28:17 corrupted thy wisdom. Satan’s incomparable wisdom became corrupt when he deceived himself into thinking he could become God. He has attempted to deceive men and women ever since, persuading them (as he did Eve) that they also could be “as gods” (Genesis 3:5), but he had deceived himself most of all. His corrupted wisdom somehow persuaded him that he and God were the same type of being and, therefore, that he could displace God by leading a revolt of the angels under his command. This plan could be rationalized only by his assuming that both he and God had by some unknown process “evolved” out of the primeval waters which had been the environment of his first consciousness, when God created him. This is suggested not only from Genesis 1:2, but in all the most ancient pagan cosmogonies (Sumeria, Egypt, etc.), for which Satan must have been primarily responsible. Thus, Satan’s corrupted wisdom devised the primeval system of pantheistic evolutionism with which he has been corrupting and deceiving the world ever since.

28:17 to the ground. When he rebelled against God in the heavenly Eden (sometime after the six days of creation, for everything in heaven and earth was still “very good” at that point in time—Genesis 1:31–2:3), God “cast him to the ground”—that is, “to the earth”—where He allowed him to test Adam and Eve in their earthly Eden, to see whether they also would rebel against God’s Word, and seek to be gods themselves.