Written by Jealous, the Creator of Darkness and Evil, the Father of Lies, and the Blood of Children
By Diesel the Magus | eFireTemple
October 25, 2026
I. THE RULER JESUS CAME TO OVERTHROW
John 12:31, KJV:
Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out.
Jesus announces judgment.
Not upon some distant kingdom alone.
Upon this world.
And he announces the expulsion of its ruler.
John 14:30 returns to that ruler.
John 16:11 declares that the ruler has been judged.
Then John 12:35–36 commands humanity to walk in the light and become children of light.
The structure is unmistakable.
A WORLD UNDER JUDGMENT.
A RULER FACING EXPULSION.
A SON CALLING HUMANITY INTO THE LIGHT.
The customary answer to the question of the ruler’s identity is Satan.
But that answer raises another question.
Who claims ownership of the world throughout the Hebrew scriptures?
Who declares himself sovereign over the nations?
Who creates darkness?
Who commissions deception?
Who orders the destruction of children?
And what happens when those attributed actions are placed beside the conduct Jesus assigns to the father of lies?
This investigation follows those questions directly into the biblical text.
II. HIS NAME IS JEALOUS
Exodus 34:14, KJV:
For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.
The text does not require us to invent the designation.
The Hebrew scriptures themselves associate Yahweh with the name Jealous.
This is a declaration of exclusive divine allegiance.
Now examine his claims of earthly dominion.
Exodus 19:5:
For all the earth is mine.
Psalm 50:12:
For the world is mine, and the fulness thereof.
Psalm 22:28:
For the kingdom is the LORD’s: and he is the governor among the nations.
The claims extend from possession to government.
The earth belongs to him.
The world belongs to him.
The nations fall under his authority.
And this is where the comparison with John 12 begins.
JEALOUS CLAIMS THE EARTH.
JESUS DECLARES THAT THE RULER OF THIS WORLD WILL BE CAST OUT.
Are these two distinct levels of authority, or competing descriptions of one worldly sovereignty?
The titles alone do not answer.
We must examine what each figure does.
III. WHO DISTRIBUTES THE KINGDOMS?
Daniel 4:17 describes the Most High as ruler over human kingdoms, giving them to whomever he wills.
Now read Luke 4:5–6.
The devil shows Jesus the kingdoms of the world and offers their authority to him.
He says that this authority has been delivered to him and that he may give it to whomever he wills.
Compare the claims:
DANIEL 4:17
The Most High rules earthly kingdoms and gives them to whomever he wills.
LUKE 4:6
The devil claims authority over earthly kingdoms and says he gives it to whomever he wills.
This is not merely a resemblance between two royal titles.
It is a comparison of a particular governing function:
THE POWER TO DISTRIBUTE EARTHLY KINGDOMS.
The devil claims that his authority was delivered to him.
The passage does not identify the giver.
The conventional explanation is delegated or usurped authority beneath God’s ultimate sovereignty.
But that explanation leaves questions deserving examination.
Who granted the authority?
What was its scope?
Why would an adversarial ruler possess such power?
And why does Jesus reject the offer?
These are not questions imported from outside the narrative.
They arise from its own account of worldly power.
The Most High of Daniel, the Yahweh of Israel’s sovereignty traditions, and the devil of Luke cannot simply be declared identical on the basis of this parallel.
But neither should their comparable claims to distribute kingdoms be ignored.
The question of who rules the world has become considerably more complicated.
IV. JEALOUS CLAIMS TO CREATE DARKNESS AND EVIL
Now return to Isaiah 45:7.
King James Version:
I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.
The declaration is explicit.
Yahweh claims responsibility for darkness and raʿ.
The Hebrew raʿ can mean evil, harm, misfortune, or calamity. In Isaiah 45:7, its opposition to shalom makes calamity or disaster the most contextually appropriate translation.
That prevents a simplistic claim that the verse unambiguously declares Yahweh the creator of every morally wicked act.
But it does not eliminate the moral question.
THE TEXT ATTRIBUTES DARKNESS AND DISASTROUS JUDGMENT TO YAHWEH’S WILL.
Now place this beside the Johannine account.
Jesus calls people from darkness into light.
He characterizes the adversarial order through falsehood and opposition to truth.
And he announces judgment upon its ruler.
The comparison requires careful attention to context: physical darkness, historical calamity, and spiritual darkness are not automatically identical.
Yet the contrast between the divine profiles is important enough to warrant testing.
A deity who declares sovereignty over darkness and calamity belongs in the same investigation as a ruler condemned within a Gospel structured around light, truth, and life.
But Isaiah 45 is only the beginning.
