If you’ve heard a story from the Old Testament once, you’ve heard this one told ten thousand times. It comes from Isaiah 14.
12 How did you fall from the sky, O flower of the morning, how did you fall to the earth, O conqueror of nations!
13 Because you said in your heart, I will ascend to heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, and I will sit on the mountain of worshipers in the northern extremities.
14 I ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will be like the Most High.
15 But you have come down to hell, to the bottom of the pit.
16 Those who see you look at you and look at you, saying, “Is this the man who shook the earth and shook kingdoms?”
This story was proof that Satan was one of God’s good men and then all of a sudden, one day, he decided to take over everything and kick God off his throne. I think the local boy got nasty. Well Satan, who is never mentioned here, the former light-bringer which is what Lucifer means, is now the Prince of Darkness and the rest is history.
What is really going on with this story. Did you know that this drama takes place literally on several days in the mornings and evenings of the year. Did you know that to this day this Lucifer is mistaken for UFOs or landing lights! Jesus said he saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven as did millions then and billions today if you know where to look. It’s a very old story based on a very real observation by humans who made up a story about what they didn’t understand at the time.
First of all, let’s understand that Isaiah 14 is not really about Satan Satan as it has developed throughout church history. The Bible can never mean what it never meant, and this principle certainly applies to Isaiah 14. In the original Hebrew text, the fourteenth chapter of Isaiah is not about a fallen angel, but about a fallen Babylonian king, who persecuted the Israelites. Later in the context we see that it was a man who died. We often hear now that this was a “kind” but this is mostly slippery ground. A metaphor maybe, but not a kind, where we can change a man into Lucifer and then Lucifer into Satan, it’s never mentioned, and then it’s all about how Satan turns out to be the god of this world, so send your tithes and be safe with us. In the Hebrew text, the phrase used to describe the Babylonian king before his death was “Hilal, son of Shahar,” which can best be translated as “star of the day, son of the dawn.” The name evokes the golden luster of the proud king’s dress and court (inasmuch as his splendor endowed him with Personal title of King Louis XIV of France “The Sun King”).
{Craig Lyons-Bet Emet Ministries.} The King here was a plain, simple man, and because of his cocky attitude, he died like everyone else.
Lucifer means “Light Bringer” and was a term Roman astronomers used to describe the planet Venus. Venus has always been the source of light because it always precedes the early morning sun. It is so bright and so noticeable, that it has been mistaken for non-existent aircraft landing lights. It is bright, but not as bright as the sun, of course. In mythology, humans observed this “god” preceding the sun and apparently racing to its zenith, which in astronomy is called the locus of “the Most High” or it is evidently set for us today, Nun! Terminology. In Isaiah, this “Lightbringer” went before God, the highest Sun. The highest point in the sky at which the sun, or anything shining outside the planet, can shine from our perspective. When myths and even the Bible speak of God as “the Most High,” one can see the deeper meaning hinted at sun worship. The Bible promotes a similar but different form of Sun/Son worship but this has been lost in most Christians today.
Venus has proven to be a mystery to mankind. It seems her job is to go before the morning sun and announce, if you will, that she is coming. But then, as it was and is still shining, it falls from the sky and falls to the ground, or, in mythology, it seems to have fallen. strange! They did not know that Venus was an inner planet and that all the inner planets that revolve with the earth around the sun could never pass over us, from east to west as the outer planets and stars do, they had to explain it. And so we have the “fact” that this luminary, and Lucifer will soon be called this Satan, must become dissatisfied with the mere proclamation of the Sun God, so must say in his heart, “I will become greater.” Well, that was for him! The Most High, unwilling to relinquish his throne to this usurper, simply threw him to the ground, or at least as we look over the horizon. After this somewhat failed endeavor to dethrone God Almighty, we stumble upon him as Satan completes the church, which emblazoned the story outta! … the mess the world is in is explained and it’s not humanity’s fault for the most part. For eternity, we can say, “The devil made me do it.” You know, the bright morning star who tried to become God but lost.
It was the fourth-century Catholic St. Jerome who mistranslated the Hebrew metaphor, “star of the day, son of the dawn,” as “Lucifer,” and over the centuries a development of ideas took place. Lucifer, the Morning Star, became a disobedient angel, expelled from Heaven to rule forever in Hell awaiting mostly all non-Catholics, but later all non-Protestants as well. Now the church has the prince of the power of the air, the prince of darkness, the god of this world, the roaring lion, the fallen angel, the star of the day before (for if you know where to look, the flower can be seen in the daytime) … worsened.
Interestingly enough, even Jesus, well, the Jesus in Revelation who is unlike the Jesus in the Gospels, identifies himself as the morning star, a term used as a central theme in many Christian sermons. Jesus refers to himself as the Morning Star in Revelation 22:16: “I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify these things to you in the churches. I am the Root and Seed of David, and the luminous Morning Star.”
So here we have it. Humans have never been able to fully explain why this bright “star” that we know as the planet Venus preceded the morning sun as if announcing its coming, but then returned to Earth. Very strange! Let’s make a story! This bright light, angel, Lightbringer and little deity compared to SUN, really got bad and decided to expel the sun god, and later the son of God, from the throne, as SUN rises when it becomes the most exalted at noon. God, not tolerating it, simply cast Lucifer, now Satan or the Destroyer, back to Earth where he belonged and mortals could cling to him until the Son of the Sun returned to destroy the works of the light-bringer now the darkness was gone. Great story! In Isaiah 14, this arrogant king was acting just like that in thinking he could get Israel out of the picture, he lost, he was cast down and he died, just like Venus every morning. Do not tamper with God’s chosen ones, 19 and you, like an ugly bough, have been cast out of your grave, like the clothes of the sword-slashed slain, who fall to the stones of the well. Like a corpse chased underfoot.
In the true story of the true human king of Isaiah 14, we see that he dies like all mortals and is not well thought of in the belief that he can challenge Israel. In verse 19 we read, “But you were cast out of your grave like an ugly bough, and like the garments of the slain, who are crunched by the sword, who go down to the stones of the pit; underfoot 20 Thou shalt not cleave to them in burial, because thou hast destroyed thy land, and slew thy people. The seed of evil-doers shall not be known forever.” And corpses, pits, burials, and oblivion are all attributes of what happens to humans, not angels or minor gods.
It’s interesting, because Venus also rises wonderfully in the evening after sunset, and then returns to Earth as well. Satan may just emerge from the dark underworld to climax and tell us he still rules it before returning an hour or so later after “sunset” where she goes up to the highest sun each night, in Eqyptian history to challenge the “appointment” of the god of the underworld. It makes you wonder about the stories about the Sons of the Sun preaching to the spirits in the “prison”. But that’s another story.
So when you see Venus early in the morning when you’re driving to work and you think a train if it’s low enough or a plane looking for a place to land is coming at you, know that it’s just the Light Bringer, Lucifer, who later becomes your sworn enemy Satan declaring “you For those who fear my name, the sun of righteousness will rise, with healing in its wings, and you will go forth and grow like calves in a stall.” Malachi 4:2. Note that it does not say “a son.” Think of wings like rays and you get the picture. This planet Vensus, so beautiful, explains a phenomenon we take for granted to humans long ago who feared such things and simply had to devise a theology to explain it. Now you can say that you saw Satan fall like lightning from the sky too…how cool!