Monday, December 13, 2021

Robert L. Alden: "Lucifer" being a Perfectly Good Translation of הֵילֵל in Isaiah 14:12

In his article “Lucifer: Who or What?” Robert L. Alden, addressing the debate as to how to translate הֵילֵל, noted that, as opposed to a verb

 

More translators and commentators chose to render the word as a noun . . . The Greek has heosphoros and the Latin lucifer. Both mean "light carrier." The translators of the Septuagint and the Vulgate along with the leading Rabbis and most of all the early Christian writers understood the word as a derivative of hll, "to shine." Hence it means "bright one" or "shining one." This, of course, fits best with the rest of the phrase ben shachar, "son of dawn."

 

Tertullian, commenting on Isaiah 14, 12, said, "This must mean the devil . . ." (Against Marcion, Bk, V, ch. xviii). Origen, too, readily identified "Lucifer" with Satan (De Principiis, Bk I, ch. v). . . .

 

The argument for understanding helel as a noun derived from the verb meaning "to shine" is strong. At least three semitic languages in addition to Hebrew have a form of this word and all mean "shine" or "light." There is the Akkadian ellu, the Ugaritic hll, and the Arabic halla. "New moon" in Arabic is hilal. The feminine form of the Akkadian is ellitu and is a name for the goddess Ishtar. She is also called mushtilil, "the shining one." She is Ashtar in Phoenician and Ugaritic. The Arabs call Venus zahra, "The bright shining one." Also consider the German Helle, "brightness."

 

There is an additional observation regarding the morning star and the goddess. Isaiah 14:12 has "son" of the morning, not a feminine as we would expect. Furthermore the Greek translation is a masculine word. As we now know, the morning and the evening stars are the same even though the ancient Semites viewed them as twins. Albright judges from the Akkadian evidence that this god was originally androgynous, being male in the morning and female in the evening. (Archaeology and the Religion of Israel [Baltimore: John Hopkins, 1953], pp. 83f.) In the Ugaritic literature the names of the children seduced by the god El are shchr and shlm. (There is also a ben 'bd shchr in a name list in 308 1,19 according to Gorden's catalog) These thus represent sunrise and sunset. We have sachar in Arabic, seru in Akkadian, and sachra in Aramaic for the morning and shalam shamshi in Akkadian for the evening. The German word "Morgenröte" may best describe shachar, it being the brief moment before the break of dawn. . . . We have discussed the meaning of the word helel ben shachar and find it best to render it "bright one, son of the morning" or the like. "Lucifer" is perfectly good too (especially for Latin speaking people) except that it has been misunderstood so widely that we best avoid it. (Robert L. Alden, “Lucifer: Who or What?” Bulletin of the Evangelical Theological Society 11, no. 11 [1968]: 35, 36, 37, emphasis in bold added)

 

Therefore, 2 Nephi 24:12, in its quotation of Isa 14:12, is not in error by following the KJV’s rendering of ‎הֵילֵ֣ל בֶּן־שָׁ֑חַר as "O Lucifer, son of the morning!" On whether "Lucifer" "has been misunderstood so widely that we best avoid it," see Benjamin McGuire, Lucifer and Satan and R. Mark Shipp, Of Dead Kings and Dirges: Myth and Meaning in Isaiah 14:4b-21.