But we must advert to two additional considerations. _First_,--To every one who is in the least familiar with the territory [Pg 23] of divine revelation, and who has any conception of the relation in which the Books of Moses stand to the whole succeeding revelation, it will, _a priori_, be inconceivable, that a doctrine which afterwards occupies so prominent a position in the revealed books should not have already existed, in the germ at least, in the Books of Moses. _Secondly_,--We should altogether lose the origin and foundation of the doctrine concerning Satan, if he be removed from, or explained away in, the history of the fall. That the first indication of this doctrine cannot by any means be found in the Book of Job, has already been pointed out by _Hofmann_, who remarks in the _Schriftbeweis_ i. S. 378, that Satan appears in this book as a well-known being, as much so as are the sons of God. Nor is Lev. xvi. an appropriate place for introducing, for the first time, this doctrine into the knowledge of the people. The doctrinal essence of the symbolical action there prescribed is this:--that Satan, the enemy of the Congregation of God, has no power over those who are reconciled to God; that, with their sins forgiven by God, they may joyfully appear before, and mock and triumph over, him. The whole ritual must have had in it something altogether strange for the Congregation of the Lord, if they had not already known of Satan from some other source. The questions: Who is Asael? What have we to do with him? must have forced themselves upon every one's mind. It is not the custom of Scripture to introduce its doctrines so abruptly, to prescribe any duty which is destitute of the solid foundation of previous instruction. If thus we may consider it as proved, (1) that the serpent was an agent in the temptation, and (2) that it served only as an instrument to Satan, the real tempter,--then we have also thereby proved that the curse denounced against the tempter must have a double sense. It must, in the first place, refer to the instrument; but, in its chief import, it must bear upon the real tempter, for it was properly he alone who had done that which merited the punishment and the curse. Let us now, upon this principle, proceed to the interpretation of our passage.