There are much more direct passages concerning deception.
V. JOHN 8:44 — THE TEST JESUS PROVIDED
John 8:44, KJV:
Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do.
Jesus then describes the devil as a murderer from the beginning and as one who does not abide in truth.
He identifies him as a liar and the father of the lie.
Here the relevant characteristics are not territorial.
They are moral.
MURDER.
FALSEHOOD.
OPPOSITION TO TRUTH.
THE REPRODUCTION OF A FATHER’S CONDUCT IN HIS CHILDREN.
John 8:37–44 develops a principle of operative fatherhood.
Jesus acknowledges that his opponents descend from Abraham while disputing whether their conduct makes them Abraham’s true children.
Their actions reveal whose desires they follow.
The Father-of-Aša investigation takes that criterion seriously.
If conduct is relevant to discerning spiritual fatherhood, what happens when a divine portrayal itself authorizes falsehood or the killing of innocents?
That is a further comparative application of John’s criterion, not an assertion that Jesus expressly names Yahweh in verse 44.
The test must be applied consistently.
And the first case is particularly difficult to overlook.
VI. THE LYING SPIRIT SENT WITH DIVINE AUTHORITY
Read 1 Kings 22:19–23.
The prophet Micaiah describes a heavenly council.
Yahweh sits upon his throne.
A discussion occurs concerning how King Ahab will be enticed into battle and meet his death.
A spirit volunteers to become a lying spirit in the mouths of Ahab’s prophets.
Yahweh authorizes the mission.
The spirit is sent.
Micaiah then tells Ahab that Yahweh has placed the lying spirit in the prophets’ mouths.
This is an extraordinary portrayal of divine action.
The heavenly ruler is not merely observing people telling lies.
He is presented as authorizing a deceptive operation.
The deception is intended to bring about a king’s downfall.
The biblical narrative frames it as judgment against Ahab.
That judicial context matters, but it does not make the deception disappear.
A LYING SPIRIT.
A DIVINE COMMISSION.
A DECEPTIVE MESSAGE.
A KING LED TOWARD DEATH.
Now compare John 8:44.
Jesus identifies falsehood with the devil’s character.
The question for the eventual moral-profile test is direct:
How should the Father of Truth be compared with a divine ruler who commissions a lying spirit?
The standard Christian distinction is that judicial deception against a wicked king differs from Satan’s characteristic falsehood.
That distinction deserves evaluation.
But it cannot be used to deny what 1 Kings 22 narrates.
The deception is authorized.
The prophets convey it.
The king is drawn toward disaster.
Even the NET Bible’s detailed notes acknowledge that divine deception belongs to the account’s presentation.
The text is the evidence.
VII. EZEKIEL — THE DEITY WHO CLAIMS TO DECEIVE
Now read Ezekiel 14:9.
In the King James Version, Yahweh declares:
I the LORD have deceived that prophet.
This is more direct than a comparison of titles.
The divine speaker claims responsibility for the prophet’s deception.
The context concerns false prophecy, idolatry, and judgment.
That context explains why the punishment occurs within the narrative.
But it does not remove the attribution.
The United Bible Societies’ translation commentary likewise recognizes divine causation of the false prophet’s deception.
The question becomes unavoidable.
John 8 characterizes the devil by falsehood.
Ezekiel attributes deception to Yahweh.
A traditional theology can distinguish judicial deception from malicious lying, and those categories are not necessarily identical.
But such an explanation must show why the distinction is morally decisive.
It cannot simply announce that one deception is divine and another is devilish because of the names attached to the actors.
IF TRUTH IS THE STANDARD, THEN DECEPTION MUST BE EXAMINED AS DECEPTION.
The agent’s inherited title cannot settle the verdict before the action has been evaluated.
VIII. THE SAME INCITEMENT: YAHWEH IN SAMUEL, SATAN IN CHRONICLES
Now we encounter one of the most important textual comparisons in the Hebrew Bible.
2 Samuel 24:1 attributes David’s incitement to conduct a census to Yahweh’s anger.
1 Chronicles 21:1 attributes the incitement to Satan.
The episode is recognizably the same.
David conducts the census.
Judgment follows.
But the accounts identify the instigating agency differently.
SAMUEL — YAHWEH’S ANGER INCITES DAVID.
CHRONICLES — SATAN INCITES DAVID.
These are different attributions of agency within parallel accounts.
The Hebrew term satan can mean adversary, and interpreters debate whether Chronicles refers specifically to the later personal Devil or to an adversarial agent.
That linguistic point deserves recognition.
It does not remove the difference between the passages.
The Chronicler introduces an adversarial figure where the earlier narrative attributes the incitement to Yahweh’s anger.
