One like a son of man: Daniel's vision of the beasts and the Ancient of Days

Daniel 7 is the hinge of the book. The first six chapters are stories about Daniel and his friends in the courts of Babylon and Persia, told in the third person. From chapter 7 on, the book records visions given to Daniel himself, told in the first person. The chapter is dated to the first year of Belshazzar, king of Babylon, which would fall in the middle of the sixth century BC. Belshazzar shared the throne with his father Nabonidus, who spent years away from the city, and this agrees with the book's habit of calling Belshazzar king.

The chapter is written in Aramaic, like chapters 2 to 6. This is significant for its structure. Chapter 2 gave Nebuchadnezzar a dream of a statue made of four metals, followed by a stone that becomes a mountain. Chapter 7 gives Daniel a dream of four beasts, followed by the kingdom of God. The two chapters are parallel visions of the same pattern, one from the king's view of power and one from God's view of it.

When the book was written is disputed. A sixth-century date, with Daniel as the author of the visions, is held in the Jewish and Christian traditions and by many conservative scholars today. Most critical scholars date the final form of the book to the 160s BC, during the persecution of the Jews by the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes, and see chapter 7 as written to give courage to those who suffered under him. This disagreement shapes how the four kingdoms are identified, as the class will show. The audience in either case is a people under foreign rule who need to know who finally holds power.

Daniel 7 belongs to the genre called apocalyptic, from a Greek word meaning an unveiling. Apocalyptic uses visions, animals, numbers and heavenly scenes to show what stands behind earthly events, and it usually comes with an angel who explains. It was written for people in crisis and it speaks in symbols, so it should be read with the same care as poetry. The beasts are not zoological predictions. They stand for kingdoms and rulers, and the chapter says so (verses 17, 23).

Three rules help.

• First, the text interprets itself, and the reader begins with what the angel says. The four beasts are four kings or kingdoms (verses 17, 23); the ten horns are ten kings (24); the saints of the Most High will receive the kingdom (18, 27). The vision is also bound to the parallel in Daniel 2, so the two should be read together.
• Second, the imagery draws on earlier Scripture and the surrounding culture. The sea churned by the winds is the ancient picture of chaos, from which monsters rise (compare Isaiah 27:1; Psalm 74:13-14). The idea of a divine figure riding the clouds was also familiar in the ancient Near East, and the Old Testament uses it of the LORD (Psalm 104:3; Isaiah 19:1).
• Third, the chapter's centre is the throne room, not the beasts. The vision is built so that the longest description of the beasts yields to the shortest and greatest scene, the court of God.

The details of the identification of the kingdoms are a matter of real disagreement, and the class will name the readings. The central claim of the chapter does not depend on them: every beast is judged, and the kingdom is given to one like a son of man and to the saints.

Verses 1–8

Daniel sees the four winds of heaven stirring the great sea, and four beasts come up from it, each different.

• The first is a lion with an eagle's wings, which are torn off; it is lifted up, made to stand like a man and given a human mind.
• The second is a bear raised on one side with three ribs in its mouth, told to eat much flesh.
• The third is a leopard with four bird's wings and four heads, given authority.
• The fourth is not compared to any animal. It is terrifying, with great iron teeth that crush and trample, and with ten horns. A little horn rises among them, uproots three, and has eyes like a man's and a mouth speaking great things. Each beast is more terrible than the last. Many readers connect the lion made to stand like a man with the humbling of Nebuchadnezzar in chapter 4, though the text does not say this.

Verses 9–12

The scene shifts from earth to heaven. Thrones are set, and the Ancient of Days takes his seat. The title means one who is old, a picture of eternal authority, and his clothes are white as snow and his hair like pure wool. His throne is flames, its wheels fire, and a river of fire flows from him. Thousands serve him. The court sits and the books are opened. The little horn is still speaking when the fourth beast is killed and burned. The other beasts lose their rule but are allowed to live for a time. Judgment is not a battle but a trial, and it ends quickly.

