I tried to add this to a reblogged ask to @luciformspiral about mistranslation issues and Isaiah and whether Isaiah/the name Lucifer actually have anything to do with the entity we call Lucifer at all. But tumblr decided to make the formatting really fucking ugly. So this has to be a separate post.

Here is what I was replying to, and here is what I said:

Regarding the mistranslation issues– yes, Isaiah 14:12 is about the King of Babylon, but it’s also using a metaphor to talk about him. So we have to ask– what is the source of that metaphor? Who is he being compared to?

Let’s break it down.

¹² 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!

OK this is the KJV, and here’s that famous mistranslation– Lucifer son of the morning for Helel ben Shahar, which is “Helel, son of Shahar.”

Shahar was the god of the morning star in Ugarit mythology. Attar would then be the son of Shahar, and this is the entity that the King of Babylon was being compared to directly. Attar was also a god of the morning star/the planet Venus. (Fun fact: Attar has appeared as both male and female!)

The Vulgate used Lucifer, the name of the Roman god of the morning star, in the translation. Kinda random. But yes, that’s where we got the name Lucifer. So maybe we’re calling him by the wrong name– but that doesn’t mean a divine entity wasn’t talked about here.

Point is, the controlling metaphor here is comparing the King of Babylon to a divine entity, specifically a deity connected to the morning star/venus.

The King of Babylon obviously didn’t literally fall out of heaven. But in Helel/Attar/Lucifer did. So we can learn the story of this entity from the metaphor. Two stories are running paralell here– literal and metaphorical.

And here’s how the rest of Attar/Lucifer/Helel’s story goes, whatever name we call him by:

¹³ For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:

¹⁴ I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.

¹⁵ Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.

After that it kind of breaks out of metaphor, signaled by referring to the King as a man/human:

¹⁶ They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms;

So 14:12-15 are the most potentially relevant verses.

Similarly, the verses in Ezekiel about the King of Tyre use a divine fallen angel/God metaphor to talk about a human man, and we can potentially learn about the God/angel from the metaphor being used about the king.

“You were the seal of perfection,
Full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.
¹³ You were in Eden, the garden of God;
Every precious stone was your covering:
The sardius, topaz, and diamond,
Beryl, onyx, and jasper,
Sapphire, turquoise, and emerald with gold.
The workmanship of your timbrels and pipes
Was prepared for you on the day you were created.

¹⁴ “You were the anointed cherub who covers;
I established you;
You were on the holy mountain of God;
You walked back and forth in the midst of fiery stones.
¹⁵ You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created,
Till iniquity was found in you.

¹⁶ “By the abundance of your trading
You became filled with violence within,
And you sinned;
Therefore I cast you as a profane thing
Out of the mountain of God;
And I destroyed you, O covering cherub,
From the midst of the fiery stones.

¹⁷ “Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty;
You corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor;
I cast you to the ground,
I laid you before kings,
That they might gaze at you.

Obviously the King of Tyre was not literally in the garden of Eden. Nor was he a cherub. Nor was he cast literally out of the mountain of God. So who was? Again, who is he being compared to?