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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Isaiah 14:12 - 14:12
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“How art thou fallen from the sky, thou star of light, sun of the dawn, hurled down to the earth, thou that didst throw down nations from above?” הֵילֵל is here the morning star (from hâlal, to shine, resolved from hillel, after the form מֵאֵן, Jer 13:10, סֵעֵף, Psa 119:113, or rather attaching itself as a third class to the forms הֵיכָל, עֵירֹם: compare the Arabic sairaf, exchanger; saikal, sword-cleaner). It derives its name in other ancient languages also from its striking brilliancy, and is here called ben-shachar (sun of the dawn), just as in the classical mythology it is called son of Eos, from the fact that it rises before the sun, and swims in the morning light as if that were the source of its birth.
(Note: It is singular, however, that among the Semitic nations the morning star is not personified as a male (Heōsphoros or Phōsphoros), but as a female (Astarte, see at Isa 17:8), and that it is called Nâghâh, Ashtoreth, Zuhara, but never by a name derived from hâlal; whilst the moon is regarded as a male deity (Sin), and in Arabic hilâl signifies the new moon, which might be called ben- shacar (son of the dawn), from the fact that, from the time when it passes out of the invisibility of its first phase, it is seen at sunrise, and is as it were born out of the dawn.)
Lucifer, as a name given to the devil, was derived from this passage, which the fathers (and lately Stier) interpreted, without any warrant whatever, as relating to the apostasy and punishment of the angelic leaders. The appellation is a perfectly appropriate one for the king of Babel, on account of the early date of the Babylonian culture, which reached back as far as the grey twilight of primeval times, and also because of its predominant astrological character. The additional epithet chōlēsh ‛al-gōyim is founded upon the idea of the influxus siderum:
(Note: In a similar manner, the sun-god (San) is called the “conqueror of the king's enemies,” “breaker of opposition,” etc., on the early Babylonian monuments (see G. Rawlinson, The Five Great Monarchies, i. 160).)
cholesh signifies “overthrowing” or laying down (Exo 17:13), and with ‛al, “bringing defeat upon;” whilst the Talmud (b. Sabbath 149b) uses it in the sense of projiciens sortem, and thus throws light upon the cholesh (= purah, lot) of the Mishnah. A retrospective glance is now cast at the self-deification of the king of Babylon, in which he was the antitype of the devil and the type of antichrist (Dan 11:36; 2Th 2:4), and which had met with its reward.