Abstract
Interpreters wrestle with Dan. 7.13–14 and its account of the ‘one like a human being’, traditionally known as ‘the Son of Man’. This figure is subject to two competing interpretations: symbol (suffering Jews) and individual (Michael). These positions draw upon Daniel 7's interpretation and Daniel's later chapters, but interpreters need to consider the Hebrew Bible's angel of the Lord tradition and more fully engage Dan. 7.13–14, the angelic interests of Daniel 2–6, the later Additions to Daniel, and Second Temple interpretations of Daniel 7. These materials are consistent with this angel's portrayal in the Hebrew Bible and indicate a growing interest in this angel's saving intervention on behalf of Israel. When Dan. 7.13–14 is read in light of this angelic tradition, a long-overlooked reading that argues for an angel of the Lord merits serious consideration.
The final scene of Daniel's vision-filled dream in Dan. 7.1–14 divides interpreters. In Dan. 7.1–12, Daniel sees four beasts: three with threatening appearances and destructive actions, then a fourth that is most threatening and destructive (Dan. 7.1–8). Next, Daniel sees an enthroned ‘Ancient One’ 1 presiding over a dazzling court with thousands of attendants that sit in judgment (Dan. 7.9–10). Afterward. Daniel sees the fourth beast put to death while the three others live for a short time after losing their dominion (Dan. 7.11–12). In the final scene Daniel sees ‘one like human being’, traditionally referred to as ‘the Son of Man’, 2 arrive with the clouds of heaven, come before the ‘Ancient One’ and receive eternal ‘dominion and glory and kingship’ over all peoples (Dan. 7.13–14). Interpreters agree that Daniel's vision is an apocalyptic glimpse of God's saving intervention after Israel's persecution by kingdoms that are symbolized as beasts, but they divide over the identity of the figure described as ‘one like a human being’. Indeed, one commentator says that ‘scarcely any passage in the Hebrew Bible has engendered as much controversy as this phrase’. 3 The figure's description refers to its human appearance, 4 but is the figure a symbol, like the beasts are for kingdoms, or an individual, like the Ancient One for God? While interpreters use Daniel to support their interpretations, they have not fully appreciated this figure's description in Daniel 7, Daniel's earlier chapters, the later Additions to Daniel, and several Second Temple writings that allude to this vision. When Dan. 7.13–14 is examined in their light, an angel of the Lord interpretation of the ‘one like a human being’ merits serious and thoughtful consideration.
All biblical quotes are from the New Oxford Annotated Bible: New Revised Standard Version with the Apocrypha (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 4th edn, 2010).
The Aramaic, שׁנׇאֱ רבַכְּ, literally means ‘like a son of man’.
John J. Collins, Daniel (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), p. 304.
Lester Grabbe provides the most up to date review of the Aramaic phrase in ‘“Son of Man”: Its Origin and Meaning in Second Temple Judaism’, in Loren T. Stuckenbruck and Gabriele Boccaccini (eds.), Enoch and the Synoptic Gospels: Reminiscences, Allusions, Intertextuality (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2016), pp. 169–81.
Symbolic and Individual Interpretations
Symbolic and individual interpretations of the ‘one like a human being’ vary. Some symbolic views identify this figure as Israel, suffering Jews or angels, while individual views favor a messiah, Davidic king, priest or angel. Most attention has been given to the symbolic view that argues for suffering Jews and the individual view that advocates for the angel Michael. 5 Both positions carefully reference Daniel but do so by lending particular significance to materials that follow Dan. 7.1–14.
Daniel Boyarin notes how a majority of ancient and modern readers are drawn to either suffering Jews or the angel Michael (‘Daniel 7, Intertextuality, and the History of Israel's Cult’, HTR 105 [2012], pp. 139–62 [139]). David R. Catchpole combines the symbolic and individual view whereby the human figure is ‘an angel figure and a heavenly counterpart of the earthly community’ (‘The Angelic Son of Man in Luke 12:8’, NT 24 [1982], pp. 255–65 [261-65]). Evidence for other versions of the symbolic and individual interpretations is usually deemed too scanty or circumstantial. Paul L. Redditt outlines the interpretations and provides a helpful bibliography for every version (Daniel [NCBC; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999], p. 127). John Goldingay (Daniel [WBC, 30; Dallas: Word Books, 1989], pp. 167–72), Collins (Daniel, pp. 304–11), and Carol Newsom (Daniel [TOTL; Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2014], pp. 243–52) also provide summaries of the competing interpretive positions.
