Berean Fact Sheet Number 031

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Isaiah 14:12 & Luke 10:18
Copyright © 2007 Larry G. Overton

In June of 2001, a man I’ll just call Peter wrote the following query concerning Berean Fact Sheet No. 011 (“Isaiah 14:12 Isaiah 14:12 – ‘Lucifer’ or ‘Morning Star’?”):

Dear Mr. Overton, How do you square Jesus' comments in Luke 10:18 with your arguments that Isaiah 14:12 does not apply to Satan. Is Christ not alluding to Isaiah 14:12 when he makes His comments in Luke 10:18 ?

I have edited the response I sent to Peter nearly six years ago, making it available now to all in the form of a Berean Fact Sheet, one following up on the aforementioned Berean Fact Sheet No. 011.

Hello, Peter ~

No, Jesus was not alluding to Isaiah 14:12 when He spoke of watching Satan having fallen out of heaven (Luke 10:18). I can confidently and unequivocally make this statement because of the meanings of both the Isaiah and Luke passages. I have already explained in Berean Fact Sheet #11 why Isaiah 14:12 is not a reference to Satan. However, for the sake of emphasis and clarity, I will reiterate and even elaborate on my previously stated position, and then discuss the meaning of Luke 10:18.

Isaiah 14:4 plainly states that this passage is a “proverb” or “parable” taken up “against the king of Babylon.” The Hebrew word for “parable” here is māshāl, which can be used of a “pithy maxim, usually of a metaphorical nature,” hence the translation “proverb” here in the King James Version. However, this word also applies to a “song, a poem,” used “specially of a prophecy.” That aspect of meaning is what we find in Isaiah 14, and so “parable” or “allegory” would be a more appropriate rendering of this Hebrew word in this passage. Isaiah 14:4-23 is a parable, an extended poetic/prophetic passage of a “metaphorical nature.”

When it comes to interpreting the Latin term “Lucifer,” there is no guesswork involved. Isaiah 14:4 tells us in no uncertain terms that this parable is about “the king of Babylon.” And the king of Babylon is called the “shining star, son of the morning” (that’s my own literal translation) in Isaiah 14:12. And as I have already explained, the KJV rendering “Lucifer” is not a translation but a substitution of a Latin word from the Latin Vulgate, a word meaning “light-bringing.” The Romans gave this name to the morning star (Venus).

“Lucifer” was also used as a proper name among ancient Roman Catholics. In a letter from Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria (#51 in the Nicene and Post-Nicene “Fathers,” ca. 360 AD), addressed to another bishop named Lucifer, Athanasius greeted him as “the most glorious lord and deservedly much-desired fellow-Bishop Lucifer. ”

In the body of his second letter to Lucifer, Athanasius makes use of the meaning of the name “Lucifer” (i.e., “light-bringing”) in flattering his fellow bishop: “O truly Lucifer, who according to your name bring the light of truth, and have set it on a candlestick to give light to all.”

Approximately forty years later (ca. 400 AD), Jerome would complete his translation of the Old Testament into Latin, and, as I have already pointed out, he translated the Hebrew word hēylēl into Latin as lucifer (see Berean Fact Sheet No. 011). This fact demonstrates that four centuries after the time of Christ, and more than a thousand years after Isaiah was inspired to write these words, the interpretation of “the light bringing one” in Isaiah 14:12 as Satan was still not in vogue. The translation into the Latin word lucifer still captured the essence of the original Hebrew word; it had not yet been transformed into personal name for the devil. The “demonizing” of lucifer was still a future invention.

Yes, centuries later, the word “Lucifer” would come to be associated with Satan, primarily because of allegorical interpretations of this passage by the so-called “church fathers.” But it did not mean that originally, nor was that view popularly held in the first four centuries after Christ.

And so Isaiah 14:12 depicts the king of Babylon as the morning star that fell from “the heavens” (a more literal rendering of the Hebrew word shāmayim). The “heavens” here is a reference to the abode of the stars. This Hebrew word is used in just this sense in Genesis 1:14-16, in the phrase “firmament of the heavens,” where God placed the sun and moon and stars. The idea of the king of Babylon being depicted as the morning star that fell from the heavens is an image (“of a metaphorical nature”) of loftiness and grandeur being brought low, which is exactly what Isaiah was prophesying against the king of Babylon. So, Isaiah 14:12 is a depiction of the king of Babylon’s demise, a depiction couched in the vivid imagery of the brightest star of the heavens falling from its place. Obviously, then, Jesus could not have been referring to Isaiah 14:12 in His comments as recorded in Luke 10:18.

On the occasion recorded in Luke 10, the seventy disciples commissioned by Jesus returned, reporting back to Him that “even the demons are subject to us in Your name.” His reply: “I was watching Satan as lightning from the heaven falling” (Luke 10:17-18, LGO). The words “I was watching” (“I beheld,” KJV) in Greek is etheōroun [ε̉θεώρουν], the first person singular in the imperfect tense, active voice, of the Greek verbtheōreō [ θεωρέω], “to see; to watch, look upon, observe.” The imperfect tense in the Greek describes a repeated or continuous action normally occurring in the past.

By contrast, the word for Satan’s “falling” (“fall,” KJV) is the word pesonta [πεσόντα], the aorist participle, active voice, accusative masculine singular of the verb piptō [πίπτω], “to fall; to fall to one’s ruin or destruction.” So what we have here when we put these two verbs together in this sentence is Jesus stating that He was continually observing the single action of Satan’s “falling.”

Sound confusing? Take these words of Jesus in the context of His response to the seventy, and it makes sense. A number of respected scholars (Adam Clarke, Leon Morris, Ray Summers, et al.), based upon the facts presented above, understand this verse in the following way. In His “watching,” His continually observing in past time, Jesus was referring to His witnessing the victories (in His name) that the seventy had over demons. He observed the warfare in the heavenlies that took place in their confrontations with Satan’s minions, the demons, and this signified to Jesus the certain defeat, the “fall to ruin or destruction” of Satan.

So, in verse 18, Jesus was not saying “I saw the definitive fall of Satan in the ancient past, when he was cast out of heaven.” Rather, He was saying, “I was watching, I continually observed in the victories over his minions the ultimate downfall of Satan.” I can understand how someone might be reminded of the language of the passage in Isaiah when they read this verse in Luke. However, when the facts concerning both passages (as presented above) are taken into consideration, it is clear that the similarities between these two passages are merely superficial.