Abstract: Daniel 7 depicts four beastly kingdoms judged by the Ancient of Days, after which one like a son of man comes with the clouds and receives everlasting dominion. Within Daniel the figure is closely related to the holy ones who receive the kingdom, yet later Jewish apocalyptic texts could interpret the imagery in individual and messianic directions. The Gospels’ use of Daniel 7—especially at Jesus’ trial—therefore belongs to an already fertile Jewish apocalyptic tradition while making an extraordinary claim about Jesus’ authority and vindication.
Jesus calls himself “the Son of Man” more often in the Gospels than he calls himself “Messiah.” Yet the expression is frequently misunderstood.
Some readers assume it simply means “human being.” Others treat it as an obvious technical title for God.
The historical background is more interesting.
The decisive text is Daniel 7.
Four beasts rise from the sea
Daniel sees a night vision in which four monstrous beasts emerge from the chaotic sea. They represent kingdoms or imperial powers.
The imagery deliberately contrasts bestial empire with humanlike rule.
The beasts dominate, devour, boast, and persecute. Then the scene shifts from earth to heaven.
The Ancient of Days sits in judgment
Daniel sees thrones set in place and the Ancient of Days seated in fiery majesty.
The court sits. The books are opened. The arrogant beast is judged.
The political message is theological: empires that appear invincible remain subject to God’s court.
Then Daniel sees a different kind of figure.
“One like a son of man”
Daniel 7:13–14 describes one like a son of man coming with the clouds of heaven to the Ancient of Days.
He receives:
- dominion;
- glory;
- kingship;
- service from peoples, nations, and languages;
- and an everlasting kingdom.
The Aramaic expression means something like “one like a human being” or “one like a son of man.” The contrast with the beasts is important: after beastlike kingdoms, a humanlike figure receives righteous dominion.
Is the figure an individual or the people of God?
Daniel itself connects the vision to the holy ones of the Most High, who receive the kingdom.
This has led many interpreters to understand the humanlike figure corporately—as a symbolic representation of the saints, just as the beasts represent kingdoms.
That reading has strong textual grounding.
But the matter is not exhausted there.
Apocalyptic symbols can represent a people through an individual figure. Kings can embody kingdoms. A representative figure can be both personal and corporate.
The important historical point is that later Jewish interpreters found Daniel 7 capable of generating more individualized eschatological readings.
The clouds matter
In the Hebrew Bible, riding or coming with the clouds is strongly associated with divine activity.
God rides the clouds in poetic descriptions. Daniel’s humanlike figure does not simply walk into an earthly throne room; he arrives within a heavenly scene and receives universal everlasting dominion from the Ancient of Days.
That does not mean Daniel straightforwardly identifies him as a second deity.
It does mean the imagery is unusually exalted.
1 Enoch and the Son of Man tradition
The Similitudes of Enoch—1 Enoch 37–71—develop a heavenly eschatological figure often called the Son of Man, Chosen One, or Righteous One.
He is associated with judgment, vindication, and the defeat of oppressive rulers.
The dating of the Similitudes has been heavily debated. Most specialists place them somewhere around the turn of the era or first century AD, but arguments continue over precise chronology and their relationship to Christian tradition.
They should therefore not be used as a simplistic proof that “everyone before Jesus already believed X.”
Their real value is showing that Danielic humanlike imagery could be interpreted in an individualized, eschatological direction within Jewish apocalyptic thought.
4 Ezra 13
4 Ezra, written after the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, contains a vision of a man rising from the sea who confronts hostile nations.
The text interprets him as a figure kept by God who will deliver creation and God’s people.
Again, this is later than Jesus. It cannot simply be used as direct evidence for what Galilean villagers believed in AD 30.
But together with Enochic tradition it demonstrates the continuing Jewish afterlife of Daniel 7 as a source of messianic and eschatological imagination.
Jesus’ ordinary “son of man” sayings
Not every Gospel occurrence of “Son of Man” has the same function.
Some sayings concern Jesus’ earthly ministry: the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head; the Son of Man eats and drinks; the Son of Man has authority to forgive sins.
Others concern suffering: the Son of Man must be rejected and killed.
Others are explicitly apocalyptic: the Son of Man comes in glory or with the clouds.
Scholars debate which sayings go back to the historical Jesus, how the Aramaic expression functioned in speech, and how the Gospel tradition developed.
A responsible argument does not treat every occurrence as if Jesus were simply saying the same coded phrase over and over.
Mark 14 is the crucial collision
At Jesus’ trial in Mark, the high priest asks whether he is the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed.
Jesus’ answer combines Psalm 110 and Daniel 7: the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of Power and come with the clouds of heaven.
Within Mark’s narrative, this is an extraordinary claim.
Jesus identifies his coming vindication with two of Israel’s most exalted royal and apocalyptic images:
- enthronement beside God;
- and the Danielic cloud-coming humanlike ruler.
The high priest responds with an accusation of blasphemy.
Whatever one concludes about the precise historical wording of the trial scene, Mark clearly interprets Jesus through Daniel 7 at the climax of the passion narrative.
Does Daniel 7 teach the Trinity?
Not by itself.
Daniel 7 is not the Nicene Creed. It does not spell out one divine essence in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Christian theology later reads the passage canonically alongside the New Testament’s claims about the Father and Son.
Historically, the responsible claim is narrower:
Daniel 7 provides Jewish scriptural language in which a humanlike figure can occupy an astonishingly exalted role within God’s heavenly judgment and receive universal, everlasting dominion.
That made it powerful material for early Christology.
The representative Messiah
Daniel’s connection between the humanlike figure and the saints also fits an important Christian pattern.
Jesus is not merely an isolated heavenly individual. In the New Testament, Messiah represents and gathers his people. What happens to him defines what happens to them: suffering, vindication, resurrection, and kingdom.
The corporate and individual readings therefore need not be enemies in later Christian interpretation.
The king represents the kingdom.
Final Verdict
Daniel 7 originally presents a vision in which beastly kingdoms are judged and humanlike, holy rule triumphs under God’s sovereignty. The “one like a son of man” is closely tied to the saints who receive the kingdom, making a corporate dimension unavoidable.
Yet the figure’s cloud-coming, heavenly location, and universal everlasting dominion made the vision fertile ground for individualized and messianic interpretation in later Jewish apocalyptic literature.
The Gospels enter that Jewish interpretive world and make a startling claim: the rejected Jesus is the Son of Man who will be vindicated, enthroned, and revealed in the authority of Daniel’s vision.
That is much more significant than saying “Son of Man just means Jesus was human.”
Key Sources
Primary sources
- Daniel 7.
- Psalms 2 and 110.
- 1 Enoch 37–71.
- 4 Ezra 13.
- Mark 2, 8, 10, 13, 14; Matthew 24–26; Luke 21–22.
Modern scholarship
- John J. Collins, studies of Daniel and Jewish apocalypticism.
- Maurice Casey, The Solution to the “Son of Man” Problem.
- Cambridge, The Son of Man Debate, especially discussion of Daniel 7, 1 Enoch, and 4 Ezra.
- Benjamin Reynolds, studies of the Son of Man and divine identity.
- Loren Stuckenbruck, studies of early Jewish apocalyptic traditions.