Interpreters that identify the human figure as symbolic of suffering Jews appeal to the account that immediately follows Daniel's vision in Dan. 7.15–29. These verses consist of an angelic interpretation that addresses Daniel's bewilderment over the meaning of his vision. Paul L. Redditt appeals to their relevance and points out that according to the interpretation in 7.17–18, 21–22 and 25–27, a group identified as the ‘holy ones’ will suffer persecution at the hands of the fourth beast and its horn, then the divine court will judge this beast, and, finally, the ‘holy ones’ receive the kingdom. 6 He argues that this sequence mirrors the sequence of Daniel's dream, which begins with the beasts (7.1–8), then describes the divine court as it judges the fourth beast and its horn (7.9–12), and concludes with the bestowal of kingship and dominion upon the human-looking figure (7.13–14). Redditt cites the phrase ‘people of the holy ones of the Most High’ 7 in 7.27 to more precisely identify the ‘holy ones’ by interpreting it as a genitive of apposition that should be understood as ‘the people, that is the holy ones of the Most High’. Since both ‘the people, that is the holy ones’ and the human figure receive kingship and dominion after the judgment, Redditt says the human figure should be understood as a symbol of ‘the people, that is the holy ones’. Thus, God will ultimately bestow kingship and dominion upon Jews persecuted by the fourth beast and its horn.
Redditt, Daniel, pp. 127–33.
Aramaic: ןינִוֹילְעֶ ישֵׁידִּקַ םעַלְ.
The symbolic interpretation of the ‘one like a human being’ as suffering Jews faces several difficulties. Foremost among them is that there is no suggestion or hint that the human figure is ever persecuted or subsequently delivered in Daniel's vision (Dan. 7.1–14) as the holy ones are according to the interpretation (7.17–18, 21–22 and 25–27). Daniel's vision does allude to the fourth beast's oppressive behavior by saying it ‘was devouring, breaking in pieces, and stamping what was left with its feet’ (7.7), but the human-looking figure does not appear in Daniel's vision until after the beast's oppression and the judgment of the divine court (7.13–14), and is never described as oppressed. 8 Since the interpretation emphatically states that the ‘holy ones’ are oppressed and even given over to the beast's power and thus defeated for a span of time, the interpretation appears to address the identity of the beast's victims, the extent of their oppression, as well as the subsequent establishment of their kingdom (7.18, 22, 25 and 27), but does not address the identity of the vision's human-looking figure that appears after the beast's oppression and the court's judgment. This implies a distinction between the human-looking figure and the ‘holy ones’, that the Old Greek Daniel makes explicit. 9 In addition, while the interpretation clarifies the vision's message about the beast's judgment—this kingdom's dominion will end (7.11; cf. 7.25)—it says nothing about the agent or means of judgment of that judgment (7.26). It may be important to consider why the angelic interpretation in 7.15–28 is limited in its scope and overlooks visionary interests.
Several scholars have observed that there is no indication or hint in Daniel's vision that the human-looking figure was persecuted (Goldingay, Daniel, p. 171; Morna Hooker, The Son of Man in Mark [London: SPCK, 1967], pp. 24–30; C.F.D. Moule, The Origin of Christology [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979], pp. 12–14).
Benjamin E. Reynolds points out that the Old Greek adds the phrase ‘and it made war against the holy ones’ (ἁγίους) to its description of the horn in Dan. 7.8 and thus distinguishes the ‘holy ones’ of the interpretation (Dan. 7.15–28) from the ‘one like a human being’ that is introduced in the final scene of the vision (Dan. 7.13–14). See Reynolds, ‘The “One like a Son of Man” according to the Old Greek of Daniel 7, 13–14’, Bib 89 (2008), pp. 70–80.
