Isaiah: 14
12). The King James Version renders it as follows:
"How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art though cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations."
In spite of this rendering, the proper name "Lucifer" is not in the original Hebrew text. In Hebrew "Lucifer, son of the morning" is
helel ben shachar. It could be translated "Shining one, son of the dawn." It is not a proper name, but an epithet for the king of Babylon.
Why then did the King James translators translate "Lucifer" for "Shining one" in this passage?
The answer lies in two earlier translations. In the third century B.C.E., Ptolemy Philadelphus (285-247 B.C.E.), the Greek-speaking Pharoah of Egypt, commissioned a Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures for his own library. Seventy-two scholars performed the work. They became known as "The Seventy." Their translation itself was called "The Septuagint" or "LXX," which are the Roman numerals for "70."
In translating Isaiah 14:12, the Seventy chose the word
Heosphoros for the Hebrew
helel ben shachar. Heos means "in or of the morning" and
phoros means "that which is borne, or bearing." This is not an exact translation of the original Hebrew, but it’s reasonably close.
Jerome’s Translation
As mentioned above, the Septuagint (LXX) translation was commissioned during the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus. The Prophets section wasn’t completed until around 200 B.C.E. By the time of Jesus and the apostles, the LXX was in common use throughout Palestine. It is clear from the wording that many of the New Testament’s quotations from the Old Testament are taken from the Greek (LXX), rather than the Hebrew, text.
Because Greek is a very different language than Hebrew, much of the original meaning and intent was lost in the LXX.
As empires rose and fell, the fortunes of languages rose and fell with them. The longer the Romans ruled, the more prominent Latin became. During Constantine’s reign, the Roman Empire took over gentile Christianity, politicized it, and made it the state religion. By the fourth century C.E., the Latin Church father Jerome (340 AD – 419 AD) had risen to prominence within the Roman Catholic Church. At the suggestion of Pope Damasus, Jerome began work on a Latin translation of the Bible. After 20 years of toil, the translation now known as the Vulgate was completed in the year 405 C.E.
Jerome used the LXX version, along with the Hebrew, in making his translation. As Church historian Schaff explains, "From the present stage of biblical philology and exegesis the Vulgate can be charged, indeed, with innumerable faults, inaccuracies, inconsistencies, and arbitrary dealing, in particulars…"
When he translated Isaiah 14:12, Jerome did not strictly translate the Hebrew
helel ben shachar, nor did he use the Greek (LXX)
Heosphoros, which term, by his day, had fallen largely into disuse. Instead he translated as though the original word had been
lukophos. Lukophos, by Jerome’s time, had become an epithet for the gods Apollo and Pan. Earlier, Catholic theologians Tertullian and Origen had begun to read Satan into the story of the King of Babylon in Isaiah 14. Jerome’s selection of words may have been influenced by this theology.
As a result of Jerome’s translation, the images of Pan and the Devil were morphed together. Today, the devil is often depicted as "Lucifer," and his appearance is similar to the ancient god Pan, with goat-like features including horns and cloven hoofs. Yet there is nothing in the text itself that would indicate that a figure named "Lucifer" is intended. Nor do these verses in Isaiah 14 represent an account of the fall of the devil. As Dr. John D. Watts explains in his commentary on Isaiah: "…the OT [Old Testament] knows nothing of attempts to dethrone Yahweh…" Watts also observes, "When the poem has been used in apocryphal and Christian circles to picture the fall of the angelic Satan, the reference must be to the shadowy mythical background of the poem rather than to the poem itself. It is significant that the account of the fall of Satan (Rev. 12) makes no reference to Isa 14" (ibid. p. 212).
