Bible Difficulties (60 page)

the fullest statement of which is found in John 1:3 ("All things came into being through Him...").

Who is Lucifer in Isaiah 14:12? Satan or the king of Babylon?

The passage involved is rendered as follows: "How you have fallen from heaven, O star of the morning [mg.: `Lit.,
Helel
; i.e., shining one'], son of the dawn! You have been cut down to earth, you who have weakened the nations!" (NASB). The title
Helel
, which KJV (following the Latin Vulgate) translates as "Lucifer," is rendered
Heosphoros
in the Septuagint (meaning "Dawn-bringer" and referring to the morning star); the Syriac Peshitta simply gives it as a proper name closely resembling
Helel
, i.e.,
'Aylel
. A possible cognate in Arabic is
hilalun
, "a new moon." If this is derived from the root
halal
in Hebrew (
halla
in Arabic), which means "shine brightly" (the Akkadian cognate
ellu
is an adjective meaning "bright"), then we may understand
Helel
as meaning the "Shining One." Obviously this is a poetic name for the person or entity who is addressed in this passage (somewhat like
Jeshurun
, "the Upright," which is applied to Israel in Deut.

32:15; 33:5, 26; also in Isa. 44:2). (somewhat like
Jeshurun
, "the Upright," which is applied to Israel in Deut. 32:15; 33:5,26; also in Isa. 44:2). A similar designation for Assyria (or a specific king of Assyria) in Hosea 5:13 and 10:6 is
Yare
("Let him contend," or "[one who] contends"--from the verb
ri
, "strive, contend, dispute"). These appellations probably do not refer to any one historic personage.

Some speculation has been devoted to the various possibilities of identification of this king of Babylon with Nabonidus (as Duhm and Marti suggested) or Belshazzar, the last kings of Babylon; but the arrogant self-confidence and overweening ambition expressed in v.13 of this chapter can hardly be reconciled with the declining power and beleaguered status of Babylonia during the last two decades of its existence as an empire. Only Nebuchadnezzar himself could have entertained such extravagant ideas of achieving complete supremacy over earth and heaven. (O. Proksch argued for this identification in his
Jesaja I, Kommentar zum Alten Testament
[Leipzig,1930].) But as W.H. Cobb pointed out ("The Ode in Isaiah XIV,"
Journal of Biblical Literature
15 [1896]: ad loc.), Nebuchadnezzar "was very far from being a cruel oppressor." J. Muilenburg ("The Book of Isaiah chaps. 40-66," in G. Buttrick, ed.,
Interpreters Bible
[Nashville: Abingdon, 1956]. ad loc.) contended that "in many ways it appears that the Babylonian rule was neither tyrannical nor oppressive, certainly not in comparison with the role of Assyria."

(Seth Erlandsson, in
The Burden of Babylon
[Lund: Gleerup, 1970, pp. 109-27], has a fine survey of modern scholarly discussion concerning the interpretation of this chapter.) This elimination of possible candidates for identification with the "king of Babylon" in Isaiah 14:4-23 leads to the conclusion that this figure was really intended to be a comprehensive personification for Babylon as a whole, as one of the series of God-270

defying world powers that met its doom when its day of judgment came. It is highly significant that this oracle concluded (in vv. 24-27) with a decree of destruction to be visited on "Assyria" in the land of Israel, and, indeed, on all the Gentile nations as well (v.26). This prophecy was therefore given to Isaiah sometime prior to the Assyrian invasion of 701 B.C., which resulted in shattering losses for the apparently invincible army of Sennacherib. Yet it also has in view the future rise and temporary supremacy of the city of Babylon, even though in Isaiah's day it was a mere subject province of the Assyrian Empire.

All this has a bearing on the identification of Lucifer, the Shining One, who is tauntingly addressed as the "son of the dawn" (
sahar
). His proud boast (vv. 13-14) that he will ascend to heaven and raise his throne above the stars of God and sit on the mount of assembly in the recesses of the north (
sapon
, a possible allusion to the fabled Mount
Sapunu
of Canaanite mythology, the Mount Olympus of the Ugaritic epics) points to a level of expectation far beyond that conceivable by any human ruler concerning himself.

