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.
