It wasn’t a bad move to label Isaiah 14 in terms of Mick Jagger’s ‘Pleased to meet you. Hope you guess my name’ song. You have to admit, certain passages of that chapter fit the Devil pretty well:
“You said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to the heavens. Above the stars of God I will lift up my throne, And I will sit down on the mountain of meeting, In the remotest parts of the north. I will go up above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself resemble the Most High.’ (vs 13-14)
Yeah, Satan did say things like that. He saw all that praise and worship going to Jehovah and said, ‘Hey—I’d like me some of that.’ There’s no reason to think that James verse about being ‘drawn out and enticed’ by one’s own desires that soon enough give birth to sin’ applies only to humans. (1:14-15) Satan’s desire was to be worshipped.
In fact, Isaiah 14 is where the name ‘Lucifer’ comes from, a name used interchangeably with the Devil:
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! (vs 12-KJV)
Few Bibles say Lucifer these days. It is a Latin word that means “light-bringer” or “light-bearer. ” A quick search of Biblegateway*com (which compares translations) reveals that only 12 out of the 57 listed do it that way. In classical Roman usage, Lucifer referred to the planet Venus when visible as the morning star. It is closer to the sun than is the earth, hence it will always be seen in that direction. It’s the brightest object in the sky before dawn.
The original Hebrew is “hêlēl ben šāḥar.” It means “shining one, son of the dawn” or “morning star, son of dawn.” Nobody is speaking of Venus here—that was a later Roman adaptation of the Hebrew term. But, like Venus, the king of Babylon shone brilliantly for a time, only to be overshadowed—scorched, really—by the rising sun. Twenty translations of the 57 say ‘morning star,’ with an equal number some close permutation. Five read ‘day star.’ There is much overlap. Even the five translations that say ‘king of Babylon,’ an application that is correct but not explicitly in the Hebrew Word, also expand it to shining one, morning star, or something of the sort.
The verse is a prophetic taunt against the king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar at its time of fulfillment. Other verses of the chapter make that clear. It is Babylon, the ax that chopped the ax, that will be axed itself.
Verses 3-4, for example: “In the day when Jehovah gives you rest from your pain and from your turmoil and from the hard slavery imposed on you, you will recite this proverb against the king of Babylon: “How the one forcing others to work has met his end! How the oppression has ended!” It’s almost like a “Just you wait, enry iggins, just you wait!” isn’t it? “You’ll be sorry but your tears will be too late!” Verse 22 also specifically names Babylon.
‘Hêlēl ben šāḥar’ becomes ‘Satan’ only by the extension of those who like to do antitypes. It is a group that once included most everyone. Figures like Tertullian and Origen, in the 2nd–3rd centuries, linked Isaiah 14:12–15’s imagery of a proud figure falling from heaven to New Testament passages such as Jesus’ pronouncement, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.” (Luke 10:18)
Jehovah’s Witnesses were as big as anyone on antitypes, were among the last to give them up, unless Scripture definitively makes the link, but they never fell for this one. The New World Translation renders 14:12 as, “How you have fallen from heaven, O shining one, son of the dawn! How you have been cut down to the earth, You who vanquished nations!”
It is thoroughly up to date in this regard. Modern translations (e.g., NIV, ESV, NRSV) render it as “morning star,” “day star,” or “shining one” to reflect the original Hebrew metaphor, avoiding the name “Lucifer” since it is not a biblical proper name for Satan. Also:
New American Standard Bible (NASB) “How you have fallen from heaven, O star of the morning, son of the dawn!”
Christian Standard Bible (CSB) “Shining morning star, how you have fallen from the heavens!”
New Living Translation (NLT) “How you are fallen from heaven, O shining star, son of the morning!”
New English Translation (NET) “Look how you have fallen from the sky, O shining one, son of the dawn!”
– **New American Bible Revised Edition (NABRE) “How you have fallen from the heavens, O Morning Star, son of the dawn!”
See? Nobody does Lucifer anymore. But Mick Jagger does his Bible study via the King James Version, probably. His ‘Sympathy for the Devil,’ after making humankind complicit into all the atrocities that he is behind, after each verse followed by the refrain, “Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name,” follows up once with “Just call me Lucifer.”
He doesn’t actually say Lucifer is the name, only “Just call me Lucifer.” So, maybe he does use a modern Bible after all for his intense studies. He just rolls with tradition, that’s all. And instinct. It’s only natural to want to know someone’s name. If the Devil’s name is not actually given, God’s name is. And most Bibles have taken it out, substituting the bland “the LORD!” In one of those early Charlton Heston blockbusters, the Israelites are downhearted, since they don’t even know their God’s name. Later on, they are pleased as punch. They have discovered it. It is ‘the LORD!’ Sheesh!
Say what you want about the Jews declining to pronounce God’s name; they never REMOVED it. I don’t know why Mick doesn’t include THAT in his song of the things Satan boasts about.
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It was Rabbi Meir Kahane who took sharp offense at the Jewish avoidance of pronouncing God’s name being characterized a “superstition.” When questioned about it by Larry King—the name is right there in the Hebrew Scriptures, almost seven thousand times, but Jews substitute ‘Lord’ when they read it—he countered, “Would you call your father by his first name?” Larry said he would not. Alright, then. Case closed. The technical term for this kind of thing is “qere perpetuum,” substitution for a word deemed too sacred to pronounce. There’s no reason to think God wants his name unpronounced, but to call it superstition will not win you friends in the Jewish community.
Actually, I did call my dad by his first name, for many years, and only stopped when a grandparent heard me do it and deemed it disgraceful. Pop never minded. Before my step-grandma, no one ever said not to do it. Mom always called him that, and he always called Mom by her first name, so it’s only natural the kids will do it, too. I did call my mother Mom, though, probably because she specifically said I should. Who can said why the folks called each other by first names and not ‘sweetie,’ ‘honey,’ ‘dear,’ and so forth? It was unusual back then, though not so much today. People work out their own issues in life, and at whatever stage they are when raising kids, that is what the kids pick up on and normalize.
I remember well calling him ‘Shuck,’ since I couldn’t quite say ‘Chuck’ just then. I recall sulking in the corner, after being disciplined for something, along with my brother, who was also disciplined: “Do you like Shuck?” he said to me, or I do him. “No, I don’t like Shuck at all.” Or maybe it was that time he pulled his brand new Rambler in the garage and within a day I had dropped a plank on it from my overhead fort in the rafters. Wowwhee! was he mad about that! Did I fess up like George Washington who would never tell a lie? No. I lied and lied and lied and lied about not doing the deed but it was no good. However, I would have been calling him Dad by then, being about 12.
****** The bookstore
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