Lucifer before the fall. Part 1.

How are you fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how are you cut down to the ground, who did weaken the nations!

Isaiah 14:12

Searching for Lucifer in the bible is a somewhat thankless task. Lucifer appears as a translation of a Hebrew word, sometimes as Morning star and other times as Lucifer.

But the only place I can find Lucifer in the bible is in The Book of Isaiah.

Isaiah is a prophet. longing for god's New Kingdom. His book opens by setting out the themes of judgement and subsequent restoration for the righteous. He knows that God has a plan and  Jerusalem will become the center of god's New World Order...

...and yes, you have guessed correctly, before that can happen there must be punishment and cleansing.

As Israel had failed to be sufficiently zealous or godly enough to hear the words of god and begin all this this punishing and cleaning, god sent the Assyrians.

Nothing like a bit of war and exile to make people turn to god, is the theory.

Isaiah is a godly man, he loves god.

And when Isaiah saw the lawlessness which was being perpetrated in Jerusalem and the worship of Satan and his wantonness, he withdrew from Jerusalem and settled in Bethlehem of Judah. And there also there was much  lawlessness, and withdrawing from Bethlehem he settled on a mountain in a desert place. [And Micaiah the prophet, and the aged Ananias, and Joel and Habakkuk, and his son Josab, and many of the faithful who believed in the ascension into heaven, withdrew and settled on the mountain.] They were all clothed with garments of hair, and they were all prophets. And they had nothing with them but were naked, and they all lamented with a great lamentation because of the going astray of Israel. And these eat nothing save wild herbs which they gathered on the mountains, and having cooked them, they lived thereon together with Isaiah the prophet.

When Assyrian rule is collapsing, Isaiah believes that a new king of Judah, will restore the temples and cleanse the land of the false gods, preparing the way for the New Kingdom.

Basically I can imagine Isaiah dancing around in joy as Assyrian rule is undermined by war  and plague,the destruction of Nineveh and finally the fall of Assyria around 626 BC.

 Isaiah writes:

'Your pomp and the music of your harps have been brought down to Sheol ; Maggots are spread out as your bed beneath you And worms are your covering.'  "How you have fallen from heaven, O star of the morning, son of the dawn ! You have been cut down to the earth, You who have weakened the nations ! "But you said in your heart, 'I will ascend to heaven ; I will raise my throne above the stars of God, And I will sit on the mount of assembly In the recesses of the north. 'I will ascend above the heights of the clouds ; I will make myself like the Most High.' "Nevertheless you will be thrust down to Sheol, To the recesses of the pit. "Those who see you will gaze at you, They will ponder over you, saying, 'Is this the man who made the earth tremble, Who shook kingdoms,  Who made the world like a wilderness And overthrew its cities, Who did not allow his prisoners to go home ?'

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So who was Morningstar?

It appears that Isaiah was taunting the Assyrian kings with Canaanite mythology.

El went to the sea and asked two Goddesses to choose between being his wife, or his daughter. They both chose to be his wife. From them were born Shaher and Shalem, the morning and evening stars..

Sha often means brilliance- Shamhat- who tames Enkidu, Shar- king, Shamash- the sun.

Shamhat?

A brilliant post the epic of Gilgamesh

Jewish morning prayers are known as Shacharit

Sha in this context is understood to mean dawn.

Calling  the king or kings, Morning-star is, from Isaiah's point of view, ironic. The Assyrian kings are not gods, but it has long been a Mesopotamian conceit that a king rules because he is beloved by god.

 "But you said in your heart, 'I will ascend to heaven ; I will raise my throne above the stars of God, And I will sit on the mount of assembly In the recesses of the north. 'I will ascend above the heights of the clouds ; I will make myself like the Most High.'

Naramsin- the Akkadian invader of Sumer- publicly declared himself 'godlike' because of his connection with Cthonic Enlil.

Enlil of the Underworld, becomes Nergal who creates a double, so that he may reign in the Underworld and ascend to heaven.

A thousand years latter, King Hiram of Tyre revived the same god/man duality. A festival occurred each new year in which a statue of the god was pushed out to sea on a burning boat- recalling the 'burning god' Lugalirra.

Lugal Erra, king of the Great City becomes Heracles for the Greeks, also Apollo with his plague arrows and capacity to curse women with prophesy.

 Lugal Erra/ Lugalirra/Erra/ Nergal, is remembered as Melqart, Moloch and Resheph, and the devil.

Fire and plague
Instant translocation

Ascent and descent are his...

The coruscating wind that breathes life and death.

And of course, behind him stand older gods..
Ningishizida and Meslamtea.

As for Isaiah..
Well his end was terrible and totally in keeping with Lugal Erra's antecedents.

http://www.neatorama.com/2006/03/22/medieval-illustration-of-isaiah-sawn-in-two/#!oB2Mj

The new king of Judah Melekh Yehudah- known as  Manasseh- had Isaiah put to death for...Blasphemy.

Belchlra accused Isaiah and the prophets who were with him, saying: 'Isaiah and those who are with him prophesy against Jerusalem and against the cities of Judah that they shall be laid waste and (against the children of Judah and) Benjamin also that they shall go into captivity, and also against thee, O lord the king, that thou shalt go (bound) with hooks and iron chains': But they prophesy falsely against Israel and Judah. 

And Isaiah himself hath said: 'I see more than Moses the prophet.' But Moses said: 'No man can see God and live':

This was too much!
Isaiah was bundled into a the hollow of a tree trunk and sawed in two.

So, who was Lucifer before the fall?
Pass me the Koran, please.