Translating Lucifer

[Sozo]

Maybe someone here has a better understanding of Biblical Hebrew than myself or at least a better understanding of this specific topic.  I've been studying Ray's paper on this Lucifer translation in Isaiah (http://bible-truths.com/lake9.html) and I have a couple of questions that I can't seem to find the answer to.

1.   In Ray's paper, the original word that was translated as "Lucifer" is "hey-lehl" or "eill".  What is the difference between "hey-lehl" and "eill"?  The concordant interlinear uses "eill".  Strong's online interlinear uses "halal".  Is "hey-lehl" the annunciated form of "eill"?  Any help would be appreciated.  As you can see, I don't know much about Biblical Hebrew.
2.   From everything I have read on this subject, it is clear that almost all scholar's now admit that this word should not have been translated as "Lucifer".  However, the majority of them say that it should have been translated as "day star" or "morning star".  They say that the word was most likely derived from "hll" which means to shine.  However, they give no further explanation.  Ray's teaching on this is the most detailed I have found and clearly shows how the word means "howl" especially in light of Zech 11:2 and all the other word variations that he lists.  I have not found where anyone else has commented on this.  So my question is this, "Does anyone know how they come to the conclusion that this word means "day star" rather than "howl"?  Even in Strong's concordance, the same exact Hebrew word, הֵילֵל in Isaiah is said to mean "day star" and in Zech is said to mean "howl".  They apply a different root to the same word.  Is this just blatant, in our face deception or am I missing something here.  Is there some specific reason why they give this same word 2 different meanings?  ("Day star"=noun..."Howl"=verb...totally unrelated...)

Anyway, thanks for any insight on this subject in advance.

Jason

[Kat]

Hi Jason,

I'll just bring what I found in the commentaries, very interesting.

John Gill -
Isa 14:12 - How art thou fallen from heaven,.... This is not to be understood of the fall of Satan, and the apostate angels, from their first estate, when they were cast down from heaven to hell, though there may be an allusion to it; see Luk_10:18 but the words are a continuation of the speech of the dead to the king of Babylon, wondering at it, as a thing almost incredible, that he who seemed to be so established on the throne of his kingdom, which was his heaven, that he should be deposed or fall from it. So the destruction of the Roman Pagan emperors is signified by the casting out of the dragon and his angels from heaven, Rev_12:7 and in like manner Rome Papal, or the Romish antichrist, will fall from his heaven of outward splendour and happiness, of honour and authority, now, possessed by him:

O Lucifer, son of the morning! alluding to the star Venus, which is the phosphorus or morning star, which ushers in the light of the morning, and shows that day is at hand; by which is meant, not Satan, who is never in Scripture called Lucifer, though he was once an angel of light, and sometimes transforms himself into one, and the good angels are called morning stars, Job_38:7 and such he and his angels once were; but the king of Babylon is intended, whose royal glory and majesty, as outshining all the rest of the kings of the earth, is expressed by those names; and which perhaps were such as he took himself, or were given him by his courtiers. The Targum is,

"how art thou fallen from on high, who was shining among the sons of men, as the star Venus among the stars.''

Jarchi, as the Talmud (c), applies it to Nebuchadnezzar; though, if any particular person is pointed at, Belshazzar is rather designed, the last of the kings of Babylon. The church of Rome, in the times of the apostles, was famous for its light and knowledge; its faith was spoken of throughout all the earth; and its bishops or pastors were bright stars, in the morning of the Gospel dispensation:
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Adam Clark -
Isa 14:12 -
O Lucifer, son of the morning - The Versions in general agree in this translation, and render הילל  heilel as signifying Lucifer, Φωσφωρος, the morning star, whether Jupiter or Venus; as these are both bringers of the morning light, or morning stars, annually in their turn. And although the context speaks explicitly concerning Nebuchadnezzar, yet this has been, I know not why, applied to the chief of the fallen angels, who is most incongruously denominated Lucifer, (the bringer of light!) an epithet as common to him as those of Satan and Devil. That the Holy Spirit by his prophets should call this arch-enemy of God and man the light-bringer, would be strange indeed. But the truth is, the text speaks nothing at all concerning Satan nor his fall, nor the occasion of that fall, which many divines have with great confidence deduced from this text. O how necessary it is to understand the literal meaning of Scripture, that preposterous comments may be prevented! Besides, I doubt much whether our translation be correct. הילל  heilel, which we translate Lucifer, comes from ילל  yalal, yell, howl, or shriek, and should be translated, "Howl, son of the morning;" and so the Syriac has understood it; and for this meaning Michaelis contends: see his reasons in Parkhurst, under הלל  halal.
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Keil & Delitzsch
Isa 14:12 -
"How art thou fallen from the sky, thou star of light, sun of the dawn, hurled down to the earth, thou that didst throw down nations from above?" הילל is here the morning star (from hâlal, to shine, resolved from hillel, after the form מאן, Jer_13:10, סעף, Psa_119:113, or rather attaching itself as a third class to the forms היכל, עירם: compare the Arabic sairaf, exchanger; saikal, sword-cleaner). It derives its name in other ancient languages also from its striking brilliancy, and is here called ben-shachar (sun of the dawn),  from the fact that it rises before the sun, and swims in the morning light as if that were the source of its birth.

