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Isaiah 14:12 – Is Satan a fallen angel?

Walking With Giants Posted on by

This entry is part 31 of 135 in the series: Tough texts

Isaiah 14:12 Look how you have fallen from the sky,
O shining one, son of the dawn!
You have been cut down to the ground,
O conqueror of the nations!

Since God created everything, Gen 1:1, Jn 1:3, Col 1:16, and everything he created was good, Gen 1:3, Ps 104:24, 1 Tim 4:4, it is reasonable to suppose that Satan was originally part of that good creation, but ‘fell’ into evil.

Many interpreters have seen in this prophecy a cosmic dimension, although its primary reference is clearly to a man – the king of Babylon, Isa 14:4. The prophecy does draw on pagan mythology to depict the king’s fall from power: in one Canaanite myth a god named Athtar (meaning ‘son of Dawn’ or ‘morning star’) aspired to rule on Baal’s throne. Most modern scholars think either that the prophecy refers only to the human king, using imagery typical for that time to describe his humiliation, or that the imagery implies that the human king’s fall from power is an earthly picture of a spiritual event. In the latter case, however, it does not follow that Isaiah is referring to Satan’s original fall from innocence, but more probably to his future, final defeat.

Tertullian and some of the other early scholars and commentators linked this passage with Lk 10:18 and Rev 12:8, and applied it to the primeval fall of Satan. Reformed commentators, however, thought that this passage refers only to human pride.  The passages cited probably refer to Satan’s fall at the end of time, rather than at the beginning of time.

Calvin roundly asserts:

‘The exposition of this passage, which some have given, as if it referred to Satan, has arisen from ignorance; for the context plainly shows that these statements must be understood in reference to the king of the Babylonians. But when passages of Scripture are taken up at random, and no attention is paid to the context, we need not wonder that mistakes of this kind frequently arise. Yet it was an instance of very gross ignorance, to imagine that Lucifer was the king of devils, and that the Prophet gave him this name. But as these inventions have no probability whatever, let us pass by them as useless fables.’

NBC:

‘This song is often thought to tell of the revolt of Satan (taken with Ezek. 28); but this is a precarious conjecture. The tale of pride and downfall is at most only similar to what is said of Satan in e.g. Lk. 10:18; 1 Tim. 3:6, and in any case, when Scripture speaks directly of his fall, it refers to the break-up of his regime, not his prior fall from grace (cf. Rev. 12:9-12).’ (NBC)

Kaiser (Hard Sayings of the Bible) writes:

‘Is the story referring to the king of Babylon in hyperbolic terms, or does it refer to Satan? Normally the rules of sound interpretation demand that we assign only one interpretation to every passage; otherwise the text just fosters confusion.
‘In this situation, however, the prophet uses a device that is found often in prophetic texts: he links near and distant prophecies together under a single sense, or meaning, since the two entities, though separated in space and time, are actually part and parcel of each other.
‘Isaiah saw the king of Babylon as possessing an enormous amount of disgusting pride and arrogance. In cultivating aspirations that exceeded his stature and ability, he paralleled the ultimate ruler with an exaggerated sense of his own accomplishments: Satan.
‘Just as there was a long messianic line in the Old Testament, and everyone who belonged to that line was a partial manifestation of the One to come and yet not that One, so there was an antimessianic line of kings in the line of antichrist and Satan. The king of Babylon was one in a long line of earthly kings who stood opposed to God and all that he stood for.
‘This would explain the hyperbolic language, which while true in a limited sense of the king of Babylon, applied ultimately to the one who would culminate this line of evil, arrogant kings. In this sense, the meaning of the passage is single, not multiple or even double. Since the parts belonged to the whole and shared the marks of the whole, they were all of one piece.
Just as the king of Babylon wanted equality with God, Satan’s desire to match God’s authority had precipitated his fall. All this served as a model for the antichrist, who would imitate Satan, and this most recent dupe in history, the king of Babylon, in the craving for power.
A similar linking of the near and the distant occurs in Ezekiel 28, where a prophecy against the king of Tyre uses the same hyperbolic language (Ezek 28:11-19). In a similar fashion the prophet Daniel predicted the coming of Antiochus Epiphanes (Dan 11:29-35); in the midst of the passage, however, he leaps over the centuries in verse 35 to link Antiochus Epiphanes to the antichrist of the final day, since they shared so much as members of the line of the antimessiah. Thus this prophetic device is well attested in the Old Testament and should not cause us special concern.’

Wiersbe:

‘The prophet saw in this event something far deeper than the defeat of an empire. In the fall of the king of Babylon, he saw the defeat of Satan, the “prince of this world,” who seeks to energize and motivate the leaders of nations (John 12:31; Eph. 2:1–3).’

EBC:

‘This passage…seems to be echoed by the Lord Jesus in Luke 10:18, where language applied here to the king of Babylon is used of Satan. Nothing could be more appropriate, for the pride of the king of Babylon was truly satanic. When Satan works his malign will through rulers of this world, he reproduces his own wicked qualities in them, so that they become virtual shadows of which he is the substance.  To interpret v.12 and the following verses in this way means that the passage points to Satan, not directly, but indirectly, much like the way the kings of the line of David point to Christ. All rulers of international significance whose overweening pride and arrogance bring them to ruin under the hand of God’s judgment illustrate both the satanic and the antichrist principles.’ (EBC)

Ezekiel 28 contains two prophecies against ‘the king of Tyre’. In the first, Eze 28:2-9 the king is clearly identified as a ‘man’, although he arrogantly thinks of himself as a god. But the second, Eze 28:12-18, seems from the very beginning to point beyond the human king. But the description of the king as originally wise, beautiful and blameless – and living in Eden – suggests a comparison with the fall of Adam, not of Satan. The latter interpretation is prompted by the reference in the Heb text to ‘cherub’ in Eze 28:14,16, but most scholars think that the text originally referred to the king as being ‘with’ the cherub rather than actually being a cherub.

So we know very little for sure about how Satan became a cosmic rebel. Equally, we don’t know when this took place. From Gen 3:1-7 it is reasonable to assume that this took place before the fall of humans. It is possible to speculate that Satan became jealous when God created humans in his own image and ordained them to have dominion on his behalf, but there is no way of proving it.

‘Gap theory’ suggests that Gen 1:3-31 describes a re-ordering of creation after Satan’s rebellion ruined the original creation. But the account itself does not mention anything of the sort. Isa 45:18, as gap theorists pont out, denies that God created the world ‘formless and void’ and so argue that the creation must have become so. But the passage may simply mean that God did not stop at the early stage of creation and leave it unformed and empty, but continued his creative work until it was ‘very good’. Thus, Gen 1:2 is merely describing ‘work in progress’.

In addition to the works cited, see Boa & Bowman, Sense and Nonsense about Angels and Demons, 115-121.

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