Approaching Isaiah 14

Isaiah 14:3–23 most likely speaks of Satan, in addition to others with such creaturely pride. It could be called a Song for Satan or rather Against Satan or a Parable Against All Creaturely Pride. Augustine wrote:

“what is said in Isaiah, “How he is fallen from heaven, Lucifer, son of the morning!” and the other statements of the context which, under the figure of the king of Babylon, are made about the same person, are of course to be understood of the devil;”¹

Turtullian speaks more at length saying not only identifying the poem to be about Satan, but making application to apostates who follow in the same manner of falling from heaven:

“Most evidently by these words is he shown to have fallen from heaven, who formerly was Lucifer, and who used to arise in the morning. For if, as some think, he was a nature of darkness, how is Lucifer said to have existed before? Or how could he arise in the morning, who had in himself nothing of the light? Nay, even the Saviour Himself teaches us, saying of the devil, “Behold, I see Satan fallen from heaven like lightning.” For at one time he was light. Moreover our Lord, who is the truth, compared the power of His own glorious advent to lightning, in the words, “For as the lightning shineth from the height of heaven even to its height again, so will the coming of the Son of man be.” And notwithstanding He compares him to lightning, and says that he fell from heaven, that He might show by this that he had been at one time in heaven, and had had a place among the saints, and had enjoyed a share in that light in which all the saints participate, by which they are made angels of light, and by which the apostles are termed by the Lord the light of the world. In this manner, then, did that being once exist as light before he went astray, and fell to this place, and had his glory turned into dust, which is peculiarly the mark of the wicked, as the prophet also says; whence, too, he was called the prince of this world, i.e., of an earthly habitation: for he exercised power over those who were obedient to his wickedness, since “the whole of this world” — for I term this place of earth, world — “lieth in the wicked one,” and in this apostate. That he is an apostate, i.e., a fugitive, even the Lord in the book of Job says, “Thou wilt take with a hook the apostate dragon,” i.e., a fugitive. Now it is certain that by the dragon is understood the devil himself. If then they are called opposing powers, and are said to have been once without stain, while spotless purity exists in the essential being of none save the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but is an accidental quality in every created thing; and since that which is accidental may also fall away, and since those opposite powers once were spotless, and were once among those which still remain unstained, it is evident from all this that no one is pure either by essence or nature, and that no one was by nature polluted. And the consequence of this is, that it lies within ourselves and in our own actions to possess either happiness or holiness; or by sloth and negligence to fall from happiness into wickedness and ruin, to such a degree that, through too great proficiency, so to speak, in wickedness (if a man be guilty of so great neglect), he may descend even to that state in which he will be changed into what is called an “opposing power.”²

Those who ultimately fall from heaven never really have known what heaven is and is about, at least accurately speaking. Hippolytus appears to refer to the figure in Isaiah 14 as the Antichrist. And another named Thaumaturgus describes the incident as inaugurated with the first coming of our Lord who destroyed the handwriting of requirements against us. This caught my attention because the incident in the most immediate context would likely have been fulfilled by Balshazzar in Daniel 5 where the Handwriting was the wall, and Babylon was taken by the Medes and the Persians (something in agreement with Isaiah 13). The analogy of Scripture teaches us that the near and far fulfillments of this prophecy do not preclude them both referring to certain tyrants in history and ultimately to the Devil himself.

References abound in the church fathers on this text, but the idea I gather here briefly is that pride is the source of every fall, every apostasy, that imitates the biggest fall of all, that of Satan who sought not to reflect God’s glory, but to usurp that glory.

Pagan myths of the Canaanite religion call the word “Dawn” a god, in Ugaritic and Canaanite is Shahar meaning God of dawn. The Arabic it is the word sahar which speaks of a predawn period, the linguistic root being visible in suhūr which is the predawn meal Muslims at during Ramadan.

Now, full conclusions cannot be drawn here but the point is that the language that Isaiah uses for the defeat of the Babylonian king would have been known to carry a sense of evil and darkness that surpassed that of the human players on earth; and this language continued to take itself up in other religions influenced by Canaanite religion.

All religion that is not of Christ is destined to fall and apostasize like that of the Devil. It builds upon the Pride that is condemned—a creaturely pride that will one day be no more. When we approach Isaiah 14, we are dealing with something much bigger than a single early event, but something that shakes heaven and earth (Cf. Isa. 13:13; Hebrews 12:25–26).

Approaching Isaiah 14, no doubt is part of the Scripture that when trembled at, gets the look of God on the worshiper. It is not the Devil in Isaiah 14 that we are trembling at, but the Lord and his judgment of all creaturely pride. As Luther said, we tremble not for the devil:

The Prince of Darkness grim, We tremble not for him; His rage we can endure, For lo! his doom is sure, One little word shall fell him.

This is how to approach Isaiah 14–trembling before God’s Word, that makes us unafraid and comforted about our security in God’s Son who defeats Satan forever!

1. From On Christian Doctrine, Book 3 in Nicene & Post-Nicene Fathers

2. Also taken from references in the Church Fathers compiled by Schaff, in this case Ante-Nicene Vol. 4.