Interpreters who identify the vision's human-looking figure as the angel Michael rely on later Daniel accounts in chs. 8–12. While these materials do not provide a formal, though partial, interpretation of the vision as Dan. 7.15–28 does, they do describe angels with human appearances that appear in an oppressive setting that calls to mind Dan. 7.13, as well as identify Michael as Israel's future deliverer. John J. Collins holds this view and appeals to these interests in order to identify the ‘one like a human being’ as the angel Michael.
Collins begins by dismissing the interpretation in Dan. 7.15–28 as neither consistently symbolic (the vision's Ancient One is treated as a figure in Dan. 7.22, not as a symbol) nor settled (the ‘holy ones’ may be angels, 10 not suffering Jews) nor exhaustive (the vision's human figure is not specifically identified) and focuses instead on Daniel's succeeding chapters where human-looking angels and Michael are described. 11 He then notes that after Daniel's next vision (Dan. 8.1–14), the angel Gabriel appears with a human appearance and is identified as a man (Dan. 8.15 and 9.21). Later, Daniel sees a man whose clothes suggest a heavenly being (Dan. 10.5) and two beings that appear to be angels, one of whom is described as a man (Dan. 12.5–7). Collins relates these three encounters with human-looking angels to the Hebrew Bible motif whereby angels appear as humans (Gen. 18.1; Josh. 5.13; Judg. 13.6, 8, and 16; Zech. 1.8 and 25). Lastly, Collins cites Dan. 10.21 and 12.1 in order to identify the angel Michael with Daniel 7's human-looking figure. These passages identify Michael as Israel's prince, who battles the princes of Persia and Greece, and as the ‘great prince’ who will fully deliver Israel. According to these accounts, Collins argues that the figure's human appearance in Dan. 7.13 indicates an angelic identity, and its exalted standing as over all peoples in Dan. 7.14 aligns with Michael, the angel who will serve as Israel's designated protector, deliverer and benefactor.
Collins admits that ‘holy ones’ in Dan. 7.15–28 may refer to humans but favors ‘angelic host’ and interprets Dan. 7.26, ‘the people of the holy ones’, as a genitive of possession, that is, ‘the people belonging to the holy ones’. He identifies these people as persecuted Jews that were watched over by a similarly oppressed heavenly host and says all will be delivered by the intervention of Michael, the human-looking angelic leader (‘king’) of the heavenly host, who corresponds to the four kings (‘beasts’ in Dan. 7.1-14) so identified in Dan. 7.17 (Daniel, pp. 313–22). T.J. Meadowcroft observes that the Old Greek version renders Dan. 7.27, ‘the people of the holy ones’, as simply ‘the holy people’ (λαῷ ἁγίῳ), while Theodotion renders it as ‘the holy ones’ (ἁγίοις) and that Theodotion must view the ‘the people of the holy ones’ in Dan. 7.27 as equivalent to the ‘holy ones’ in Dan. 7.18, 22, and 25 (Aramaic Daniel and Greek Daniel: A Literary Comparison [JSOTSup, 198; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995], pp. 286–87).
Collins, Daniel, pp. 305–10.
While Collins's examination of the interpretation in Dan. 7.15–28 underscores its limited usefulness regarding Dan. 7.13–14 12 and his appeal to human-looking angels and Michael in Daniel's later chapters are relevant to the figure's description and role in Dan. 7.13, the Michael interpretation was rejected by later Jewish readers who interpreted Daniel 7. The Parables of 1 Enoch, one of the earliest interpretations of Dan. 7.13–14, describes the human figure, whom it identifies as the ‘Son of Man’, as a divinely empowered heavenly being that will act as God's agent against Israel's enemies, but repeatedly distinguishes this figure from Michael and then climactically identifies the figure as Enoch. 13 This text that demonstrates so obvious a familiarity with Daniel thus allows for a human-looking heavenly agent but explicitly denies a Michael identity.
The interpretation in Dan. 7.15–28 appears to rule out a symbolic interpretation as either suffering Jews and/or angels. It decodes the beasts as kingdoms (Dan. 7.17) and the fourth beast's judgment as destruction (Dan. 7.26), but its comments regarding the ‘holy ones’ do not address the identity of the ‘one like a human being’ since the ‘holy ones’ are never anything more than oppressed victims. The vision's sequence and final scene, with its climactic appearance of the human figure, relates to the beast's judgment and the deliverance of the ‘holy ones’ is thus due to the human figure's implied intervention and patronage.