Lucifer, as a name given to the devil, was derived from this passage, which the fathers (and lately Stier) interpreted, without any warrant whatever, as relating to the apostasy and punishment of the angelic leaders. The appellation is a perfectly appropriate one for the king of Babel, on account of the early date of the Babylonian culture, which reached back as far as the grey twilight of primeval times, and also because of its predominant astrological character.

A retrospective glance is now cast at the self-deification of the king of Babylon, in which he was the antitype of the devil and the type of antichrist (Dan_11:36; 2Th_2:4), and which had met with its reward.
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Albert Barnes -
Isa 14:12 -
How art thou fallen from heaven - A new image is presented here. It is that of the bright morning star; and a comparison of the once magnificent monarch with that beautiful star. He is now exhibited as having fallen from his place in the east to the earth. His glory is dimmed; his brightness quenched. Nothing can be more poetic and beautiful than a comparison of a magnificent monarch with the bright morning star! Nothing more striking in representing his death, than the idea of that star falling to the earth!
Lucifer - Margin, 'Day-star' (הילל  hēylēl, from הלל  hâlal, "to shine"). The word in Hebrew occurs as a noun nowhere else. In two other places Eze_21:12; Zec_11:2, it is used as a verb in the imperative mood of Hiphil, and is translated 'howl' from the verb ילל  yālal, "to howl" or "cry." Gesenius and Rosenmuller suppose that it should be so rendered here. So Noyes renders it, 'Howl, son of the morning!' But the common translation seems to be preferable. The Septuagint renders it, Ἑωσφόρος  Heōsphoros, and the Vulgate, 'Lucifer, the morning star.' The Chaldee, 'How art thou fallen from high, who wert splendid among the sons of men.' There can be no doubt that the object in the eve of the prophet was the bright morning star; and his design was to compare this magnificent oriental monarch with that. The comparison of a monarch with the sun, or the other heavenly bodies, is common in the Scriptures.
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mercy, peace and love
Kat

[rjsurfs]

Hi Sozo,

Part of what you are seeing may be the different texts used by the CLV and the King James...  I have a couple of interlinears for example... one may use Textus Receptus and the other Westcott Hort...   I know that the CLV website mentions a Westminster Leningrad Codex.  But I am not trying to go down this road... and I'm certainly no expert.  I wouldn't even recommend that you concern yourself with it... as you see it was a mistake to translate the word to "Lucifer".  That is the main point.

I tend to side with Ray on this that the word should be "howl"... as I believe the Latin roots of Lucifer did refer to lucifren or lights and may not be accurate... but honestly I don't really care.  I do appreciate your study... I just wouldn't recommend getting bogged down to this level when there is so much other meat to digest.

Bobby

[rjsurfs]

Hi Sozo/Jason,

I wanted to respond again to your post... but differently this time.  I happened to watch one of your YourTube videos tonight on the "Savior of All Series - The Will of God".  I thought it was very good and you have an original way of presenting first the heresy of the church and then the truth. I liked that you had actual quotes from pastors.

So having seen that I now understand why you would be doing an exact study on the origins of the word hey-lehl and eill and it's various forms.  I think that is great.

Let me know what you find.

Bobby

[Roy Monis]

Hi! Kathy

According to you Satan was once an angel of light, (your quote; "though he was once an angel of light, and sometimes transforms himself into one, and the good angels are called morning stars"). But he was created, LOF part 11, at arms length as a DESTROYER something bad not light. He (Satan), from what I gather from this, was an entirely separate creation to the sons of God. He was a foul piece of work created at arms length for a needful job. The quote; "and such he and his angels once were>" is not in my bible. "Job.38:7 plainly reads; "When the morning stars sang together And all the sons of God shouted for joy?"

I don't quite understand, can you please explain this?

God bless you sister in our joint walk in Christ. 

Love in Christ Jesus.

Roy UK     

[Craig]

Roy, Kat was not saying this, she was just pointing out all the different commentaries written by others.

Craig

[Roy Monis]

Roy, Kat was not saying this, she was just pointing out all the different commentaries written by others.

