Isaiah 14 and the fallen angel

Your goal in this lesson: to read the verse that turned a star into a fallen angel, first in its own setting and then through later eyes.

A taunt song for a tyrant

Historical Isaiah 13 and 14 belong to prophecies against foreign nations. Chapter 14 contains a taunt song, a poem mocking a dead tyrant, the “king of Babylon”. The underworld, Sheol, stirs to greet him. The kings of the nations, now shades, say he has become as weak as they are. Then comes the famous passage, here in the King James Version:

“How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!” (Isaiah 14:12)

The poem goes on to mock the king’s boast that he would climb above the stars of God, and ends with onlookers staring at his corpse: “Is this the man that made the earth to tremble?” (14:16). Throughout, the subject is a human ruler.

Helel ben shahar

Historical The Hebrew of verse 12 calls him helel ben shahar. Many scholars read this as “shining one, son of dawn”, a name for the Morning Star. The word helel appears nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible, so certainty is impossible. The image fits: Venus climbs high in the dawn sky but always fades before the rising Sun, just as the proud king fell. Scholars often compare a Ugaritic myth of the god Athtar, who tried Baal’s throne and was too small for it.

Jerome’s lucifer

Historical The Greek Septuagint translated the phrase as heosphoros, the dawn-bringer. Around 390 to 405 CE, Jerome made his Latin Vulgate and wrote lucifer, the ordinary Latin word for the Morning Star. He used the same word in Job 11:17 and 38:32 for dawn and the morning star. Early Latin manuscripts had no consistent capitals, so lucifer in Isaiah looked like the word in Job. The King James translators of 1611 kept “Lucifer” as a name, following earlier English Bibles. Most modern translations have “Day Star” or “morning star” instead.

From king to angel

Later tradition Christians read Isaiah alongside other passages: “I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven” (Luke 10:18) and the war in heaven of Revelation 12. Origen of Alexandria, in the third century, argued in On First Principles (1.5.5) that Isaiah 14 describes a being who “formerly was Lucifer”. Augustine, in The City of God (book 11), made pride the root of the angels’ fall. From then on, Western Christianity told of a great angel, Lucifer, who fell through pride and became Satan. For many Christians that reading is a true reading of scripture, and I describe its history without judging it.

The other Lucifer: Christ

Later tradition At the same time, the same word kept another meaning. In 2 Peter 1:19, the “day star” rising in believers’ hearts is lucifer in the Vulgate. The Exsultet, the ancient hymn of the Easter Vigil, prays that the morning star, “which knows no setting”, Christ himself, may find the Easter candle still burning. In Latin Christianity, lucifer named both the fallen one and the risen one.

Try this

Today’s exercise: read Isaiah 14:4 to 20 in any translation. Underline every word that shows the subject is a human king. Then write one sentence on why later readers saw an angel there.

Quick recap

• Isaiah 14 mocks a dead king of Babylon as a fallen Morning Star.
• The Hebrew is helel ben shahar; Jerome’s Latin is lucifer.
• Origen and Augustine read the passage as the fall of Satan.
• The same word also names Christ in 2 Peter and the Exsultet.

Keep going

Press “Mark as done” and continue with Medieval devils and Milton. For a verse-by-verse reading, see my Isaiah 14 page.

Need a refresher? Go back to The Morning Star or see the whole course.

Sources

• Isaiah 14:4 to 20, King James Version (1611).
• Jerome, Biblia Sacra Vulgata, Isaiah 14:12; Job 11:17 and 38:32; 2 Peter 1:19.
• Origen, On First Principles 1.5.5, translated by Frederick Crombie (Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 4).
• Augustine, The City of God, book 11, chapters 13 to 15.

Go deeper: the Lucifer pages on this site

Mark as done