Isaiah 14:12
Translations
King James Version (KJV)
How are you fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how are you cut down to the ground, which did weaken the nations!
American King James Version (AKJV)
How are you fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how are you cut down to the ground, which did weaken the nations!
American Standard Version (ASV)
How art thou fallen from heaven, O day-star, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, that didst lay low the nations!
Basic English Translation (BBE)
How great is your fall from heaven, O shining one, son of the morning! How are you cut down to the earth, low among the dead bodies!
Webster's Revision
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!
World English Bible
How you have fallen from heaven, morning star, son of the dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, who laid the nations low!
English Revised Version (ERV)
How art thou fallen from heaven, O day star, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst lay low the nations!
Definitions for Isaiah 14:12
Clarke's Isaiah 14:12 Bible Commentary
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.
Barnes's Isaiah 14:12 Bible Commentary
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 Ezekiel 21:12; Zechariah 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.
Son of the morning - This is a Hebraism (see the note at Matthew 1:1), and signifies that that bright star is, as it were, the production, or the offspring of morning; or that it belongs to the morning. The word 'son' often thus denotes possession, or that one thing belongs to another. The same star in one place represents the Son of God himself; Revelation 21:16 : 'I am - the bright and morning star.'
Which didst weaken the nations - By thy oppressions and exactions, rendering once mighty nations feeble.
Wesley's Isaiah 14:12 Bible Commentary
14:12 Fallen - From the height of thy glory. Lucifer - Which properly is a bright star, that ushers in the morning; but is here metaphorically taken for the mighty king of Babylon. Son - The title of son is given in scripture not only to a person or thing begotten or produced by another, but also to any thing which is related, to it, in which sense we read of the son of a night, 4:10 , a son of perdition, 17:12 , and, which is more agreeable, to the present case, the sons of Arcturus, Job 38:32 .