WHO IS LUCIFER IN ISAIAH 14, AND WHO IS THE KING OF TYRE?

Isaiah 14:12—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!

OT: Hebrew #1966 heylel (hay-lale’); from OT:1984 (in the sense of brightness); the morning-star:

OT: Hebrew #1984 halal (haw-lal’); a primitive root; to be clear (orig. of sound, but usually of color); to shine; hence, to make a show, to boast; and thus to be (clamorously) foolish; to rave; causatively, to celebrate; also to stultify:

Isaiah 14:4—The context starts here, and continues through the chapter.

“That thou shalt take up this proverb against the king of Babylon, and say, How hath the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased!”

Isaiah 14:10-11—Can a spirit devil become described as a man?

“All they shall speak and say unto thee, Art thou also become weak as we? art thou become like unto us? 11 Thy pomp is brought down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols: the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee.”

Do these words describe a spirit or a man?

Isaiah 14:13—Isn’t Satan and his throne already above the stars?

“For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:”

Isaiah 14:16—The men mocking this ‘being’ identify him as a man

“They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms;”

Isaiah 14:18-20—Can a spirit-being be cast out of a grave?

“All the kings of the nations, even all of them, lie in glory, every one in his own house. 19 But thou art cast out of thy grave like an abominable branch, and as the raiment of those that are slain, thrust through with a sword, that go down to the stones of the pit; as a carcase trodden under feet. 20 Thou shalt not be joined with them in burial, because thou hast destroyed thy land, and slain thy people: the seed of evildoers shall never be renowned.”

Why would a spirit be buried – or could a spirit be buried?

In order to conclude that Lucifer is Satan, all the language has to be changed to be figurative (which of course man’s imagination has no conscience against doing). Those whom the god of this world blinds will not be able to understand (2 Cor. 4:3-4)!

 Notice several descriptions of the King of Tyre (Tyrus), and even our secular history shows there was such a man.

Ezekiel 28:2—There can be no doubt that God declares that the ‘prince of Tyrus’ is “a man and not God”

Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyrus, Thus saith the Lord God; Because thine heart is lifted up, and thou hast said, I am a God, I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas; yet thou art a man, and not God, though thou set thine heart as the heart of God:

Ezekiel 28:6—Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Because thou hast set thine heart as the heart of God;

Ezekiel 28:8-10—God declares that someone will slay this prince of Tyrus. Can anyone slay Satan?

They shall bring thee down to the pit, and thou shalt die the deaths of them that are slain in the midst of the seas.  9 Wilt thou yet say before him that slayeth thee, I am God? but thou shalt be a man, and no God, in the hand of him that slayeth thee.  10 Thou shalt die the deaths of the uncircumcised by the hand of strangers: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord God.

Ezekiel 28:13-17—Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created. 14 Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. 15 Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee. 16 By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. 17 Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee.

Even after reading these accounts, which people use to prove that Satan is one of these two, can anyone say this took place before the creation of the world?  The term “fertile imagination” has been tossed around quite a bit in recent years, but this one is so fertile it reeks.  The average person has never thought about why he believes these verses are talking about Satan, but the source of imagination is a secular work called “Paradise Lost” and “Paradise Regained,” written by a man (John Milton) who sought to make a name for himself as a great English poet.

Who is John Milton and why would he be mentioned in a discussion of a religious subject?

The following facts, with some adjustment and condensation, are taken from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Milton.

Milton’s father’s prosperity provided his eldest son with a private tutor, Thomas Young, a Scottish Presbyterian with an M.A. from the University of St. Andrews. Research suggests that Young’s influence served as the poet’s introduction to religious radicalism.

In June 1642, Milton married a 16 year-old bride Mary Powell. Mary found life difficult with the severe 35 year-old schoolmaster and pamphleteer, and she returned to her family a month later. She did not come back to Milton until 1645, partly because of the outbreak of the Civil War.  Milton’s bitter public discourses and pamphlets on divorce caused him considerable trouble with the authorities. He neither held to the common Catholic views nor the views of Protestants. An orthodox Presbyterian opinion of the time was that Milton’s views on divorce constituted a one-man heresy.

By the late 1650s, Milton was a proponent of monism or animist materialism (a branch of pantheism BJ), the notion that a single material substance which is “animate, self-active, and free” composes everything in the universe: from stones and trees and bodies to minds, souls, angels, and God. Milton’s monism is most notably reflected in Paradise Lost when he has angels eat (5.433–39) and engage in sexual intercourse (8.622–29) and the De Doctrina, where he denies the dual natures of man and argues for a theory of Creation ex Nihilo—out of nothing. (Does the LORD, our creator, agree? Hebrews 11:3 declares that God’s faithful believe that “the things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.” Does this description indicate the things we can see were made ‘out of nothing,’ or made out of things which do not appear? B.J.).

All his life, Milton studied intensely from writings of the ancient Greeks and Romans, reading so much that he weakened his eyesight. His lifelong dream was to create an English epic similar to the famous Virgil’s Aeneid or Homer’s Iliad and the Odyssey. At first, Milton did not plan to write a biblical epic since epics were typically written about heroic kings and queens, and their battles with pagan gods. Milton originally envisioned his epic to be based on a legendary Saxon or British king like the legend of King Arthur.  Having gone totally blind in 1652, Milton eventually wrote Paradise Lost entirely through dictation with the help of his daughters and friends. Typical of the epic style, Paradise Lost begins with a battle in heaven between the forces of Satan and the forces of God.

Even today, school children all over the world study what is called the greatest epic in English literature, Paradise Lost.  For some, this may be the first exposure to Biblical topics.  Is it any wonder that Milton’s theory of angels and God has found its way into the churches?  (Hosea 4:6).

An additional thought here: It is essential that we are able to discern between a dictionary and a commentary. Even the early church rejected Tatian’s Harmony of the Gospels (he combined all four gospels into one in sequence – or what he judged as the sequence) and thus substituted the evidence of the witnesses for an all-inclusive history. Thankfully almost everyone rejected Tatian’s work, and we have only scattered ancient references to it now. Unfortunately, we can’t take everything that Strong’s defines, since his definitions are often adjusted to fit the commonly accepted definition instead of the precise definition. When verbs, nouns, and adjectives of the same word derivation have totally different definitions, something is seriously wrong!

In a similar way, the chronological Bible destroys the prophet’s witness and substitutes what some presumptuous author judges as the right chronological sequence. Could God not have inspired the prophets to record his word in that way if that were the best way? Understanding events and orderly arrangement is all part of our seeking, and no one has authority to do my seeking for me. Of course, they have an argument when the preacher organizes the material in his sermons, but the difference is that his lessons do not tend to become our authority. His sermon is an encouragement for each disciple to be like the Bereans and search the scripture for himself. If it makes a difference, then we should all check it.

Jesus’ sheep follow the One Shepherd.

—Beth Johnson

MULIEBRAL STUDIES  http://pilgrimstranger.wordpress.com/
MULIEBRAL VIEWPOINT  http://pilgrimstranger39.wordpress.com/  or http://helpmeettohim.org
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2 thoughts on “WHO IS LUCIFER IN ISAIAH 14, AND WHO IS THE KING OF TYRE?

  1. These scattered bits of information may be confusing for some, but perhaps I can prepare a few questions to point to what the scriptures actually say. Questions might also bring out what was happening in the philosophical world during the time of the early church fathers and how the name Lucifer came to be synonymous with the name Satan. It is worth a search.

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