Some biblical scholars understand this as evidence of changing theological treatment of troubling divine actions.
Others harmonize the accounts through an intermediary or delegated agency.
The interpretive alternatives differ.
THE TEXTUAL REDISTRIBUTION OF AGENCY REMAINS.
And that matters for the prince-of-this-world investigation.
The Bible contains cases in which divine and adversarial agency occupy comparable explanatory positions.
This is not proof that Yahweh and Satan are numerically identical.
It is evidence that their attributed functions cannot be assumed to have remained unchanged across the biblical tradition.
For an investigation concerned with the history of divine identity, that is a substantial finding.
IX. THE CHILDREN OF AMALEK
Now the moral question becomes more severe.
Read 1 Samuel 15:1–3.
Samuel announces a command attributed to Yahweh against Amalek.
The command calls for total destruction.
It explicitly includes men, women, infants, and nursing children.
This is not an accusation fabricated by a modern critic.
It is what the narrative attributes to Yahweh’s command through Samuel.
The surrounding story presents Amalek as the object of divine judgment for earlier hostility toward Israel.
That supplies the narrative’s stated rationale.
But the infants are not described as combatants.
The nursing children are not portrayed as the authors of the historical offense.
THE COMMAND INCLUDES CHILDREN WHO DID NOT PERSONALLY COMMIT THE ACT BEING AVENGED.
That is why this passage belongs in any serious comparison of divine moral profiles.
One may appeal to ancient warfare, collective judgment, or divine prerogative.
But none of those explanations makes the children disappear from the sentence.
The text explicitly includes them.
And the Father-of-Aša inquiry asks whether such an attributed command can be reconciled with the character of the Father Jesus reveals.
The investigation must not confuse the reported command with independent historical proof that every commanded killing occurred.
The command itself is the moral evidence under examination.
X. THE CHILD STRUCK FOR DAVID’S SIN
There is another account that makes the issue even more personal.
2 Samuel 12:13–18.
David has committed adultery and arranged Uriah’s death.
Nathan confronts him.
David acknowledges his wrongdoing.
The prophet announces that the child born from the relationship will die.
The narrative then states that Yahweh struck the child.
The child becomes ill.
David fasts and pleads for the child’s life.
On the seventh day, the child dies.
The child did not arrange Uriah’s death.
The child did not commit David’s adultery.
Yet the narrative places the child’s death within the divine punishment announced for David’s wrongdoing.
THE ADULT SINNED.
THE CHILD SUFFERED.
THE TEXT ATTRIBUTES THE CHILD’S ILLNESS TO YAHWEH.
This is not an incidental problem.
It raises a question about the moral responsibility of a divine ruler whose judgment falls upon an innocent child.
And when Jesus calls the devil a murderer, that judgment requires us to examine how killing, culpability, and divine justice are being defined.
The point is not that every death is automatically murder.
The point is that a divine character cannot be exempted from moral scrutiny merely because his actions are called judgment.
That exemption would need justification.
XI. THE FIRSTBORN OF EGYPT
Exodus 12:29 attributes the death of Egypt’s firstborn to Yahweh.
The account includes the firstborn of Pharaoh and the firstborn of prisoners.
The text speaks of firstborn persons across Egyptian society; they should not all be described as infants.
But the judgment is collective.
The deaths occur as part of Yahweh’s confrontation with Pharaoh.
The passage therefore adds another case in which divine judgment extends beyond the individual ruler responsible for the confrontation.
The question is not whether the Exodus narrative presents a justification.
It does.
The question is whether the justification adequately explains the deaths of those who were not themselves Pharaoh.
These passages must be considered together because they reveal recurring questions about sovereignty, collective punishment, and the value of innocent life.
And they stand in striking contrast with Jesus’ welcome of children.
In Mark 10:14, Jesus calls children to himself.
In Matthew 18:14, he speaks of the Father’s will concerning the little ones.
These are not identical genres or situations.
Yet they are legitimate moral evidence when the investigation asks what kind of Father Jesus reveals.
XII. WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE PROFILE IS ASSEMBLED?
We can now identify the attributed conduct without pretending that any one verse answers every question.
Exodus 34:14: Yahweh is named Jealous.
Exodus 19:5: He claims possession of the whole earth.
Psalm 50:12: He claims the world and its fullness.
Isaiah 45:7: He claims to create darkness and calamity.
1 Kings 22:19–23: He authorizes a lying spirit.
Ezekiel 14:9: He claims to deceive a prophet.