The Parables of 1 Enoch distinguish both Michael and Gabriel from this figure before they identify Enoch as the ‘Son of Man’ (1 En. 40.9; 54.4–5; 60.4–5; 67.12; 68.2–4; 69.13; 71.3, 8–9, 12–14). Collins explains this distinction by arguing that the Son of Man in the Parables of 1 Enoch is an exalted hybrid being with a human and angelic appearance (1 En. 40.9), a ‘heavenly being of an angelic type’, that necessarily eliminates Daniel's implicit angel (Michael) identification (‘The Son of Man and the Saints of the Most High in the Book of Daniel’, JBL 93 [1974], pp. 50–66 [64]). That the Parables distinguish Michael from the Son of Man is particularly striking since earlier sections of 1 Enoch emphasize Michael's role as Israel's protective warrior angel (1 En. 20.5).
The ‘One Like a Human Being’ and the Angel of the Lord
Daniel's human-looking figure, in conjunction with other relevant traditions in Daniel and those based upon Daniel, require further examination. The mere appearance of the vision's seemingly mysterious figure may so adequately explain its identity and role that the subsequent interpretation in Daniel 7 need not address it. In this scenario, the human figure was recognized as the angel of the Lord, God's familiar proxy in the Hebrew Bible, who would administer the divine court's judgment and thus judge the fourth beast and deliver its victims—an identity that has long been ignored by those who favor the angelic interpretation. 14 Therefore, what some understand as an ambiguous or unresolved issue of the vision—that is, the identity and role of the human-looking figure—is thus resolved due to its identity and role being self-evident, and there is no need for the interpretation in Dan. 7.15–28 to address them. If this is the case, Daniel's subsequent chapters, which have a later date and clearly display Israel's later, more complex angelic interests, should be read as the earliest speculations of several to come in Second Temple Judaism regarding this figure's specific identity and role. 15
Nathaniel Schmidt introduced the Michael interpretation but did not refer to the angel of the Lord (‘The “Son of Man” in the Book of Daniel’, JBL 19 [1900], pp. 22–28). Christopher Rowland briefly refers to the angel of the Lord tradition when examining the Old Greek reading of Dan. 7.13 but endorses a Michael interpretation without exploring the relevance of the angel of the Lord tradition to Dan. 7.13–14 (The Open Heaven: A Study of Apocalyptic in Judaism and Early Christianity [New York: Crossroad, 1982], pp. 94–98 and 178–89).
Collins, whose Michael interpretation benefits from an assumption that Dan. 7–12 constitute a unity, admits that the most satisfactory solution to the question of Daniel's literary/linguistic unity is to say that Dan. 2 to 6 in Aramaic was Daniel's earliest form, to which was added ch. 1 in Aramaic, then ch. 7 in Aramaic was added during the time of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, and at a later date, between 167 and 164 BCE, chs. 8–12 in Hebrew were added and Dan. 1 was translated into Hebrew (Daniel, p. 38; ‘The Son of Man and the Saints of the Most High in the Book of Daniel’, p. 54 and n. 27; ‘Current Issues in the Study of Daniel’, in John J. Collins and Peter W. Flint [eds.], The Book of Daniel: Composition and Reception [2 vols.; VTSup, 83/1–2; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2001], I, pp. 1–15 [5]). Regarding angelology, Daniel's later chapters (8–12) are the only Hebrew Bible texts to name angels, and in contrast to Dan. 1–7, say several angels will act in conjunction (Gabriel: Dan. 8.16; 9.21; Michael: Dan. 10.13, 21; 12.1) and typically give angels the task of interpretation (Dan. 7.16, 23; 8.15–16; 9.21–22; 10.10–11; 11.2), whereas Jews in Dan. 1–6 interpret divine messages (Dan. 1.17–21; 2.17–23, 36–45) and are delivered by a single, unnamed angel (Dan. 3.24–30; 6.19–24). Emma Wasserman examines the role that angels, rebellion and dualism play in the later chapters of Daniel, in ‘Beyond Apocalyptic Dualism: Ranks of Divinities in 1 Enoch and Daniel’, in Caroline Johnson et al. (eds.), ‘The One Who Sows Bountifully’: Essays in Honor of Stanley K. Stowers (BJS, 356; Providence, RI: Brown Judaic Studies, 2013), pp. 189–99. For a bibliography of postexilic Jewish angelology see Aleksander R. Michalak, Angels as Warriors in Late Second Temple Judaism (WUNT, 330; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012), pp. 4–11.
