Isaiah 14 · a question people ask
"How you have fallen from heaven, shining one, son of the dawn!" (14:12). Whom do these verses speak of?
First, what the chapter says. It names the one the parable is taken up against: "you will take up this parable against the king of Babylon" (14:4). Its words to him include "How you have fallen from heaven, shining one, son of the dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, who laid the nations low!" (14:12), what he "said in your heart" (14:13), "I will make myself like the Most High!" (14:14), and "Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, to the depths of the pit" (14:15). In Hebrew shining one is heilel, and this is its only use in the Hebrew Bible (tap shining one). Christians read 14:12-15 in two main ways, each resting on its verses, and these notes don't choose between them. Both agree that the words are spoken against the king of Babylon (14:4), that the pride of 14:13-14 is brought low (14:15), and that no New Testament verse names Isaiah 14.
How Christians read it
Where Christians differ, Favor sets out the main views side by side and doesn't pick one.
The king of Babylon
Those who read it this way note that the chapter says whom the parable is against: "you will take up this parable against the king of Babylon" (14:4). Those who see him ask, "Is this the man who made the earth to tremble, who shook kingdoms" (14:16). The next verses speak of his burial: "All the kings of the nations sleep in glory, everyone in his own house" (14:18), but "You will not join them in burial" (14:20), and the LORD will "cut off from Babylon name and remnant" (14:22). The boasts of 14:13-14 are what he "said in your heart" (14:13), and on this reading heaven, the stars of God and the Most High are the heights his pride reached for, answered by Sheol and the pit (14:15), where the kings of the nations greet him as one of them: "Have you become like us?" (14:10). They set it beside the LORD's word about Edom (Obadiah 1:1), which uses such heights of another proud one: to the one "who says in his heart, ‘Who will bring me down to the ground?’" (Obadiah 1:3), the LORD says,"Though you mount on high as the eagle, and though your nest is set among the stars, I will bring you down from there" (Obadiah 1:4). On this reading, 14:12-15 speaks of the king of Babylon, in the parable's own picture language.
Isaiah 14:4 · Isaiah 14:10 · Isaiah 14:13-22 · Obadiah 1:1 · Obadiah 1:3-4
The king of Babylon, and Satan behind him
Those who read it this way agree that the parable is taken up against the king of Babylon (14:4), and read 14:12-15 as reaching beyond him to the one whose fall stands behind such pride: one "fallen from heaven" (14:12) who said, "I will ascend into heaven!" and "I will make myself like the Most High!" (14:13-14). They set it beside Jesus's words, "I saw Satan having fallen like lightning from heaven" (Luke 10:18), and beside Revelation: "The great dragon was thrown down, the old serpent, he who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world. He was thrown down to the earth" (Revelation 12:9). Paul writes that an overseer must be "not a new convert, lest being puffed up he fall into the same condemnation as the devil" (1 Timothy 3:6), which they take to show that the devil's fall came through pride. They also read Ezekiel 28 alongside it, where the lamentation "over the king of Tyre" (Ezekiel 28:12) says, "You were in Eden, the garden of God" (Ezekiel 28:13), "You were the anointed cherub who covers" (Ezekiel 28:14), and "Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty" (Ezekiel 28:17), as words spoken to a king that reach beyond him. On this reading, 14:12-15 speaks to the king of Babylon, and beyond him of Satan's fall.
Isaiah 14:4 · Isaiah 14:12-14 · Luke 10:17-18 · Revelation 12:7-9 · 1 Timothy 1:1 · 1 Timothy 3:2 · 1 Timothy 3:6 · Ezekiel 28:12-17
The verses
“that you will take up this parable against the king of Babylon, and say, “How the oppressor has ceased! The golden city has ceased!””
“How you have fallen from heaven, shining one, son of the dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, who laid the nations low! You said in your heart, “I will ascend into heaven! I will exalt my throne above the stars of God! I will sit on the mountain of assembly, in the far north! I will ascend above the heights of the clouds! I will make myself like the Most High!” Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, to the depths of the pit.”