It is for this reason that
Helel
must be identified with Satan himself, as the arch-rebel of heaven, who was cast out of God's presence and glorious abode and consigned to earth and hell as his proper sphere. The Lord Jesus seems to have had this passage in mind when, after receiving the report of His disciples' success in casting out demons, He declared, "I was watching Satan fall from heaven like lightning" (Luke 10:18, NASB). In the Greek this statement uses about the same words as the Septuagint of Isaiah 14:12, except that "lightning" (
astrape
) has replaced "Lucifer" (
Heosphoros
). We may reasonably conclude that Jesus identified Satan with
Helel
.

How are we then to relate Satan with the "king of Babylon"? Plainly the king himself is viewed as human, for he is the father of descendants. Verse 21 proclaims the command:

"Prepare for his sons a place of slaughter because of the iniquity of their fathers"

(NASB). In other words, the Empire of Babylon will go down in defeat and ruin, and the survivors of the coming catastrophe (marked by the Fall of Babylon to the Medes and Persians in 539 B.C.) are to be decimated and forever bereft of political power. On the other hand, the fallen state of Chaldean Babylon (picturesquely described as a maggot-ridden corpse moldering in a grave, now brought down to inhabit Sheol [v.11]) is greeted by the spirits of the dead rulers of earlier civilizations with taunts and jeers. It is they who address fallen Babylon as the
Helel
cast down ignominiously from heaven, after he has uttered his foolish and extravagant boasts. What we have here, then, is the defeat of Satan's henchmen mirroring the defeat of Satan himself. This clearly implies that the Wicked One was the animating and inspiring force that manipulated Babylon--and, in all probability, Assyria as well.

It is noteworthy that the four-empire statue of Nebuchadnezzar's dream, as set forth in Daniel 2:35, possesses a certain identity throughout all four periods involved, right down until the time of the End, when the fifth kingdom (the millennial rule of Christ) shatters the whole structure to pieces. In all likelihood it is Satan who is to be the integrative principle behind each of the four. It is for this reason that Babylon emerges in the End Time as the symbol of the corrupt world culture and world church, which is to be overthrown in a sudden disaster of unparalleled severity. Revelation 14:8 says, "And 271

another angel, a second one, followed, saying, `Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great.'" The fall of earthly Babylon is followed by the fall of the satanic dragon himself (Rev. 20:2).

This seems to confirm the involvement of two personalities in Isaiah 14 as well, with both of them brought under the fearful judgment of almighty God--both the satanic principal and his human agents as well. It is very dramatic how this final moment of arrogant contempt and defiance toward the God of the Hebrews as expressed by King Belshazzar at his birthday banquet is brought to an end by the sinister handwriting on the palace wall, announcing irreversible and sudden doom, "That same night Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans was slain" (Dan. 5:30).

Does not the explicit mention of Cyrus the Great by name in Isaiah 44:28 and 45:1

compel us to adopt a sixth-century date for this portion of Isaiah?

This question presupposes the inability of God to predict any future leaders in human history--by name at least. No logical reason can be found for this assumption, unless it can be proven that none of the other instances of specific naming in the Old Testament prophets can have been authentic either but are all the result of pious fraud. Yet such a contention can be easily refuted by the data of Scripture itself. In 1 Kings 13:2 it is recorded that a certain prophet from Judah, who visited Jeroboam's new sanctuary in Bethel (ca. 930 B.C.), invoked God's curse on this new altar at which Jeroboam was officiating and specifically predicted the name of the future king who would someday destroy this altar. The prophet specified that it would be a king named "Josiah." In 2

Kings 23:15 we read the account of how Josiah actually fulfilled this prediction around 620 B.C., over three hundred years later.

In Micah 5:2 the prophet names the birthplace of the future Messiah as being

"Bethlehem." Now there is no possibility that Micah was composed after the birth of Jesus (ca. 6 B.C.). (Actual fragments of the Hebrew text of Micah in a third-century B.C.

manuscript of the Minor Prophets were found in Qumran cave 4 [cf. F. M. Cross and S.

