise beset us in trouble (Ber. R.
14). More than this (as will presently be shown), the existence of this evil
principle within us was declared to be absolutely necessary for the continuance
of the world (Yoma 69 b, Sanh. 64 a).
Satan, or Sammael, is introduced
as the seducer of man in all the great events of Israel’s history. With varying
legendary additions the story of Satan’s attempts to prevent the obedience of
Abraham and the sacrifice of Isaac is told in Sanh. 89 b, Ber. R. 56, and Tanchuma, p. 30 a and b. Yet there is
nothing even astute, only a coarse realism, about the description of the clumsy
attempts of Satan to turn Abraham from, or to hinder him in, his purpose; to
influence Isaac; or to frighten Sarah. Nor are the other personages in the
legend more successfully sketched. There is a want of all higher conception in
the references to the Almighty, a painful amount of downright untruthfulness
about Abraham, lamentable boastfulness and petty spite about Isaac, while the
Sarah of the Jewish legend is rather a weak old Eastern woman than the mother
in Israel. To hold such perversions of the Old Testament by the side of the New
Testament conception of the motives and lives of the heroes of old, or the
doctrinal inferences and teaching of the Rabbis by those of Christ and His
Apostles, were to compare darkness with light.
The same remarks apply to the
other legends in which Satan is introduced as seducer. Anything more childish
could scarcely be invented than this, that, when Sammael could not otherwise
persuade Israel that Moses would not return from Mount Sinai, he at last made
his bier appear before them in the clouds (Shab. 89 a), unless it be this story, that when Satan would seduce David he
assumed the form of a bird, and that, when David shot at it, Bath-Sheba
suddenly looked up, thus gaining the king by her beauty (Sanh. 107 a). In both these instances the obvious
purpose is to palliate the guilt whether of Israel or of David, which, indeed,
is in other places entirely explained away as not due to disobedience or to
lust (comp. Ab. Zar. 4 b, 5 a). (Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah,
2 vols. [New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1896], 2:757-58)