Interpreters should more seriously consider the portrayal of the angel of the Lord in the Hebrew Bible for Dan. 7.13–14—where it appears as a prominent divine agent in texts that would have likely nurtured the faith of the author and his readers. 16 Some argue, when referring to the ‘one like a human being’, that Daniel 7 ‘says virtually nothing about him’ and does not offer any indication of the human-looking figure's identity, origin, status and relationship to God. 17 Others, searching for a literary allusion that might address the figure's significance, argue that any possible literary allusions are to the creation of humanity in Genesis or Israel's king in Psalm 2. 18 However, an examination of Dan. 7.13–14 in light of this angel tradition undermines these assumptions. Daniel's vision neither attempts to create mystery or ambiguity by not explaining this figure's significance, nor does it aim simply to describe a heavenly being in a generic sense and thus invite speculation. Daniel 7 is noticeably laconic and there was simply no need to say more about this figure. This is because the angel of the Lord descriptions in the Hebrew Bible result in a well-defined figure that implicitly align the ‘one like a human being’ in Dan. 7.13–14 with the angel of the Lord and render an explanation in Daniel 7 superfluous, in both the vision itself and the interpretation that follows.
Ziony Zevit so argues while considering the possible sources of Daniel's ‘one like human being’, the context of Daniel's author and readers and then arguing for the importance of Israel's angel traditions (‘The Structure and Individual Elements of Daniel 7’, ZAW 80 [1968], pp. 385–96 [390-91]). Zevit's appeal to angel traditions in the Hebrew Bible does not single out the significance of the angel of the Lord tradition.
James C. VanderKam, ‘Daniel 7 in the Similitudes of Enoch (1 Enoch 37–71)’, in Charlotte Hempel and Judith M. Lieu (eds.), Biblical Traditions in Transmission: Essays in Honour of Michael A. Knibb (JSJSup, 111; Leiden: Brill, 2006), pp. 291–307 (305).
Goldingay, Daniel, p. 190.
The core characteristics of the ‘one like a human being’ in Dan. 7.13–14 are those of the angel of the Lord. 19 The figure in Dan. 7.13–14 is nameless, human in appearance, solitary, heavenly in association, 20 possesses divinely bestowed authority, and its climactic appearance in Daniel's vision may imply that it is God's agent of judgment and deliverance. Interpreters usually take note of the figure's human appearance, heavenly association, and divine empowerment, but its nameless, solitary standing also need to be considered as well. 21 More importantly, readers lose sight of their significance when they fail to notice that all of these traits regularly occur in angel of the Lord accounts, beginning with the Hebrew Bible's earliest traditions. 22 In Genesis 16, the angel of the Lord's first appearance occurs as a nameless man in the wilderness that announces God's intention to bless Hagar with a child, and Hagar recognizes this stranger as bearing the authority and presence of God (Gen. 16.7–14; cf. Judg. 6.11–24; 13.2–23). Later in Genesis 22, this angel calls out to Abraham from heaven to save Isaac from Abraham's knife and declare the Lord's intention to bless Abraham (Gen. 22.11, 15; cf. Judg. 13.20 23 ). The exodus-conquest traditions give this angel an indispensible role as God's sovereign agent of Israel's deliverance. According to Exodus 23, God says that he will send his angel—active earlier as the angel of the Lord that appeared to Moses at the burning bush (Exod. 3.2–8) and was later affirmed as the angel of the Lord (Judg. 2.1–5)—to act as God's proxy