WEBHistorical development Hebrew Bible Balaam and the Angel (1836) by Gustav Jäger.The angel in this incident is referred to as a "satan". The Hebrew term śāṭān (Hebrew: שָׂטָן) is a generic noun meaning "accuser" or "adversary", and is derived from a verb meaning primarily "to obstruct, oppose". In the earlier biblical books, e.g. 1 Samuel 29:4, it refers to human adversaries, but in ...