WHO IS THE FATHER OF DARKNESS AND EVIL?

Let Jealous Testify: The God Who Claims to Create Evil, Authorizes the Lie, and Becomes the Adversary in a Later Biblical Account

By Diesel the Magus
eFireTemple.com | October 24, 2026

An investigation into the identity of the creator of darkness and evil, using the declarations and actions attributed to Yahweh in his own scriptures.

I. WHO IS THE FATHER OF EVIL?

Who is the Father of Darkness?

Who is the Father of Evil?

Who is the Father of Darkness and Evil?

For centuries, religious teachers have spoken about Satan, the devil, the prince of darkness, and the origin of evil.

But I have a question.

Have we asked the deity who actually claims to create darkness and evil?

Because the answer may already be written in the very scriptures that millions have been taught to accept as the word of God.

And we do not have to invent the testimony.

We do not have to summon a modern theologian.

We do not have to wait for someone to reconcile the evidence.

We have the witness’s own declarations.

We have his name.

We have his claims.

We have his recorded actions.

And we have later biblical authors who assigned to an adversary an action that an earlier text attributed to Yahweh.

So before anyone tells me that Satan is the ultimate source of darkness and evil, I want to examine the deity who claims responsibility for creating them.

His identifying designation appears in Exodus.

His name is Jealous.

II. FIRST, LET THE WITNESS IDENTIFY HIMSELF

EXHIBIT A — EXODUS 34:14

Final literary form of the Pentateuch: broadly sixth–fifth centuries BCE, incorporating older traditions.

The King James Version records:

“For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God:”

There it is.

Jealous.

Not a name I invented.

Not a title I imposed.

Not an accusation from a rival religion.

A designation preserved within the biblical text itself.

The speaker demands exclusive worship and identifies himself as Jealous.

That is our first exhibit.

From this point forward, I will refer to the deity under investigation by that biblical designation.

Jealous.

Let the witness tell us who he is.

III. THE CREATOR OF DARKNESS AND EVIL TAKES THE STAND

EXHIBIT B — ISAIAH 45:7

Composition: approximately 545–539 BCE, within the sixth-century Second Isaiah material associated with the rise of Cyrus.

Here is the declaration that should stop every serious investigator.

The King James Version states:

“I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.”

Read it again.

I create darkness.

I create evil.

I do all these things.

Who is speaking?

Yahweh.

The deity identified as Jealous in Exodus.

The Hebrew word raʿ, translated “evil” in the King James Version, also encompasses calamity and adversity. That lexical fact does not change the verse’s explicit claim to originate darkness and harmful conditions.

The sentence does not merely say that evil exists.

It does not merely say that darkness has appeared somewhere in creation.

It identifies the speaker as the one responsible for the acts described.

The claim of creation belongs to Jealous himself.

Now I ask a question of everyone who identifies their God as the ultimate creator of all things.

If your deity claims to create darkness, why am I not allowed to call him the creator of darkness?

If your scripture records him declaring that he creates evil, why am I forbidden to question what that declaration means for his moral identity?

And if you claim that Satan is the prince of darkness, what are you going to do with the deity who claims to have created it?

Before you tell me who rules darkness, tell me who claims to create it.

Because a creator and an adversary are not automatically the same thing.

And the text has already named the creator.

IV. ISAIAH WAS NOT THE ONLY WITNESS

EXHIBIT C — AMOS 3:6

Amos’s earliest prophetic material is generally dated to the eighth century BCE, though the book contains later editorial material.

Isaiah does not stand alone in associating Yahweh with the origin of evil or calamity.

Amos 3:6 asks:

“shall there be evil in a city, and the LORD hath not done it?”

The question expects the reader to recognize divine agency in the disaster.

There it is again.

Yahweh is presented as responsible.

This is not a modern accusation.

It is part of the Hebrew prophetic tradition.

EXHIBIT D — LAMENTATIONS 3:38

Composition: principally sixth century BCE, following Jerusalem’s destruction, with dating and literary formation debated.

Lamentations asks:

“Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and good?”

Once again, good and evil or calamity are associated with divine agency.

Across distinct biblical books, we encounter a repeated claim.

The God of Israel is represented not merely as someone who permits destructive adversity but as one whose sovereign action brings it about.

