Marcia
Active Member
The NET Bible (online at www.netbible.com if you want to download it)translates "helel" as "O star of the morning, son of the dawn" and has a noted that these terms could be names for the kings of Assyria and Babylon.
The Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, (Harris, Archer, and Waltke)has a long entry for Helel on p. 217, which I do not have time to copy out here. But the entry talks about how this passage has many allusions to pagan myths, which makes sense since this is being addressed to a pagan king who was opposing God. There was a myth about a Greek named Phaethon "who attempted to scale the heights of heaven and as the dawn star was ever condemned to be cast down into Hades." The "dawn star" was usually considered to be Venus, which is also known as the morning star.
The entry also states: "Any interpretation of Is 14 which does not take into accouont the mythological allusion does injustice to what is said there."
This makes sense when you look at the language in verses 13 and 14 about ascending to the heavens and sitting on the heights. We know that God does not just on some heights but actually reigns from heaven. But pagans believed the gods reigned from a high mountain up in the heavens (like Zeus and Mt. Olympus).
God's word is so rich -- this passage just shows how far-reaching God's word goes to rebuke the pagan kings and their desire to rule like God. We see that for this king to be a morning star (Venus) is to fade when the light comes.
Jesus, in contrast,is the real, authentic morning star who never fades. Along with Jesus' statements about being the light of the world elsewhere, it only reaffirms Christ for who he is.
There is nothing wrong with using the same term or idea. We see it elsewhere where Jesus says he saw Satan fall like lightning, Jesus says that his coming will be like lightning, and the angel at the empty tomb in Matt. 28 is described as having an appearance or countenance like lightning. This does not mean that Satan, Jesus and the angel are the same thing because of the term "lightning."
The Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, (Harris, Archer, and Waltke)has a long entry for Helel on p. 217, which I do not have time to copy out here. But the entry talks about how this passage has many allusions to pagan myths, which makes sense since this is being addressed to a pagan king who was opposing God. There was a myth about a Greek named Phaethon "who attempted to scale the heights of heaven and as the dawn star was ever condemned to be cast down into Hades." The "dawn star" was usually considered to be Venus, which is also known as the morning star.
The entry also states: "Any interpretation of Is 14 which does not take into accouont the mythological allusion does injustice to what is said there."
This makes sense when you look at the language in verses 13 and 14 about ascending to the heavens and sitting on the heights. We know that God does not just on some heights but actually reigns from heaven. But pagans believed the gods reigned from a high mountain up in the heavens (like Zeus and Mt. Olympus).
God's word is so rich -- this passage just shows how far-reaching God's word goes to rebuke the pagan kings and their desire to rule like God. We see that for this king to be a morning star (Venus) is to fade when the light comes.
Jesus, in contrast,is the real, authentic morning star who never fades. Along with Jesus' statements about being the light of the world elsewhere, it only reaffirms Christ for who he is.
There is nothing wrong with using the same term or idea. We see it elsewhere where Jesus says he saw Satan fall like lightning, Jesus says that his coming will be like lightning, and the angel at the empty tomb in Matt. 28 is described as having an appearance or countenance like lightning. This does not mean that Satan, Jesus and the angel are the same thing because of the term "lightning."