Verses 13–14

'One like the Son of Man' comes with the clouds of heaven. In Aramaic the phrase is 'one like a son of man' (bar enash), which means someone with human form, in contrast with the beasts. Coming with the clouds is a divine image, but he is brought before the Ancient of Days, and so is distinct from him. He is given 'dominion, glory, and kingship', and 'that the people of every nation and language should serve Him', echoing the language of the nations bowing in Daniel 3. His dominion is everlasting. Authority passes from the beasts to him.

Verses 15–18

Daniel is troubled and asks one of the attendants. The first answer is short: the four beasts are four kings, but the saints of the Most High will receive the kingdom and keep it forever. In the angel's answer, the Son of Man is not named. The kingdom goes to the saints.

Verses 19–25

Daniel asks about the fourth beast and the horn. He sees the horn waging war against the saints and prevailing, until the Ancient of Days comes and judges in their favour. The explanation says the fourth kingdom will be different from the others and will devour the whole earth. The ten horns are ten kings, and another king, different from them, will subdue three. He will speak against the Most High, oppress the saints, and try to change the times and the law. They will be given into his hand for 'a time, and times, and half a time', usually understood as three and a half years. The same period appears in Daniel 12:7 and, in a different form, in Revelation 12:14.

Verses 26–28

The court will sit, and his dominion will be taken away and destroyed for good. The kingdom and greatness of all the kingdoms under heaven will be given to the people, the saints of the Most High, and every ruler will serve and obey him. In verse 28 Daniel keeps the matter to himself, alarmed and pale. The vision does not remove fear but locates it.

The chapter teaches that history is not governed by the kingdoms that seem to rule it. Beasts rise from the sea, but thrones are set in heaven. This is the book's answer to the exiles and to every persecuted generation: the powers have a limit, and God judges them. Daniel 7 is the Old Testament's most developed statement that the kingdom of God will replace all earthly kingdoms, a theme found in Psalm 2, Psalm 72 and Daniel 2.

It also teaches that the final kingdom will be given to a human representative and shared with his people. The kingdom is received, not seized. Nor does the saints' share in the kingdom (verses 18, 27) cancel the son of man's, since the chapter holds both. The New Testament continues the pattern in saying that the saints will judge the world (1 Corinthians 6:2) and reign with Christ (Revelation 20:4).

The chapter's treatment of suffering is realistic. The little horn prevails for a time. Faithfulness may mean that the saints are given into his hand. The book does not promise that they escape, only that the court will sit and the verdict will go their way. The same scene, a heavenly court and a judgment by books, stands behind Revelation 20:11-12.

The connection is promise and fulfilment, and it is explicit in the New Testament. Jesus's favourite title for himself in the Gospels is the Son of Man, and at its most solemn it draws on Daniel 7:13-14. Before the high priest, asked whether he is the Messiah, Jesus answers that they will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming with the clouds of heaven (Mark 14:62; Matthew 26:64), joining Daniel 7:13 with Psalm 110:1. He uses the same language in the Olivet discourse (Mark 13:26; Matthew 24:30). The scene is a trial, and the high priest tears his robe because he hears a claim to share God's throne. At the end of Matthew, the risen Jesus says all authority in heaven and earth has been given to him (Matthew 28:18), the language of Daniel 7:14. The angel's promise to Mary, that her son's kingdom will have no end (Luke 1:33), echoes the same verse.

Other passages draw on the vision. Stephen sees the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God (Acts 7:56). In Revelation 1:7 the one coming with the clouds is Jesus, and in 1:13-14 his hair is white like wool, language belonging in Daniel to the Ancient of Days, which shows the author thinking of Christ in terms of both figures. Revelation 13:1-2 describes a beast with the features of the leopard, bear and lion, so that the first Christians saw the pattern of Daniel's beasts in the empire that persecuted them.

The New Testament also keeps the saints' share. Christ receives the kingdom, and his people reign with him. The two readings of the son of man, as an individual and as the faithful people, are held together in him.