Isaiah 14.12-15
How you are fallen from heaven, O Helel, son of Shahar! How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low! You said in your heart, ‘Into the skies, I will ascend. Above the stars of El, I will exalt my throne. And I will sit on the mount of assembly, on the farthest parts of Zaphon. I will ascend above the heights of the cloud. I will be like the Most High.’ But to Sheol you will be brought down, to the farthest parts of the Pit.
Hebrew term
Traditional translation
hêlêl (
‘Lucifer’, ‘morning star’, or ‘day star’.
šāḥar (
‘Dawn’ or ‘morning’. Name of the Canaanite god of dawn.
ʾēl (
‘God’. Name of the Canaanite chief god and father of the pantheon. The gods of the pantheon were often identified as, or associated, with stars, hence ‘stars of El’.
ṣapōn (
‘North’. Name of a mountain far in the north of Canaan, associated with the Canaanite pantheon (analogous to Olympus in Greek religion), hence ‘mount of assembly’ (har mōwʿêḏ,
ʿelyōn (
‘Most High’. An epithet used for various gods (e.g. El the Most High).
šəʾōl (
‘Hell’. Name of the underworld in Judean religion (analogous to Hades in Greek religion; Sheol is typically translated as ‘Hades’ in Greek), located literally beneath (the surface of) the earth, hence ‘the Pit’.
The Book of Isaiah adapted an otherwise obscure myth to rebuke a foreign king (likely Sargon II, later retrofitted into Nebuchadnezzar II). This myth was evidently inspired by astronomical phenomena: in contrast to the other gods, Helel attempted to exalt himself beyond his appointed station, interpreted from the ‘morning star’ (Venus, as seen at dawn) remaining visible even when the other stars dimmed under the light/power of the sun.
On the basis of this astrological symbolism and similarities to other Canaanite stories and neighboring mythologies, it is possible that ‘Helel’ was another name or epithet for the Canaanite god Attar (ʿaṯtar, ʿaštar). One Ugaritic text describes how Attar was considered by El for the position of ruling the pantheon from Zaphon, but was ultimately passed over for the role. The myth here may derive from a later iteration on the idea of Attar ruling the pantheon, a failed usurpation for which he was punished. The biblical prophecy cast a foreign king in the part of Helel / Attar to signify that the king’s immense hubris will be his downfall.
The author of this passage represents a stage of Judean theological development in which the reality and power of other gods was taken for granted, as in the case of Habakkuk 3. The author was himself a polytheist. Contemporary English versions generally suppress this backdrop by translating the mythological details according to more rigidly literal interpretations of their etymologies (e.g. Zaphon was the common name of the mountain, but became a metonym for the direction ‘north’ in Hebrew because the mountain was located in the far north of Canaan).