Lucifer llyh   הילל

As the scripture implies, the light within the Light Bearer diminished. There’s an additional window to this dark aspect of the narrative; for the letters of Lucifer’s feared name contribute to scripture’s negative savor. By etymology, “Lucifer” can be read as “the h weeping, the howling lly.” It speaks of remorse. However, the covering cherub wasn’t accursed. He was given a way of escape; for he would live and die after the manner of men: sharing their joys, sorrows, expectations and disappointments, but also sharing in their promise. HaShem’s mercy is without end.

When faced with judgment bringing loss, some are despondent and distressed because of lowered energies. Not liking what an ordeal shows them of themselves, they lapse into depression, becoming haunted by fleeting impressions of consequences that may not actually arise. Human instincts are peremptory, and reversals often trigger downward spirals fueled by regret. When overmatched, men look for diversion. What they might do differently is of no great concern, so long as it gives a moment of respite.

In depression, even hitting bottom brings no lasting relief; for victims are smothered by paranoia disguised as perception. Imploding under the pressures of anxiety, they panic at the edge of calamity, locked in fixed-lens preoccupation about the most minute details of their peril. In frantic hope of relief by this or by that, they cling to sanity by tabulating the data points of their dismay, as in a fog. When life moves on and they survive, they’re left stranded with poor footing in sandy marshes, whimpering because they’re marooned, alone. In despair, they tuck their minds into shallow thoughts, as in a shell, burying their potential in idleness. Because reality is so difficult, they steel themselves with resolutions for just getting by, in a parody of real life.

A realm in which all are One is beyond consideration of such as are enslaved by depression. Their souls are incapable of seeing what is obvious to any who is able to pursue the rewarding focus on essence. Defeated, the depressed are lost: strangers, even to themselves. Unable to entertain ideas without projecting personal bias, their minds find no way of escaping quarantine.
Imprisoned by their own thoughts, they assume the self-indulgent cast of the narcissist.

Closed systems, they think of themselves as aliens, and they face their torment in isolation; for their tenuous affiliations afford them little sympathy; and they struggle with hostility, fearing that they will forever be just one concept short of what is needed for resolution and acceptance. If pressed about what that thing might be, they would not be capable of answering.

Because they face dead ends at every turn in every context, they engage in all manner of twisted, tunnel-visioned reasoning, hoping to discover a hidden door that just might provide fulfillment of their stop-gap goal of escape; but unable to find it, they wallow under the whiplash tyranny of guilt for falling short, and they do fall short; for they have yet to discover that regret is not repentance.

A record of Lucifer’s reaction to the judgment against him isn’t given, but his fall was great, indeed. He had been perfect in everything—spectacular! approved! He had satisfied all required of him until a single detail surfaced, but that stain of iniquity—if stain it was—could not have been a result of some flaw intrinsic to his character. He had been positioned and approved as the covering cherub. The light of hla was his to bear unto all in heaven and upon earth. He had enjoyed knowledge of perfection by every consideration in all his ways; and now, it was gone!

The mystery of iniquity had been unknown to him or by him until it was discovered within him; and when it was discovered, his fall was immediate and imperative because, as covering cherub, he held intimate contact with everything and every being in all realms. Oversight was among his duties, and he therefore served in a position through which he could infect all things gathered beneath his wings, and everyone in heaven or on earth could be exposed to iniquity by reason of his shortcoming. He must have understood that, if shortcoming it truly had been. Regardless, the scripture does not report a complaint. Like a sheep before the shearer, he opened not his mouth.

As covering cherub of heaven and earth, Lucifer was perfect until he was not. Should we understand, then, that the great angel made some kind of mistake? Had he secretly harbored a core wickedness that had festered within him until it came to a head, drawing God’s attention and reaction? Had Lucifer rebelled? Was rebellion even possible for the covering cherub, considering that his creator had affirmed his faultless performance in all his ways until the instant his iniquity suddenly appeared?

If Lucifer had been successful in keeping a measure of iniquity hidden from the sight of the father, it wouldn’t speak well of la; for even after its discovery, Lucifer was extolled for perfection in all his ways, which would then imply that his “perfection” had been a titanic duplicity! Perhaps that blanket praise of his perfection was just an overblown maxim, a way of patting the unfortunate fellow on the back before showing him the door? I think not. If that were so, it would paint hla with a very black brush.