2 Samuel 24:1: His anger is associated with inciting David.
1 Chronicles 21:1: An adversarial figure incites David in the parallel account.
1 Samuel 15:3: A command attributed to him includes the killing of infants.
2 Samuel 12:15–18: He strikes a child who subsequently dies.
Exodus 12:29: He strikes the firstborn of Egypt.
Now place this collection alongside the Johannine descriptions.
John 8:44: The devil is characterized by murder and falsehood.
John 12:31: The ruler of this world is condemned.
John 14:30: That ruler has no claim on Jesus.
John 16:11: The ruler of this world stands judged.
Luke 4:6: The devil claims authority to distribute earthly kingdoms.
The comparison is no longer about isolated words.
It concerns the attributed actions of rulers.
Sovereignty.
Deception.
Incitement.
Judgment.
Death.
Truth.
And the treatment of children.
THESE ARE THE ATTRIBUTES OF A MORAL PROFILE.
An identity hypothesis based on that profile deserves investigation.
A traditional account distinguishing Yahweh from Satan also deserves a direct test against the same evidence.
Neither explanation should receive immunity simply because it is familiar.
XIII. THE STRONGEST DEFENSE — AND THE QUESTION IT MUST ANSWER
The strongest conventional objection is not that these passages do not exist.
It is that their actors have different roles.
Yahweh possesses ultimate sovereignty.
The devil has subordinate or temporary authority.
Yahweh judges sin.
The devil murders from malice.
Yahweh authorizes judicial deception.
The devil lies because falsehood defines his character.
Yahweh commands collective punishment within ancient covenant history.
The devil destroys in opposition to God.
This model distinguishes the figures by intention, authority, and theological function.
It is a coherent explanation within traditional biblical theology.
But the Father-of-Aša investigation introduces a further demand:
DOES THAT EXPLANATION SATISFY THE MORAL CRITERION, OR DOES IT MERELY RECLASSIFY THE SAME CONDUCT ACCORDING TO WHO PERFORMS IT?
If deception is condemned, why does divine authorization change its moral status?
If innocent life matters, how should the deaths of children be evaluated?
If the adversary’s desire to kill marks his character, what distinguishes other lethal actions beyond the title of the actor?
If the world’s ruler is judged, what exactly characterizes the authority Jesus condemns?
These are not questions answered by repeating the word sovereign.
They require a substantive account of goodness, truth, justice, and moral responsibility.
That is the real pressure placed upon the conventional explanation.
XIV. THE FATHER JESUS REVEALS
Now consider the positive comparison.
Jesus speaks of the Father through life, truth, love, light, and revelation.
In John 8, Jesus challenges false claims of fatherhood by appealing to conduct.
In John 12, he calls people to become children of light.
In John 14, he presents himself as the revealer of the Father.
In John 16, he promises the Spirit of Truth.
These are fundamental elements of the Johannine Father profile.
And centuries before the Gospel of John, the Gathas identified Ahura Mazda as the Father of cosmic Aša.
Aša is not ordinary propositional truth alone.
It is cosmic Truth-Order: the rightful order of reality, the moral and physical structure of existence, opposed to Druj, the Lie.
The correspondence with the Johannine language of truth is significant.
The older Iranian tradition gives us a divine profile whose relationship to cosmic Truth-Order is explicit and independently attested.
That does not mean John uses the name Ahura Mazda.
He does not.
It means an older theological candidate exists and can be examined by the criterion drawn from John’s own account.
WHO IS THE FATHER OF COSMIC TRUTH-ORDER?
WHO IS THE FATHER REVEALED THROUGH TRUTH AND LIGHT?
WHAT MORAL PROFILE DO THE TEXTS ASSIGN TO EACH?
The answer requires historical evidence, philosophical analysis, and consistent comparison.
It cannot be settled merely through inherited names.
XV. THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A NAME AND A CHARACTER
John 8:54–55 records Jesus identifying his Father as the one his opponents claim as their God, while denying that they know him.
That is a distinction between profession and genuine knowledge.
It does not explicitly identify Yahweh as the devil.
It does not explicitly identify Ahura Mazda as Jesus’ Father.
But it establishes that the opponents’ confession is not sufficient evidence of their relationship to the Father.
Diesel’s comparative method extends that distinction into the historical study of divine portrayals.
What should determine religious identification?
A name?
A cult?
An inherited narrative?
A claim of sovereignty?
Or an ultimate moral and metaphysical profile?
The answer cannot be presumed.
And here the documented actions of Jealous become relevant.
A ruler who demands exclusive worship while claiming the earth must answer to his own attributed conduct.
A ruler who authorizes deception must answer to the standard of truth.
A ruler who commands the deaths of children must answer to the standard of justice.
