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HOUSMAIL HM097 25
November 2002 WHO IS LUCIFER? "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 KJV) The name "Lucifer" appears in only ONE place in the whole
of the Bible, and then ONLY in the KJV! (but note that the KJV has
a marginal note which offers the alternative "Day Star") Instead of "Lucifer", other modern versions
substitute: *
"Day Star, son of
the morning". (RSV) *
"bright morning star".
(NEB) *
"star of the morning,
son of the dawn". (NASB) *
"O morning star, son
of the dawn". (NIV) *
"O shining star of
the dawn". (Moffatt) *
etc. The Latinised form of the word "Lucifer" was used by Jerome in
the late 4th century AD Latin Vulgate version of the Bible, to translate the Hebrew
word "HEYLEL", which is the Hebrew name for the planet Venus.
(the morning star) From there, many Bible commentators have invested
a great deal of "circular logic" of the worst sort, to arrive at the
totally unjustified conclusion that "Lucifer" is a Proper Name for the
"dragon" and "devil" of Revelation 12:9. However, a careful reading of Isaiah 14 will reveal that the chapter
has NOTHING AT ALL to do with the "fallen angel Devil" of popular mainstream
theology! In verse 4 it is made abundantly clear that this chapter is a prophecy against
the KING OF BABYLON! Certainly, the reference to the Morning Star is highly pictorial
language, but there is not even a HINT that it might apply to anyone else! This prophecy by Isaiah dates from sometime during
Isaiah's ministry, circa 700 BC. It was clearly fulfilled in a very spectacular
way, about 170 years later, when Babylon fell to the Persians, BC536. The prophet
Daniel records the circumstances in Daniel Chapter 5. There we read the story
of how Belshazzar, the last king of Babylon, drank from the vessels taken from
the Jerusalem temple, whilst praising the idol gods of Babylon. It isn't hard
to work out that, in this action, there was some implied gross
insult against the God of Israel! (verse 23) The hand appeared from nowhere and wrote the
judgement of God on the wall! And that very night Belshazzar was slain by the
invading Persian army, and the kingdom passed to Darius the Mede. In passing
we mention another very similar prophecy in Ezekiel
28, which is also often incorrectly referred to the
"devil". This time it is about the "King of Tyre" (V2 &12), and it does not mention
"Lucifer" at all. It contains
recognisably similar language; this time using the Garden of Eden as a symbol
to portray the height and depth of the rise and fall of Tyre. And again we note
that there is not the slightest reference to the "fallen angel Devil"
of popular mainstream Church theology! The
bottom line is that "Lucifer" is NOT a "fallen angel". It
is merely a Latin Name for the planet Venus, which is used as a very graphic and poetic symbol to describe the
rise and fall of the King of Babylon! Anyone
familiar with the Old Testament knows that ancient Hebrew regularly uses rich
pictorial language in this way, in many places. Allon |