Isaiah says he creates darkness and evil.

Amos connects the evil that falls upon a city to Yahweh’s action.

Lamentations places evil and good under the agency of the Most High.

Three biblical witnesses.

One recurring attribution of destructive sovereignty.

These witnesses do not all use identical language or make every possible claim about moral wickedness. But they repeatedly attribute the origin of adverse events to the deity being investigated.

The issue is now bigger than a single verse.

The profile is developing.

And the next evidence concerns not merely darkness or calamity.

It concerns deliberate deception.

V. THE GOD WHO AUTHORIZED THE LIE

EXHIBIT E — 1 KINGS 22:19–23

Kings: major composition and redaction in the seventh–sixth centuries BCE, with its final literary development extending into the exile.

The prophet Micaiah describes a vision of Yahweh seated among the heavenly host.

The question is who will entice King Ahab to enter a campaign leading to his death.

A spirit volunteers.

The spirit proposes to deceive Ahab through his prophets.

In verse 22, the spirit offers to become a lying spirit.

And Yahweh approves.

The King James Version records the divine authorization:

“go forth, and do so.”

Then verse 23 attributes the lying spirit’s presence to Yahweh.

Pause here.

The deity who claimed to create evil is now depicted authorizing the use of falsehood.

Not merely observing deception.

Not merely discovering that someone has lied.

Authorizing a lying spirit as the mechanism of a destructive plan.

This is the record of the biblical witness.

And it creates a question nobody should be permitted to dismiss through a religious title alone.

If the Lie is an instrument Yahweh authorizes, what does that tell us about the moral character attributed to him?

If truthfulness is an essential condition of divine goodness, how does deliberate authorization of deception satisfy that condition?

I am not asking for a defense.

I am identifying the deed.

The account has spoken.

VI. JEALOUS ADMITS DECEPTION AGAIN

EXHIBIT F — EZEKIEL 14:9

Ezekiel’s prophetic ministry: approximately 593–571 BCE; the book contains subsequent literary development.

The evidence continues.

Ezekiel 14:9 contains a declaration attributed directly to Yahweh.

The King James Version records:

“I the LORD have deceived that prophet”

The statement is extraordinary.

The biblical divine speaker claims agency in deception.

The passage also declares judgment against the prophet.

This gives us a second explicit prophetic witness to deceptive divine activity.

Now put the testimony together.

Isaiah 45:7: Jealous claims to create darkness and evil.

1 Kings 22: Jealous authorizes a lying spirit.

Ezekiel 14:9: Jealous claims to deceive a prophet.

We are no longer examining only titles or metaphors.

We are examining attributed actions.

Darkness.

Adversity.

Falsehood.

Deception.

And the deity named in the accounts is Yahweh.

Let the record show what the witness is reported to have done.

VII. SAMUEL: WHEN JEALOUS WAS THE INCITER

EXHIBIT G — 2 SAMUEL 24:1

Samuel contains older materials that underwent substantial composition and redaction during the monarchic and exilic periods.

This is where the investigation becomes even more serious.

David conducts a census of Israel.

In the earlier biblical narrative, Yahweh’s anger is directed against Israel.

The text attributes David’s incitement to that divine anger.

2 Samuel 24:1 states:

“he moved David against them”

In the verse’s context, the antecedent is Yahweh.

The action that sets the census in motion is attributed to the deity.

And the resulting narrative is catastrophic.

After the census, David recognizes his wrongdoing.

Judgment follows.

In 2 Samuel 24:15, the narrator states that Yahweh sent a pestilence upon Israel.

Seventy thousand men die.

Think about the sequence.

The divine anger moves David to perform the census.

David performs it.

The act becomes a cause of guilt.

Then Yahweh sends the plague.

Seventy thousand die.

The narrator assigns the incitement and the destructive punishment to the same divine authority.

This is not a moral accusation added to the story by me.

These are the actions attributed within the story.

Now here is the remarkable part.

A later biblical writer tells the same story.

But the agent of incitement changes.

VIII. CHRONICLES: WHEN JEALOUS’S ACTION BECAME SATAN’S ACTION

EXHIBIT H — 1 CHRONICLES 21:1

Composition: Persian or early Hellenistic period, broadly fifth–third centuries BCE; its precise date remains disputed.

