Investigation: The Fallen Morning Star

Isaiah 14:4 introduces the poem: "thou shalt take up this proverb against the king of Babylon." The dead kings in Sheol greet him: "Art thou also become weak as we?" (v. 10). Then: "How art thou fallen from heaven, O helel ben shachar… For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven… I will be like the most High. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell" (vv. 12–15). Onlookers ask, "Is this the man that made the earth to tremble?" (v. 16).

In Hebrew helel occurs only here. Most link it to halal, "to shine": the bright one. The morning star (Venus) rises brightest just before dawn and is overwhelmed by the sun: an image of a power that tries to outshine all and is extinguished. The Greek translators wrote heōsphoros, "bringer of dawn"; the Latin, lucifer, "bringer of light," the usual Latin name of the morning star in poets like Virgil and Ovid.

The Vulgate also uses lucifer for the morning star in Job 11:17 and 38:32, and in 2 Peter 1:19, where the "day star" (lucifer) arises in believers' hearts: a positive image. A 4th-century bishop, Lucifer of Cagliari, bore the name without scandal. Only gradually did Lucifer become a name for the devil.

Canaanite background

At Ugarit, Shachar (Dawn) and Shalim (Dusk) are twin gods (KTU 1.23). The mountain of assembly "in the far reaches of Tsaphon" (14:13) is Baal's mountain. In the Baal cycle, after Baal's death, El makes Athtar (a god linked with the morning or evening star in later traditions) king on Baal's throne; but Athtar is too small, his feet do not reach the footstool, so he descends to rule the earth (KTU 1.6 I 53–65). Many scholars see a myth of a star-god's failed ascent behind Isaiah 14; others prefer a Greek-style Phaethon parallel or no specific myth. No surviving text supplies the whole story; the site presents it as background, not source.

What "Lucifer" is and is not

"Lucifer" is not a Hebrew name and does not appear in the Hebrew Bible; it is the Latin translation of a Hebrew epithet. The Hebrew text does not say that Satan was called helel. The Satan reading is an interpretation that combines Isaiah 14, Ezekiel 28 and New Testament texts. It may be held as a theological reading, but it is not what the translation history alone shows.

Helel as "howl"?

Because the consonants of helel could also be read as a form of yalal, "howl!" (compare Zechariah 11:2), a few scholars have proposed "Howl, son of dawn!" Most keep "shining one," which fits the star imagery of vv. 12–13 and the ancient translations.

Ezekiel 28

Ezekiel 28:12–19 addresses the king of Tyre: "Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God… thou art the anointed cherub… I will cast thee to the ground." With Isaiah 14 it became the second pillar of the doctrine of Satan's fall. In context it too is a lament over a human king, using mythic imagery of a primeval being expelled from God's mountain.