Craig

Hi! Craig

Trust me I've gone and put my foot in it again, my humblest apologies, I will apologize to Kath personally. Thank you for correcting me.

God bless you brother in our joint walk in Christ. 

Love in Christ Jesus.

Roy UK     
 

[Kat]

Hi Roy,

No problem.  I was just showing Jason what some of the different commentaries say concerning Lucifer in Isaiah. 
Oddly enough some of them did not believe that Isaiah was speaking about Satan when he spoke of Lucifer.  And I think these commentaries provide a good deal of information on history, knowledge of the customs.  They have also researched the original words of the Hebrew and Greek in the Scriptures from some sources we do not have access to and this helps us.  I don't think we can gain spiritual knowledge in the commentaries, but they do have some good info available to us in them.

mercy, peace and love
Kat

[Roy Monis]

Maybe someone here has a better understanding of Biblical Hebrew than myself or at least a better understanding of this specific topic.  I've been studying Ray's paper on this Lucifer translation in Isaiah (http://bible-truths.com/lake9.html) and I have a couple of questions that I can't seem to find the answer to.

1.   In Ray's paper, the original word that was translated as "Lucifer" is "hey-lehl" or "eill".  What is the difference between "hey-lehl" and "eill"?  The concordant interlinear uses "eill".  Strong's online interlinear uses "halal".  Is "hey-lehl" the annunciated form of "eill"?  Any help would be appreciated.  As you can see, I don't know much about Biblical Hebrew.
2.   From everything I have read on this subject, it is clear that almost all scholar's now admit that this word should not have been translated as "Lucifer".  However, the majority of them say that it should have been translated as "day star" or "morning star".  They say that the word was most likely derived from "hll" which means to shine.  However, they give no further explanation.  Ray's teaching on this is the most detailed I have found and clearly shows how the word means "howl" especially in light of Zech 11:2 and all the other word variations that he lists.  I have not found where anyone else has commented on this.  So my question is this, "Does anyone know how they come to the conclusion that this word means "day star" rather than "howl"?  Even in Strong's concordance, the same exact Hebrew word, הֵילֵל in Isaiah is said to mean "day star" and in Zech is said to mean "howl".  They apply a different root to the same word.  Is this just blatant, in our face deception or am I missing something here.  Is there some specific reason why they give this same word 2 different meanings?  ("Day star"=noun..."Howl"=verb...totally unrelated...)

Anyway, thanks for any insight on this subject in advance.

Jason

Hi! Jason

Lucifer who? Never heard of him! What is he a CROCK?

God bless you brother in our joint walk in Christ. 

Love in Christ Jesus.

Roy UK     

[Sozo]

I found the answers that I was looking for.

1. "hey-lehl" is the phonetic hebrew word and "eill" is the transliterated hebrew word letter for letter.  See below:

     Hebrew Word -                                  הילל
     Hebrew Word (phonetic) -                   heylehl - actually should be "yawlal" as it is in Zechariah
     Hebrew Word (letters, left to right) -     he-yod-lamed-lamed
     Transiliteration -                                eill
     
2.  Why the majority of translators still translate "eill" in Isaiah as "morning star" or something to that effect is still a little baffling.  For some reason they are pulling from the root word "ell" which means "to shine" rather than the root "ill" which means "to howl".  I can understand this mistake happening in the past, but when we look at the leningrad codex (available online at http://www.tanach.us/Tanach.xml) which is the main document used for these translations, it just doesn't make sense that they would still apply a different meaning to these exact same words in Isaiah and Zechariah.  The exact same Hebrew word here is "הילל". There is nothing here that would suggest this word meaning anything other than "howl" except for the presuppositions of man. 

This seems like a perfect example of man interpreting the scriptures with their own bias...much in the same way they still interpret the word "aionios" to mean "eternal" which is a linguistic impossibility.

[rjsurfs]

Awesome research Sozo!

[joyful1]

A man sits down to translate....
the sun is high in the sky and the temperature is rising...
he missed breakfast and now its nearly lunch time....
he's been putting on a few pounds lately and his shirt is too tight...
he wants to do a good job, but is reminded of the "Politically Correct" wording for the translation that he needs to finish by this afternoon....
hot, hungry and tired of his tight clothing, he mumbles to himself...."heylel, eill, heylel, eill, hmmmm"....

you get the picture?

oh yes...and one more thing...

he is JUST a man!

Joyce

P.S. This was just for fun! I meant no disrespect to those brave souls who were commissioned by King James to translate the Scriptures....I can imagine the enormous labour involved in such a task and the pressure to get the job done "right" as interpreted by the King...in the end....they only did what they were presdestined to do anyway!