Chronicles retells the census of David.

Same king.

Same census.

Same national catastrophe.

But now read how the narrative begins.

The King James Version states:

“And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel.”

Satan.

Now compare the two biblical witnesses.

The literary change is undeniable.

What Samuel attributed to Yahweh, Chronicles attributed to Satan.

This does not mean the writer of Samuel literally used the word Satan as another name for Yahweh.

He did not.

It means the later author assigned the inciting role differently.

And that distinction is precisely why the evidence matters.

A harmful initiating action once attributed to Yahweh appears in the later account under Satan’s name.

Now return to the central question.

Who is the father of darkness and evil?

The earlier narrative attributes a destructive incitement to Yahweh.

The later narrative attributes that incitement to Satan.

The deeds remain linked within the history of the same story.

The direct literary evidence is a reassignment of agency.

The theological question is whether that reassignment reveals an evolving attempt to separate the divine identity from acts subsequently associated with an adversary.

But one thing cannot be disputed.

The two texts assign the immediate incitement differently.

No one needs to invent that contradiction in attribution.

It is already written.

IX. CHRONICLES DID NOT REMOVE THE LYING SPIRIT

EXHIBIT I — 2 CHRONICLES 18:18–22

Same later Chronicles composition period.

This is an especially revealing exhibit.

The Chronicler did not remove every attribution of deceptive divine agency.

The later book reproduces the account of Yahweh authorizing a lying spirit to deceive Ahab through his prophets.

The author who attributes David’s incitement to Satan still preserves the portrayal of Yahweh authorizing a lying spirit elsewhere.

That is the actual development visible in the texts.

In one narrative, agency changes from Yahweh to Satan.

In another, authorization of deception remains with Yahweh.

Chronicles does not erase the earlier record of the Lie. It preserves it.

Therefore, the examination of Yahweh’s character cannot stop with the claim that later writers identified Satan as an adversary.

The same scriptural tradition still contains the deity’s authorization of deception.

The evidence stands in both books.

X. THE DEATHS THAT FOLLOWED

EXHIBIT J — 1 SAMUEL 15:3

The investigation cannot ignore the moral character of the acts attributed to Yahweh.

First Samuel 15:3 records a command against Amalek that includes the killing of adults, children, and infants.

The command is presented as divine instruction.

Second Samuel 24 describes a plague killing 70,000 following David’s census.

Other biblical accounts attribute the sending of harmful spirits and acts of destructive judgment to Yahweh.

These passages do not all describe the same form of agency. Some are divine commands, some divine actions, and others actions involving intermediary beings.

But they all belong to the divine-character investigation.

The God called Jealous is described as authorizing deception, commanding killing, and sending destructive punishment.

I am permitted to read these texts.

I am permitted to recognize the acts attributed to the speaker.

I am permitted to regard the command to kill infants as morally wrong.

And I am permitted to reject the claim that these acts automatically become righteous merely because a deity is said to command them.

A moral verdict requires a moral standard.

And the standard I recognize is Aša.

Cosmic Truth-Order.

Not power alone.

Not command alone.

Not a name alone.

XI. JESUS IDENTIFIES THE FATHER OF LIES

EXHIBIT K — JOHN 8:44

Gospel composition: approximately 90–110 CE.

Centuries after the Hebrew biblical narratives reached their principal written forms, the Gospel of John records Jesus confronting opponents over their spiritual paternity.

Read John 8 in its sequence.

John 8:19: Jesus declares that his opponents do not know his Father.

John 8:41: They claim one Father, God.

John 8:44: Jesus identifies their spiritual father as the devil, characterized by murder and falsehood.

John 8:54: Jesus speaks of his Father, whom his opponents say is their God.

John 8:55: Jesus again denies their knowledge of his Father.

Now examine John 8:44 itself.

The King James Version describes the devil as a murderer from the beginning, as one who did not abide in truth, and as a liar and the father of falsehood.

Jesus supplies two especially serious moral characteristics.

Murder.

The Lie.

Then Jesus identifies himself with Truth.

And later he repeats that his opponents have not known his Father.

I am not claiming that the Greek text of John 8:44 explicitly names Yahweh as the devil.

