THE MORNING STAR IN THE BIBLE

The image of the morning star appears in several places in Scripture, sometimes as the alternative term “day-star.” But the way in which this phrase is used metaphorically appears to differ somewhat from passage to passage, that is assuming that we can even understand what the image refers to. But the literal meaning is unambiguous; it denotes the planet Venus, which is the brightest night-time object in the sky except for the moon and is even visible at times in the day.

Job 38:7

    The first occurrence of this phrase is found in Job 38:7 where God alludes to the time of creation when:

        “the morning stars        sang together and

        all the heavenly beings shouted for joy.”

The parallelism between the two poetic lines makes it clear that “morning stars” (note the plural in this instance) refers to the heavenly angels. Hartley points out that in many Near Eastern religions the morning stars were worshiped. Specifically, Pope notes, “The Ugaritic poem 'The Birth of the Beautiful and Gracious Gods' celebrates the birth of the astral deities Dawn and Dusk, perhaps the Venus star regarded, as among the Romans as the morning star (Lucifer) and the evening star (Hesperus).”

Isaiah 14:12-15

    This song makes fun of the King of Babylon's dreams of greatness by sarcastically saying to him, “How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn!” This interpretation is not accepted by those who feel it refers instead to Satan.

Hagner points out that the Hebrew word helel was translated in the King James Version as “Lucifer,” which means 'the shining one' or Day Star. However, the reference is to the king of Babylon, not Satan. The king “in his proud heart [but not in reality] will ascend above the stars of God and make himself like the Most High.” Keep in mind that “stars” in the Bible are often closely associated with God's angels and Venus is the brightest of these “stars.”

Oswalt explains how the mistaken identification with Satan came about historically: “Some of the church fathers, linking this passage to Luke 10:18 and Rev. 12:8,9, took it to refer to the fall of Satan described in those places. However, the great expositors of the Reformation were unanimous in arguing that the context here does not support such an interpretation. This passage is discussing human pride, which, while monumental to be sure, is still human and not angelic.”

Unfortunately, many fundamentalist commentators continue to make this error in interpretation since they do not understand the concept of poetic hyperbole and insist on taking the Isaiah passage literally while totally ignoring the fact that it is literally addressed to a human leader, not Satan.

Parenthetically, Kidner adds that some scholars “suggest that an existing tale of the morning star lording it over the rest and falling to earth may lie behind this poem...but such a tale, if it existed, has not come to light [no pun intended, I am sure].”

II Peter 1:19

    Peter reminds his audience of the eye-witness testimony of the apostles as confirmation of the OT promises and urges them “to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.”

Wheaton points to Venus, the “star” that brings dawn, and says, “Its use here accords with the Star-symbolism of Jesus in Nu. 24:17; Lk. 1:78; Rev. 22:16 (cf. Mal. 4:2; Eph. 5:14).” And Kelly describes this passage as “a pictorial description of the way in which, at His coming, Christ will dissipate the doubt and uncertainty with which their hearts are meanwhile beclouded and fill them with a marvelous illumination.”

Jude 13

    In this detailed, metaphorical description of the false teachers in the church, one of the comparisons he uses is that they are “wandering stars.” It turns out that there is some disagreement among scholars as to what these stars are literally. The term may refer to the planets (Reicke, et al) or shooting stars (Towner, Pentecost and others), both of which moved in an unpredictable manner.

Jude's reference comes from the book of Enoch where these were understood to be disobedient angels. Since Venus was the most visible of these “wandering stars,” this metaphorical meaning may be attached to it in particular. Wheaton says, “the thought seems to be that of Lk. 6:39; these teachers set themselves in a position where they claim to be guides, but are themselves off course.”

Revelation 2:28

    All in all, there are almost seventy references to stars in the Bible. “Virtually all the biblical star motifs converge in the Book of Revelation, where more than a dozen verses contain images of stars.” (Dictionary of Biblical Imagery) Of these, two specifically refer to the “day” or “morning” star. Hagner notes that the symbolism in these two passages is “difficult.”

In 2:28, the faithful in the church at Thyatira are promised the morning star. DBI thinks that this is “apparently symbolic of eternal life in heaven, and perhaps of Christ himself.” However, Mounce does not restrict the meaning to those two possibilities:

“No completely satisfactory answer to this symbol has been offered. Among the many suggestions one finds (1) an allusion to Lucifer in Isaiah 14:12, (2) Christ himself (cf. 22:16), (3) a reference to Daniel 12:3 and the immortality of the righteous, (4) the dawn of eternal life, (5) a literal reference to the planet Venus, and (6) the Holy Spirit. Hemer suggests rather tentatively that “the author's mind may have passed from Psalm 2:7-9 to Numbers 24:17...with its mention of a star which then suggested the 'morning star,' a local concept whose significance has now been forgotten.”

Revelation 22:16

    In this verse, Jesus himself says, “I am the root and offspring of David, the bright and morning star.” Hagner expresses the following opinion: “Although this can be related to the words of Num. 24:17..., more probably it alludes to the morning star Venus, with the connotation not only of beauty, but of daybreak, and so of sovereignty and victory.” If so, this meaning would be consistent with the symbolic significance given to Venus during Roman times.

Similarly, the words of Mounce are worth repeating: “The morning star is a promise that the long night of tribulation is all but over and that the new eschatological day is about to dawn.”

Andrew Wilson recently wrote a short article in Christianity Today magazine in which he used this verse to illustrate the principle that “Exegetically, it is usually considered bad form to find meaning in texts that the original author did not intend. But then again, every Scripture has two original authors – one divine and one human – and the speaker in this case is the Morning Star himself, the Creator of the heavens and everything in them: the Lord Jesus. Perhaps there is more there than we know.”

Wilson thus offers some additional insights into the text which, at the risk of importing allegorical meanings into the passage, I will summarize here.

    “By the time the New Testament was written, educated Greco-Romans were were aware that the morning star and the evening star were identical. The first star to appear and the last to disappear were one and the same. Given how often Jesus is described as bookending history in Revelation 22 – Alpha and Omega, First and Last, Beginning and End, Root and Offspring – John may have pondered this connection too. Jesus is not just the brightest star in the firmament, but the star that is present before the others appear and after they have all receded.”

    “What John did not know...is that the morning star is fundamentally different from every other star in the night sky. It is made of rock, not gas. It reflects the light of the sun rather than generating its own. Physically speaking, it is more like earth in its properties than the stars...At the same time, John had no concept of the morning star's surprising nearness relative to the rest of the heavenly host...Like Venus in relation to the stars, Jesus is utterly unlike all the 'gods' to whom people compare him...Not only is he much brighter than his companions. Not only does he open and close the celestial symphony as both overture and finale. He is unlike them in his very essence, similar to us in ways we still struggle to believe, and far, far closer than we realize.”