Talmon,
Qumran and the History of the Biblical Text
(Cambridge: Harvard University, 1975), p. 406].) Since Jesus was unquestionably born in Bethlehem, the above-mentioned presupposition against specific naming is untenable.

Furthermore, it is important to observe that such a specific naming of captive Judah's future liberator was especially appropriate for Isaiah's own generation. During the reign of Manasseh, the moral breakdown and disregard of God's Word as manifested by all classes of Judean society made the doom of Judah and Jerusalem absolutely certain. The warnings of Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28 would surely be fulfilled. But what reasonable hope could remain of the Israelites ever returning to their ancestral home once it had been completely depopulated and the survivors all driven off into exile? There was none whatever, except for a rather vague indication in Leviticus 26:40-45, and perhaps a few hints elsewhere in pre-Isaianic Scripture.

If the future generation living at the time of the Fall of Babylon in 539 B.C. was to have any clear confirmation that the God of Abraham and Moses was still watching over their national destiny, and was ready to do for them a work of restoration that had never been 272

the experience of any other exiled nation, then they needed a very striking and decisive token of His continuing favor and care. This could hardly be communicated in any other way so decisively as if God back in Isaiah's time would actually specify the name of their liberator. As the discouraged and disheartened exiles could hear of the rise of Cyrus and his successive victories over the Medes and the Lydians, they would remember Isaiah's prophecy concerning this man and would have faith to believe that God would really do a new thing on their behalf and would restore them to their land.

The revelation of the very name of the future liberator is presented as the climax of the entire prophecy in chapter 44 of Isaiah and then continues on with this theme through the first portion of chapter 45. It cannot be regarded as a later insertion, for it serves as the capstone of the arch in the structure of the passage in which it occurs. Therefore, we may rest assured that it is an authentic prediction of a pivotal event in holy history, destined to take place over 150 years later than the date of the prophecy itself.

273

Jeremiah

How can Jeremiah 7:22-23 be reconciled with Exodus 20:24 and the rest of the
sacrificial ordinances attributed to Moses in the Pentateuch?

Jeremiah 7:22-23 quotes God as saying to Israel: "For I did not speak to your fathers, or command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices. But this is what I commanded them, saying, Òbey My voice, and I will be your God, and you will be My people; and you will walk in all the way which I command you, that it may be well with you'" (NASB). This sounds like a denial of any sacrificial requirements whatever back in the days of Moses, at least insofar as divine sanction is concerned. Yet many chapters containing these various provisions concerning offerings and sacrifices are introduced by the rubric "And Yahweh spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying,..."

Liberal scholars invariably point to the Jeremiah passage as proving that the sacrificial regulations of the Mosaic Code were unknown in the seventh century B.C. as having any sanction from God or from Moses himself. This deduction is totally without foundation, however. Jeremiah 7:22-23 refers quite clearly to what God said to Moses and the Israelites in Exodus 19:5: "Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples...and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation" [NASB]. Apart from the Passover ordinance in Exodus 12, which had nothing to do with offerings on an altar, no sacrificial requirements were made by God to the Israelites until chapter 20, when the Ten Commandments were promulgated and the first reference to a sacrificial altar appeared in v.24.

It should be carefully observed that the whole thrust of Jeremiah 7 is to the effect that for sacrificial worship to be acceptable to God, worshipers must come to the altar with yielded and believing hearts, with a sincere purpose to do God's will. Verses 22-23 then point out that in the very book that records God's deliverance of the enslaved Hebrew people from Egyptian bondage, the first essential was a heartfelt commitment to a covenant relationship to God. They were to understand themselves as a holy people, called out to a new life of total obedience to the known will of God. Apart from that surrender of heart, that pledge of their soul to live to the glory of God, no acts of ritual or formalized worship could avail to please God.

In point of fact, then, God never said anything to them at the beginning-- "
in the day
that
I brought them out of the land of Egypt"--about offerings or sacrifices. What He did emphasize to them was the commitment of their hearts to Him with a full purpose to obey His will. Without that purpose, acts of religion mean nothing but abominable hypocrisy.

Isaiah 1:11-17 and Amos 5:21-26 teach exactly that same principle.

Which king is involved in Jeremiah 27:1-11, Jehoiakim or Zedekiah?