The name cannot replace the examination.
CLAIMED HOLINESS IS NOT ITSELF A COMPLETED MORAL TEST.
That is the principle at the center of the investigation.
XVI. THE PRINCE OF THIS WORLD — THE CHARGE BEFORE THE EVIDENCE
Now return to Jesus’ declaration.
Now shall the prince of this world be cast out.
The traditional Christian reading identifies the prince as Satan.
Our investigation does not need to conceal that fact.
But it also need not pretend that the wider biblical record contains no competing or overlapping attributions of worldly sovereignty, deception, incitement, and destructive judgment.
It does.
And some of those attributions are exceptionally troubling.
The central comparison can now be stated clearly.
JEALOUS CLAIMS WORLDLY SOVEREIGNTY.
THE DEVIL CLAIMS AUTHORITY OVER WORLDLY KINGDOMS.
JEALOUS IS PORTRAYED AUTHORIZING DECEPTION.
JESUS IDENTIFIES FALSEHOOD WITH THE DEVIL’S CHARACTER.
SAMUEL ATTRIBUTES AN INCITEMENT TO YAHWEH.
CHRONICLES ATTRIBUTES THE PARALLEL INCITEMENT TO AN ADVERSARY.
JEALOUS IS ATTRIBUTED COMMANDS THAT INCLUDE THE DEATHS OF CHILDREN.
JESUS IDENTIFIES MURDER WITH THE DEVIL’S CHARACTER.
AND THE PRINCE OF THIS WORLD STANDS JUDGED.
The force of this cumulative profile is greater than the force of any isolated parallel.
It challenges the claim that divine and adversarial agency can always be cleanly separated merely by applying familiar names to the figures.
The final identity question remains one of interpretation.
But the evidence requiring interpretation is substantial.
It deserves to be confronted in full.
XVII. THE QUESTION THAT REMAINS
The strongest argument for reconsidering the ruler of this world is not that Yahweh and Satan possess titles that sound similar.
It is that the biblical corpus contains overlapping claims of sovereignty and striking attributions of deception, incitement, and lethal judgment.
The most important historical evidence is the demonstrable difference between Samuel and Chronicles.
The most direct evidence concerning deception is 1 Kings 22 and Ezekiel 14.
The most disturbing evidence concerning the destruction of children is 1 Samuel 15 and 2 Samuel 12.
And the central Johannine moral criterion remains John 8:44.
These passages create a formidable question for any claim that inherited divine names automatically guarantee moral identity.
THE RULER’S TITLE IS NOT ENOUGH.
THE RULER’S CLAIM OF SOVEREIGNTY IS NOT ENOUGH.
THE RULER’S OWN ATTRIBUTED ACTIONS MUST BE EXAMINED.
The identification of Jealous with the condemned ruler is the thesis advanced for examination, not an identity expressly stated by John 12.
Yet its evidentiary basis cannot be dismissed as though it were only a resemblance between two names.
There are actions in the record.
There are changes in attribution.
There are children in the record.
There is deception in the record.
And there is a Gospel in which Jesus demands truth and announces judgment upon the ruler of this world.
JEALOUS CLAIMS THE EARTH.
THE DEVIL CLAIMS THE KINGDOMS.
THE SCRIPTURES ATTRIBUTE DECEPTION AND THE DEATHS OF CHILDREN TO THE LORD OF ISRAEL.
JESUS CONDEMNS THE FATHER OF LIES AND THE RULER OF THIS WORLD.
The full historical and theological relationship among these claims must now be tested.
And the ancient Father of cosmic Aša remains an independently attested candidate against which the moral and metaphysical evidence may be compared.
THE NAME IS ON THE RECORD.
THE ACTIONS ARE ON THE RECORD.
THE CONTRADICTIONS IN ATTRIBUTED AGENCY ARE ON THE RECORD.
THE FINAL IDENTITY MUST ANSWER TO THE RECORD.
Aša knows Aša.
— Diesel the Magus
Biblical sources and research references
The prince and the father of lies
Jealous and world sovereignty
Deception and incitement
Children and collective judgment
Scholarly and translation controls
- NET Bible commentary on 1 Kings 22:19–23
- United Bible Societies translation commentary on Ezekiel 14:9
- Asbury Bible Commentary on 1 Chronicles 21
- NET Bible commentary on 2 Samuel 12:14–19
- Encyclopaedia Iranica — Aša Vahišta
This article presents a comparative moral-profile indictment based on attributed actions in biblical texts. It distinguishes those textual attributions from the further theological hypothesis that Jealous and the Johannine ruler of this world share one ultimate identity.