to rule the people and safely bring Israel to Canaan, and Israel must obey this angel or face judgment since God's name is in him, that is, God's authoritative presence (Exod. 23.20–23). In Numbers 22, the angel appears as an armed man to Balaam—an appearance due to God's anger at Balaam—and as God's human-looking proxy it forcefully intervenes to stop the prophet's curses against Israel (Num. 22.22–35). Later in Joshua 5, Joshua meets and pays homage to this angel when it appears as an armed man that commands the army of the Lord (Josh. 5.13–15). When Manoah, the father of Samson, asks this angel for its name in Judges 13, the angel refuses and remains nameless, as it has throughout the Hebrew Bible (Judg. 13.18). A royal tradition in 2 Samuel 24 and 1 Chronicles 21 teaches that God sent this angel out as an armed man and then directed its punishment of Israel (2 Sam. 24.15–25; 1 Chron. 21.14–27), while another tradition in 2 Kings 19 and Isaiah 36 says that the angel of the Lord intervened to save Israel by destroying a huge Assyrian army (2 Kgs 19.25; Isa. 37.36; cf. 2 Chron. 32.21). Lastly, the prophetic tradition in Zechariah depicts this angel as a man, one who commands other angels as they patrol the earth and then protests and pleads with God to intervene and save Jerusalem (Zech. 1.7–17 cf. 3.1–10). These varied accounts consistently depict a nameless, solitary man, heavenly in association, possessing divine authority that acts as God's agent to judge and deliver Israel.
For an introduction to the angel of the Lord tradition, see Samuel A. Meier, ‘Angel of Yahweh’, in Karel van der Toorn, Bob Becking and Pieter W. van der Horst (eds.), Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2nd edn, 1999), pp. 53–59. Camilla Helena von Heijne examines this angel in The Messenger of the Lord in Early Interpretations of Genesis (BZAW, 412; Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 2010).
This figure's appearance, ‘coming with the clouds of heaven’ (Dan. 7.13), is ambiguous and leads to two possibilities: is the figure ascending to heaven or descending from heaven? According to Meadowcroft, Greek versions suggests a divine association while the Aramaic does not (Aramaic Daniel and Greek Daniel: A Literary Comparison, pp. 223–30). What is clear is the heavenly association of this figure and its approval by the ‘Ancient One’. As Newsom observes, ‘heaven brings the course of events to a close’ (Daniel, p. 234).
For example, Chrys Caragounis gives importance to the figure's heavenly association and exaltation (The Son of Man: Vision and Interpretation [WUNT, 38; Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1986], pp. 71–72), while Collins gives particular attention to the figure's human appearance (Daniel, pp. 305–306). Goldingay cites the figure's lack of identity as a trait not to be overlooked and argues for the author's intention to associate the figure with a degree of mystery (Daniel, p. 172).
Collins does not consider the possibility of an angel of the Lord interpretation and states, ‘there is no reason to conclude that the figure so described was usually described in this manner’ (Daniel, p. 80).
Judg. 13.20 alludes to the heavenly association of this angel when it states, ‘When the flame went up toward heaven from the altar, the angel of the Lord ascended in the flame of the altar while Manoah and his wife looked on’ (cf. Judg. 6.21). The angel's departure in a flame of fire relates to several exodus traditions that give the angel polymorphous features, as the angel appears in the ‘flame of fire out of bush’ (Exod. 3.2) and as a ‘pillar’ of cloud and fire that surrounded Israel (Exod. 14.19–20).
