How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!  How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!

The immediate context of Isaiah 14:12 begins at verse 12 and ends with verse 15.

12 How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! 13 For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: 14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. 15 Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.

The bold-italics have been added to help you follow the references to ‘Lucifer.’  It is no wonder that God is upset with Lucifer, considering all the things he says.  But we still don’t know who Lucifer is at this point.  Did you notice the third word in verse 12 - thou?  ‘Thou’ is Old English for ‘you,’ and ‘thine’ is for ‘your.’  The question that we must now ask is who is Isaiah referring to in his first ‘thou’ in verse 12?

In order to find the answer to that question we must expand our contextual environment from the immediate context to the general context. Please note that the verses are in reverse order.

12 How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!

11 Thy pomp is brought down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols: the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee.

10 All they shall speak and say unto thee, Art thou also become weak as we? art thou become like unto us?

9 Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming: it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth; it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations.

8 Yea, the fir trees rejoice at thee, and the cedars of Lebanon, saying, Since thou art laid down, no feller is come up against us.

7 The whole earth is at rest, and is quiet: they break forth into singing.

(‘You’ becomes ‘he’ in verse 6.)

6 He who smote the people in wrath with a continual stroke, he that ruled the nations in anger, is persecuted, and none hindereth.

(In verse 5 ‘he’ becomes ‘the wicked’ which has the parallel term ‘the rulers.’ Therefore, ‘ he’ is one of the ‘wicked rulers.’ So, we have now discovered that ‘Lucifer’ is ‘a wicked ruler.’)

5 The LORD hath broken the staff of the wicked, and the scepter of the rulers.

4 That thou shalt take up this proverb against the king of Babylon, and say, How hath the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased!

We finally found the end of the chain of references.  What have we discovered - that the thou of verse 12 is none other than the king of Babylon.  By simply establishing the immediate context first, and then expanding it to a much broader general context when we didn’t find the answer, we were able to answer.  Lucifer was not a reference to either a fallen angel or Satan, it was only to the king of Babylon.

Another habit that will help you is to always read the biblical passage in more than one English version of your Bible.  Let's take a look at the words of Isaiah in the New Revised Standard version:

4 you will take up this taunt against the king of Babylon: How the oppressor has ceased! How his insolence has ceased! 5 The LORD has broken the staff of the wicked, the scepter of rulers, 6 that struck down the peoples in wrath with unceasing blows, that ruled the nations in anger with unrelenting persecution. 7 The whole earth is at rest and quiet; they break forth into singing. 8 The cypresses exult over you, the cedars of Lebanon, saying, "Since you were laid low, no one comes to cut us down." 9 Sheol beneath is stirred up to meet you when you come; it rouses the shades to greet you, all who were leaders of the earth; it raises from their thrones all who were kings of the nations. 10 All of them will speak and say to you: "You too have become as weak as we! You have become like us!" 11 Your pomp is brought down to Sheol, and the sound of your harps; maggots are the bed beneath you, and worms are your covering. 12 How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low! 13 You said in your heart, "I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit on the mount of assembly on the heights of Zaphon; 14 I will ascend to the tops of the clouds, I will make myself like the Most High." 15 But you are brought down to Sheol, to the depths of the Pit.

Did you notice that the word Lucifer wasn’t there?  Instead, we read the words Day Star, another reference to the King of Babylon.  If you read another hundred English translations you would not find the word Lucifer in any of them.  It only appears in the King James Version or versions based upon it. Of course this raises another question - Why is Lucifer found only in the KJV?   

A Japanese word, "mokusatsu", may have changed all our lives.  It has two meanings: (1) to ignore; (2) to refrain from comment. The release of a press statement using the second meaning in July 1945 might have ended the war then. The Emperor was ready to end it, and had the power to do so. The cabinet was preparing to accede to the Potsdam ultimatum of the Allies -- surrender or be crushed -- but wanted a little more time to discuss the terms. A press release was prepared announcing a policy of mokusatsu, with the "no comment" implication. 

But it got on the foreign wires with the "ignore" implication through a mix-up in translation: "The cabinet ignores the demand to surrender." To recall the release would have entailed an unthinkable loss of face. Had the intended meaning been publicized, the cabinet might have backed up the Emperor's decision to surrender. In which event, there might have been no atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, no Russian armies in Manchuria, no Korean war to follow. The lives of tens of thousands of Japanese and American boys might have been saved. One word, misinterpreted.