How Did Satan Get the Name Lucifer?

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! 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: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit (Isaiah 14:12-15, KJV).

Have you ever wondered why in the middle of a taunt about the King of Babylon, a rant about Satan (aka Lucifer) was suddenly there? I did. Particularly, when in other translations it reads "star of the morning" or "morning star" (rather than Lucifer). I started to wonder about it while writing my book He Who Has an Ear, Who the Seven Churches of Revelation are Today.

You might think that's a strange thing to think about when writing a book on the seven churches of Revelation. But not really. Not when you come across this verse in Revelation:

He who overcomes, and he who keeps My deeds until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations; and he shall rule them with a rod of iron, as the vessels of the potter are broken to pieces, as I also have received authority from My Father; and I will give him the morning star (Revelation 2:26-28, NASB).

Here's how my brain works - right away I see "the morning star" and think about Satan because he was called that in Isaiah 14:12 and I ask the question, "Why would Jesus give us Satan? That doesn't make sense!" So of course I did a word search and then a little more searching and the following is what I found out. This is an excerpt from my book He Who Has an Ear.

Who is the Morning Star?

What do we know about Satan? Or rather, what do we think we know? Once again, we need to dig into Scripture. The Jewish Publication Society put out their English/Hebrew Bible (the Tanakh) in 1917. I started here with Isaiah 14:12a, which says, “How art thou fallen from heaven, O day-star, son of the morning!”  Compare that with the KJV, which says, “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!” The translators of the King James Version gave Satan a name that Christians have associated with him for centuries. But how did day-star become Lucifer?

This took a little digging, but here is what I found. It is generally believed that the scholars who translated the King James Bible were influenced by Jerome’s Latin Vulgate Bible from the 4th century. Jerome had mistranslated the Hebraic metaphor, “Day star, son of the Dawn,” as Lucifer. Why? In Roman astronomy, Lucifer was the Roman name given to the morning star or day star, which most identify as Venus. The name derives from the Latin term lucem ferre, “bringer, or bearer, of light.” Thus, day-star became Lucifer, and Isaiah 14—which is really a taunt in regards to the king of Babylon—now had, smack dab in the middle of it, a reference to Satan that has confused people for centuries. In fact, the New King James Version now has a footnote that translates Lucifer properly to mean day-star. For the record, you will not find the name Lucifer in the original Hebrew texts. Quite simply, much to my surprise (because I always believed otherwise), Isaiah 14 is a taunt about the king of Babylon and nothing more. It is not about Satan at all, although it does describe the characteristics of Satan in this king. Hebrew texts and commentaries confirm this.

The morning stars, or sons of God, are in reference to angels only. The day-star referred to in Isaiah 14, in Hebrew, is heylel and means “shining one,” an apt description of King Nebuchadnezzar, who exalted himself above all others (Daniel 3:1-7), even God. Satan is not a morning star. He used to be because he was an angel, but now he is a fallen one who is still able to disguise himself as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14). However, in Scripture he is not grouped with the sons of God or morning stars when he comes before the Lord, but he is singled out by his name, Satan, which means adversary.

In Job 1:6 and 2:1, we read the following: “Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them” (1:6) and “Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them to present himself before the Lord” (2:1).

In Job 38:4-7, we read, “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements—surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?”

The Hebrew word for “sons of God” is bene Elohim. “The sons of God” is not in reference to Adam or his children because this was before Adam was created. (FYI, humans referenced in the New Testament as sons of God are only referred to in that way when they have received the Holy Spirit [See Galatians 3:26.])

So, if we take Isaiah 14:12 out of the equation and leave it as it was intended, as a taunt in regards to the king of Babylon, then Satan is not referred to as the morning star at all; only Jesus is. And Jesus is called the Bright Morning Star (Revelation 22:16), which sets Him above all morning stars and He is the Son of God, which sets Him high above them all.

So when Jesus says in Revelation 2:28, “I will give him the morning star,” He is referring to Himself and that is something that all who overcome and stand firm can look forward to.

When you read Isaiah 14:1-22 and you will see clearly that this Scripture is NOT in reference to Satan, but is instead a taunt against Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon.