The Son of Man: Human, Divine, or Both?
The first Adam was created to have “dominion” over creation (Genesis 1:28) but failed to do what was required of him: obey the Word of God (Genesis 2:17). After Adam failed to obey God’s Word, God gave a promise of a Redeemer (Messiah) through the offspring of the woman (Genesis 3:15). Later texts within the Torah (Numbers 24:17–19) and beyond (Psalm 72:8, 110:2) speak of the future redeemer, the “last Adam,” as having dominion over the earth. Not only would the Redeemer (Messiah) have dominion over the earth, but he would be truly human and truly divine (Isaiah 9:6).
In Daniel 7, the “one like a son of man” is given an everlasting kingdom and dominion over all nations (Daniel 7:14). But is Daniel 7:13–14 evidence for a divine Messiah? In his trial before the Jewish council, Jesus specifically identified himself as the divine “son of man” from Daniel 7 (Mark 14:62; cf. 2:20, 28; 8:31; 13:26; Acts 7:56; Revelation 1:13). However, there are many attempts to try to dismiss Daniel 7:13–14 as evidence for the deity of the Messiah, the Lord Jesus. For example, critical scholars and Orthodox Jewish teachers identify the “one like a son of man” in Daniel 7:13 as either an idealized human, the people of Israel, or an angel (see below). How can we answer the different suggestions regarding the identity of the “one like a son of man” and show that the context of Daniel 7 reveals a divine Messiah?
An Idealized Human
Critical scholars generally interpret the “one like a son of man” as an “idealized human figure.”1 The main reason for this view is that the phrase “son of man,” in Aramaic (bar ʾĕnāš), is comparable to the Hebrew phrase “son of man” (ben-ʾādām), which usually refers to human beings (Jeremiah 49:18) or a specific human being (Ezekiel 2:1).2
The People of Israel
Although early Jewish writers understood the “one like a son of man” as referring to the Messiah (Messiah: b Sanhedrin. 98a), many modern Jewish teachers believe “that in both Daniel 7:13-14 and 7:27 the terms ‘one like a son of man’ and ‘the people of the holy ones of the Most High’ refer collectively to the people of Israel who will receive worldwide authority and obedience.”3
An Angel
Those who hold to the angelic view argue that it is normal in visions to have angels appearing in human form. The “one like a son of man” either refers to a collective group of angels or even a specific angel. Some scholars believe the “one like a son of man” is Michael and the “holy ones” are his angelic followers.4
These three views fail because of the details in Daniel 7 and the overall context of worship in the book of Daniel.
The Book of Daniel
The book of Daniel relates to his exile in Babylon for a period of around 70 years (c. 605 to 538 BC, cf. Daniel 1:1, 10:1).5 Daniel lived under two different political systems (the neo-Babylonian and Medo-Persian empires). The narratives in Daniel 1–6 deal mainly with the events of Daniel and his companions’ exile in Babylon. The visions in Daniel 7–12 deal with events that are future to the time of Daniel. Daniel is written in both Hebrew (Daniel 1:1–2:4a, 8:1–12:13) and Aramaic (Daniel 2:4b–7:28).
Daniel’s Night Vision
In Daniel 7, the prophet Daniel received a vision that occurred in the first year of King Belshazzar of Babylon (c. 553 BC, Daniel 7:1). The vision contained four beasts coming out of the great sea (Daniel 7:3). These beasts represent four kingdoms from the nations (cf. Daniel 2). The fourth beast is destroyed in the context of judgment and the establishment of an everlasting kingdom (Daniel 7:9–12). Daniel then states what he saw in his night vision:
I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed. (Daniel 7:13–14)
Daniel’s vision shows the “one like a son of man” to be more than a human being.
Daniel’s vision of “one like a son of man” appears amid a vision of the Ancient of Days. In the vision, “thrones were placed” (Daniel 7:9), one for the Ancient of Days, but for whom was the other throne? It can be for none other than the “one like a son of man.” Daniel’s vision shows the “one like a son of man” to be more than a human being. The “one like a son of man” comes in the clouds, which in the Old Testament was a vehicle for God (Exodus 34:5; Psalm 104:3; Isaiah 19:1), and boldly approaches the Ancient of Days (God the Father) but not in fear (Isaiah 6:5). The “one like a son of man” is deity, yet he appears to be fully human (cf. Philippians 2:6–9).
True and False Worship
There is another way that Daniel 7 shows the “one like a son of man” to be deity, as all peoples, nations, and languages “serve” him (Daniel 7:14). The word serve is the Aramaic word פְּלַח (pǝlaḥ)6 and occurs 10 times in Daniel (Daniel 3:12, 14, 17, 18, 28; 6:16, 20; 7:14, 27). Outside the book of Daniel, the word pǝlaḥ is only used one other time, and it appears in the context of religious worship (Ezra 7:24).7 The Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint (LXX), translates pǝlaḥ in Daniel 7:14 as λατρεύουσα8 (from λατρεύω, latreuo), which refers to the highest form of religious worship (see Matthew 4:10; Luke 1:74; Acts 24:14; Revelation 7:15). In the book of Daniel, to “serve” is something that one must render to God alone.
The book of Daniel asks the question, “whom do we serve,” pagan gods or the living God? Daniel 3 and 6 help determine the meaning of the word serve (pǝlaḥ) in Daniel 7, as the text makes a noted contrast in its use of the word serve in the contexts of false and true worship. In Daniel 3 and 6, the Jewish exiles are threatened with death unless they abandon their worship of the one true God.
In Daniel 3, King Nebuchadnezzar sets up a gold image in the province of Babylon for everyone to worship. Anyone who refuses to bow down to the image is to be cast into a fiery furnace (Daniel 3:6). The Jewish exiles Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refuse to serve King Nebuchadnezzar’s false gods and worship the golden image he had set up (Daniel 3:12, 14, 18, 28) because they serve the true God (Daniel 3:17).
In Daniel 6, an ordinance is made that no one can make a petition to any god or man besides the king for a period of 30 days, or they will be cast into a den of lions (Daniel 6:6–7). Yet, Daniel refuses to serve a false god (King Darius) because he continually serves the true God (Daniel 6:16, 20). In both Daniel 3 and 6, the Jewish exiles chose death over serving a false god.
Daniel 3 and 6 make it clear that false gods, idols, or human beings (creature) cannot be served (worshipped). The use of the word pǝlaḥ in both Daniel 3 and 6 shows the difference between false worship (Daniel 3:12, 14, 18, 28) and true worship (Daniel 3:17; 6:16, 20). Therefore, Daniel 3 and 6 help determine the meaning of the word serve in Daniel 7:14. If Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refuse to serve (worship) a false god in Daniel 3 and Daniel refuses to serve (worship) a false god in Daniel 6 because they all worship the true God, then the fact that all peoples, nations, and languages serve the “one like a son of man” in Daniel 7 must mean that he is divine. This would be entirely inappropriate if he were human or an angel (cf. Acts 10:25–26; Revelation 22:8–9). For the Hebrews to give worship to anyone other than the one true God (YHWH) would be idolatrous (cf. Daniel 3:12).The enthronement of the “one like a son of man” (the Highest One)9 not only results in victory for God’s people, the holy ones,10 but also in all dominions serving him (Daniel 7:27).
The one like a son of man in Daniel 7 is an individual, like the first Adam, who represents his people (cf. Romans 5:12–19). However, unlike the first Adam, this individual takes dominion over creation and receives the worship of the nations. As the last Adam, the Lord Jesus fulfills this messianic expectation of the one like a son of man (cf. Luke 21:27; Acts 7:56).
Footnotes
- J. R. Daniel Kirk, A Man Attested by God: The Human Jesus of the Synoptic Gospels (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2016), 157–158.
- Although Ezekiel is described as “a son of man,” he does see a man in a vision who is described very similar to the one like a son of man in Daniel 7 (see Ezekiel 1:26–28). Ezekiel later identifies the one he saw in the vision as God (Ezekiel 10:20).
- An article on the Jews for Judaism website states: “We see that in both Daniel 7:13-14 and 7:27 the terms ‘one like a son of man’ and ‘the people of the holy ones of the Most High’ refer collectively to the people of Israel who will receive worldwide authority and obedience. Rabbinical exegesis applied the term ‘one like a son of man’ to the Messiah, but not as a divine or semi-divine being. There is nothing in Daniel’s visionary experience to indicate that ‘one like a son of man’ is a divine being” (See Gerald Sigal, “Chapter 44 - One Like the Son of Man,” Jews for Jerusalem, accessed July 11, 2024, https://jewsforjudaism.org/knowledge/articles/chapter-44-one-like-son-man).
- J. J. Collins, A Commentary on the Book of Daniel, Hermeneia: A Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), 304–310.
- Critical scholars argue for a mid-second century BC date for the book of Daniel. However, the caves at Qumran yielded copies of Daniel dated to this same time making it very unlikely that Daniel was completed, circulated, and accepted as canon in the mid-second century BC (4QDanc contains Daniel 10:5–9, 11–16, 21; 11:1–2, 13–17, 25–29 and is dated to 125 BC). See Gerhard F. Hasel, “The Book of Daniel Confirmed by the Dead Sea Scrolls,” Journal of the Adventist Theological Society, ½ (1990): 39–41.
- Gesenius’s Lexicon shows that pǝlaḥ has the following meanings: “to labour, to serve, often in the Targums; spec[ially] to serve or worship God . . . Dan. 3, 12 sq. 7, 14. 27.” Heinrich Friedrich Wilhelm Gesenius, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament: Including the Biblical Chaldee, trans. Edward Robinson (Boston: Houghton Mifflin and Company, 1888), 847.
- In Ezra 7:24, the plural form of pǝlaḥ is translated as servants (LXX, leitourgois). The noun polchan is found only in Ezra 7:19 and means “work, divine service, worship.”
- In Daniel 7:14, Henry Barclay Swete’s edition of the Septuagint reads: “καὶ ἐδόθη αὐτῷ ἐξουσία καὶ τιμὴ βασιλική, καὶ πάντα τὰ ἔθνη τῆς γῆς κατὰ γένη καὶ πᾶσα δόξα αὐτῷ λατρεύουσα· καὶ ἡ ἐξουσία αὐτοῦ ἐξουσία αἰώνιος ἥτις οὐ μὴ ἀρθῇ, καὶ ἡ βασιλεία αὐτοῦ, ἥτις οὐ μὴ φθαρῇ.”
- In the book of Daniel, there are two similar, but not identical, words for God’s exalted status: “the Most High” (עִלָּא, ʿillāʾ) and “the Highest One” (NASB) (עֶלְיוֹנִין, ʿelyônîn). The word “the Most High” (ʿillāʾ) appears nine times in Daniel 3–6 (Daniel 3:26; 4:2, 17, 24 [x2], 32, 34; 5:18, 21) and once in Daniel 7 (Daniel 7:25). The other term “the Highest One” (ʿelyônîn) is used four times in Daniel 7 (7:18, 22, 25, 27) after the vision of the one like the son of man. Since the “Highest One” is only used in Daniel 7, and after the vision, the “Highest One” must refer to the Messianic King who receives everlasting dominion from the Ancient of Days.
- The term for “holy ones” (qedoshim or qedoshin in Aramaic) probably refers to God’s people (Leviticus 11:44–45, 19:2; Psalm 16:3).
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