As far as I can tell, I am the only expositor to translate HELEL in Isaiah 14:12 as “Praise master” or “Worship leader”, so I shall have to give my reason for so doing with greater clarity than in WP7.
I have scoured all available commentaries and translations, and without exception they refer to HELEL as the morning star, and use words such as phosphorus, (light bearer), lucifer (light bearer), eosphorus (harbinger of dawn), and proceed to link this symbolism with the King of Babylon.
I am strongly against using HELEL as the morning star, because Jesus said “I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star.” (Rev.22:16). He is the One who was spoken of in Numbers 24:17, “A star will arise out of Jacob, and a scepter will rise out of Israel.” Peter warned us to wait patiently “until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts. (2 Peter 1:19) We must not give the impression that Jesus and HELEL are one and the same person. God forbid!
But let me refer to my Hebrew Lexicons. I have Gesenius, Wigram, and Brown, Driver and Briggs, weighty tomes. The basic verb is HALAL, from which the noun HELEL is derived. Here is a quote – “to praise, to shout with joy, . . a formula of worship . . . marriage song, . . . to break out in singing, . . . as in Hallelujah, praise the Lord.” Surely this is more than adequate to underpin the translation I have given. Why hasn’t anyone else seen this?
But there is another angle to consider. We are told that HELEL is “fallen from heaven”. Our Lord said to the returning 70, “I was watching Satan as lightning fall from heaven.” (Luke 10:18) And in Rev.12 we read of a heavenly battle in which Michael and his angels cast Satan out of heaven. (Rev.12:12)
Finally, in both Isaiah 14, and Ezekiel 28 we read about HELEL and his musical instruments. “The workmanship of your tabrets and pipes” (Ezek.28:13) should read “the workmanship of your drums (or tamourines) and the finger holes on your wind instruments”. Isa.14:11 reads, “Your pomp is brought down to the grave, and the noise of your viols”. This should read “the sound of your stringed instruments”. This should settle the matter. HELEL was the “Worship leader” of heaven in the beginning, and like worship leaders today, he had a band of musicians to accompany him.
Technical notes for Hebrew readers. The Hebrew word HELEL (masculine noun) occurs only in Isa.14:12, but HELEL (same spelling) occurs 29 times in the OT as a verb derived from YALAL, in the Hiphil Imperative, to howl, an onomatopoetic root, as found for example in Isa.13:6, “Howl ye, for the Day of the Lord is near.” So we have two words that are homonyms, howling and praise. In English we find something similar in the word “desert”. As a verb it means to abandon, as a noun it speaks of an arid land. All the Lexicons declare that HELEL in Isa.14:12 is derived from the verb HALAL meaning to praise.