It does not.

I am doing something different.

I am taking the moral profile Jesus attributes to the father of lies and examining the acts attributed to Yahweh in the earlier biblical record.

That is a direct comparative test.

Who authorized a lying spirit?

Who claimed to deceive a prophet?

Who was originally said to incite David?

Whose commands included killing infants?

Who claimed to create darkness and evil?

The Hebrew Bible repeatedly names Yahweh in those accounts.

Now the question is not merely who possesses a religious title.

It is whose recorded conduct matches the moral characteristics being examined.

And I refuse to exempt any deity from that comparison.

XII. WHO IS THE PRINCE OF DARKNESS?

The phrase prince of darkness is not used by Isaiah 45:7 as a title for Yahweh.

And the biblical text does not literally call Yahweh the Father of Evil.

Those are identity questions and theological characterizations.

But Isaiah does something direct and important.

It attributes the creation of darkness and raʿ to Yahweh.

So I ask a more precise question.

What does it mean to call Satan the prince of darkness while identifying Yahweh as its creator?

If the issue is authority, who claims sovereignty over the destructive conditions described?

If the issue is origin, who is portrayed as bringing them into existence?

If the issue is deception, whose recorded actions authorize or claim it?

These are separate questions.

And the answers must come from the texts.

Calling Satan a prince does not erase Yahweh’s claimed responsibility in Isaiah.

Calling the devil the father of lies does not erase the lying-spirit account in Kings.

Assigning incitement to Satan in Chronicles does not erase the earlier attribution to Yahweh in Samuel.

The later designation does not make the earlier testimony disappear.

If someone wants to say that Satan is the father of evil, I challenge that person to first confront the deity who says he creates it.

If someone wants to say that Satan rules darkness, I challenge that person to examine the deity who says he created darkness.

And if someone claims that Yahweh is necessarily free of deceptive agency, I challenge that person to read the accounts in Kings and Ezekiel.

Before naming the prince, identify the creator.

XIII. THE FATHER OF AŠA IS NOT THE FATHER OF DRUJ

Now examine the independent ancient comparison.

The Gathas of Zarathustra identify Ahura Mazda as the Father of Aša.

Aša is cosmic Truth-Order.

It is the righteous order of reality, inseparable from truth, justice, and rightness.

Opposed to Aša stands Druj.

The Lie.

The ancient Gathic distinction is not merely that honesty is preferable to dishonesty.

It places Truth-Order and the Lie on opposed sides of the moral structure of existence.

In Yasna 44.3, Zarathustra asks after the primordial Father of Aša.

Yasna 31.8 and related passages associate Mazda with the creation and maintenance of that divine Truth-Order.

The Gathic material is centuries older than the Gospel of John.

And it provides a positive ancient divine identity for comparison.

Ahura Mazda: Father of Aša.

Now contrast the record we have assembled.

Jealous declares that he creates darkness and evil.

The books of Kings and Chronicles attribute his authorization of deceptive prophecy.

Ezekiel attributes deception to him.

Samuel assigns him the incitement of David.

Chronicles later assigns the incitement to Satan.

This is not merely a comparison of names.

It is a comparison of attributed character and agency.

Aša and Druj are not the same.

And my theological position is that the Father whose character is Truth cannot be identified through the deliberate authorization of the Lie without confronting a fundamental moral contradiction.

This is why I recognize Ahura Mazda as my Father.

The Father of cosmic Truth-Order.

Not the deity who declares himself the creator of darkness and evil.

XIV. THE WITNESS HAS TESTIFIED

We can now return to the original questions.

Who is the Father of Darkness?

Isaiah 45:7 portrays Yahweh as claiming to create darkness.

Who is the Father of Evil?

In the King James rendering of the same verse, Yahweh claims to create evil. The Hebrew raʿ also means calamity or adversity, so the direct textual finding is his claim to originate harmful conditions; calling him their Father is my theological characterization of that originating agency.

Who authorizes the Lie?

The accounts in 1 Kings 22 and 2 Chronicles 18 attribute the authorization of a lying spirit to Yahweh.

Who claims to deceive a prophet?

Ezekiel 14:9 attributes that claim to Yahweh.

Who incited David?

