When Did Satan Fall ?

“Also on the tenth day of this seventh month there shall be a day of atonement: it shall be an 

holy convocation unto you; and ye shall afflict your souls, and offer an

offering made by fire unto the LORD. And ye shall do no work in that 

same day: for it is a day of atonement, to make an atonement for you 

before the LORD your God.”

Genesis 1 does not specifically tell us 

when angels and other heavenly beings were created, but elsewhere, in 

passages such as Exodus 20:11, we learn that everything was created 

during that creation week, whether it is specifically named or not. And 

at the end of the creation week, we know that God stated that everything

was very good, so by the time the Seventh Day had arrived, Satan – or 

whatever he might have been called at the time – had still not sinned.

Genesis 2 expands on the Sixth Day of 

creation because it was on that day that God made people. Genesis 2 

simply gives us more details about the creation of Adam and Eve.

At the beginning of Genesis 3, Satan has

become sinful. It follows that Satan’s rebellion happened between the 

creation week and the events of Genesis 3. So when did Genesis 3 happen?

I have read some who say that there could have been hundreds of years 

before Genesis 3, but this is unlikely because Adam and Eve had been 

ordered to “fill the earth and subdue it”, so a failure to carry out 

that commission would, in itself, have been a sin. James Ussher, who so 

carefully dated history, suggested that it must be the tenth day so that

it coincides with the Day of Atonement. And there was indeed atonement 

that day, as God gave the new sinners clothes of skin, shedding the 

blood of an animal, to cover, or atone for, their nakedness and sin.

Prayer: We stand in awe, Lord God, that You did not leave our first parents in sin, without a

means of salvation, but provided blood atonement for their sins and the promise of a Savior to come. Amen.