Lucifer

Lucifer (Latin, meaning light-bearer or morning star) is the Latin Vulgate rendering of the Hebrew helel ben-shahar (shining one, son of the dawn) in Isaiah 14:12, a title given to the king of Babylon in a taunt-song celebrating his fall: How are you fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! The imagery draws on ancient Near Eastern mythology of a celestial being whose pride led to its downfall—applied here as a poetic metaphor for Babylon's arrogance and impending destruction.

Christian exegesis from Origen and Tertullian onward applied the Lucifer passage to the fall of Satan, reading it alongside Ezekiel 28:12–19 (the lament over the king of Tyre as a fallen guardian cherub) to construct a narrative of angelic rebellion before the creation of humanity. Jesus's statement I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven (Luke 10:18) and Revelation 12:7–9's account of the war in heaven have reinforced this typological reading. The name Lucifer as a proper name for the devil derives entirely from this interpretive tradition rather than from direct biblical usage.