Samuel attributes the action to Yahweh.

Chronicles attributes it to Satan.

Who sent the plague that killed 70,000?

Both biblical accounts attribute that destructive judgment to Yahweh.

Who commanded the killing of infants?

First Samuel 15:3 attributes that command to Yahweh.

The sources are identifiable.

The passages are available.

The literary sequence can be reconstructed.

And every statement can be examined against the original record.

The witness has testified.

The witness has a name.

Jealous.

And the testimony supplies the evidence for an indictment that cannot be dismissed merely by substituting a more flattering title.

XV. THE VERDICT: LET THE CREATOR ANSWER

I began with three questions.

Who is the Father of Evil?

Who is the Father of Darkness?

Who is the Father of Darkness and Evil?

I did not begin with an accusation invented from outside the Bible.

I began with the God of the Hebrew scriptures.

I allowed Exodus to give his identifying designation.

I allowed Isaiah to record his declaration about creation.

I allowed Amos and Lamentations to corroborate divine responsibility for calamity.

I allowed Kings and Chronicles to document authorization of deception.

I allowed Ezekiel to preserve a declaration of divine deceptive agency.

I allowed Samuel and Chronicles to show the change from Yahweh to Satan in the census narrative.

I allowed the killing narratives to stand as evidence of attributed conduct.

And I allowed Jesus’s words in John 8 to supply a moral standard against which to examine the character of any proposed Father.

The conclusion I draw is mine.

I regard the deity called Jealous as the originating authority of darkness and destructive evil in his own attributed testimony.

I regard his recorded authorization of deception and the killing of innocents as incompatible with the Father of perfect Truth-Order.

I refuse to identify such a character as my Father merely because a religious tradition has declared that I must.

My Father is Ahura Mazda.

My Father is the Father of Aša.

And I will not call the Lie Truth.

I will not call an authorization of falsehood an expression of perfect truthfulness merely because the speaker bears a divine name.

I will not ignore the changing attribution between Samuel and Chronicles.

And I will not allow the record of Jealous to be replaced by a character invented through the selective omission of his own attributed actions.

The question remains open to every reader.

Read Exodus.

Read Isaiah.

Read Amos.

Read Kings.

Read Ezekiel.

Read Samuel.

Read Chronicles.

Read John.

Then decide whether the deity described in those passages satisfies the character you require of the true Father.

Before you tell me who the prince of darkness is, tell me who claims to have created darkness.

Before you tell me who the father of evil is, confront the God who claims to create evil.

Before you tell me who the father of lies is, examine the God who authorizes the lying spirit.

The answer cannot be established by a title alone.

The testimony matters.

The deeds matter.

The chronology matters.

And Truth matters.

Let Jealous testify.

He already has.

Aša knows Aša.

— Diesel the Magus

PRIMARY SOURCES AND COMPOSITION RECORD

Read the evidence

Direct biblical declarations

• Exodus 34:14 — Jealous
• Isaiah 45:7 — Creator of Darkness and Evil
• Amos 3:6 — Divine Agency in Evil
• Lamentations 3:38 — Good and Evil

Deception and the adversary

• 1 Kings 22:19–23 — Lying Spirit
• Ezekiel 14:9 — Divine Deception
• 2 Samuel 24 — Yahweh Incites David
• 1 Chronicles 21 — Satan Incites David
• 2 Chronicles 18:18–22 — Lying Spirit Preserved

The Father and Truth

• John 8:19–55
• 1 John 1:5
• Mary Boyce, Ahura Mazda — Encyclopaedia Iranica

Historical research

• Isaiah — Oxford Bibliographies — Second Isaiah and the sixth-century setting.
• Chronicles — Oxford Bibliographies — Persian/Hellenistic composition and dating disputes.
• Deuteronomistic History — Oxford Bibliographies — the literary development of Samuel–Kings.

Editorial distinction: “Father of Darkness and Evil” is the author’s theological characterization of the divine creator and agent described in the cited scriptures. Isaiah 45:7 explicitly attributes the creation of darkness and raʿ to Yahweh; it does not literally confer that paternal title or establish that all moral wickedness originated in him. The article makes its moral and theological inference from the combined record.

eFireTemple.com — Diesel the Magus — October 24, 2026