Daniel 7 thus gives a clear indication of drawing upon Israelite accounts of angelic intervention to address Israel's oppression. Its vision, with its strategic appearance of the human figure before God, who receives an all-encompassing authority that implicitly alludes to the bestowal of God's name upon the angel of the Lord, may be read as an angelic commissioning scene whereby the angel of the Lord is once again delegated as God's intervening agent of judgment when God's people suffer oppression. 24 The heightened authority granted to the human figure in Dan. 7.14 that renders him a cosmic ruler over all echoes the angel of the Lord's traditional authority but does go further by maximizing such authority to a level of divine sovereignty, due to the fierce, powerful, unparalleled oppression that God's people will face. 25 Daniel 7.1–14 therefore reads as an apocalyptic guarantee of God's saving intervention by means of the angel of the Lord, God's traditional exalted proxy, when Israel faces an oppressor so fierce that only God's endowed might is capable of defeating it. 26
Interpreters detect the influence of ancient Near Eastern mythology and Jewish apocalyptic traditions upon the throne-room scene of Dan. 7 (Collins, ‘The Religio-historical Background’; idem, Daniel, pp. 280–94, 299–304; Loren T. Stuckenbruck, ‘Daniel and Early Enoch Traditions in the Dead Sea Scrolls’, in Collins and Flint [eds.], The Book of Daniel, II, pp. 378–84), but the vision certainly has what Paul Mosca calls a ‘biblical pedigree’ (‘Ugarit and Daniel 7: A Missing Link’, Bib 67 [1986], pp. 496–517 [500]) and there are several implicit and explicit accounts of God's delegation of the angel of the Lord in the Hebrew Bible that illustrate an embedded Israelite interest (Gen. 22.9–11, 15–16; Exod. 22.20; Num. 22.22; 1 Chron. 21.15). Micaiah the prophet's vision of angelic delegation in 1 Kgs 22 has unmistakable similarities to Daniel's vision. In it, Micaiah saw (1) God sitting on his throne; (2) God surrounded by his standing host; (3) God acting out a judgment (asking who will entice Ahab to battle); (4) a spirit coming forward and standing before God (to volunteer to entice Ahab to war); (4) and God choosing that spirit as his agent to entice Ahab to war and thus enact God's prophesied judgment and destruction (1 Kgs 22.19–23). These elements suggest that Dan. 7 employs an Israelite literary model of angelic delegation to depict God's empowerment of the angel of the Lord as an agent of divine judgment.
This degree of authority that has divine-like overtones is one reason why some identify the human figure as divine (Markus Zehnder, ‘Why the Danielic “Son of Man” is a Divine Being’, BBR 24 [2014], pp. 331–48 [340-41]).
Reynolds argues that the Old Greek reading of Dan. 7.13c, in which the ‘one like a human being’ came ‘as the Ancient of Days’ (ώς παλαιός ήμερων παρήν), should be understood as teaching that the human figure is similar to but not the same as the Ancient of Days' (‘The “One like a Son of Man”’, pp. 71–74). He associates the human figure with the messianic and heavenly interpretations found in the Parables of 1 Enoch and 4 Ezra, but does not consider that the Old Greek reading also fits the description and exalted status of the angel of the Lord in the Hebrew Bible. Loren T. Stuckenbruck argues that this Old Greek reading was a theological edit aimed at those who might so exalt the ‘one like a human being’ that a belief in two separate deities might result (“‘One like Son of Man as the Ancient of Days” in the Old Greek Recension of Daniel 7, 13: Scribal Error or Theological Translation’, ZNW 86 [1995], pp. 268–76 [273-76]).
Several angel of the Lord accounts are particularly important for demonstrating that readers familiar with the Hebrew Bible would have recognized the human figure of Dan. 7.13–14 as this angel apart from any type of identification in Daniel 7. According to Judges 6 and 13. Gideon and Manoah both feared for their lives when they realized, without being told, that they had encountered the angel of the Lord. They grasped the significance of their encounters when they realized that they had encountered a person with its distinct attributes: an unnamed, solitary man, who exercised divine authority and then seemingly departed toward heaven (Judg. 6.22; 13.21). Such narratives demonstrate that the author(s) of Daniel's vision and its interpretation could have presumed that readers familiar with the Hebrew Bible's portrayal of the angel of the Lord would have recognized the nameless, solitary, heavenly, divinely empowered man of Dan. 7.13–14 as this angel, thus eliminating the need for any explanation of his identity or role in the vision or the interpretation. 27
In a similar fashion, Zevit argues that the ‘author did not dwell on the angelic figure because he took him for granted’ (‘The Structure and Individual Elements of Daniel 7’, p. 396).
Daniel 2–6 and the Angel of the Lord
Interpreters have also overlooked the angel accounts in Daniel 2–6. These angel traditions may be read as alluding to the angel of the Lord tradition and indeed were read as such by Greek translators. 28 In addition, a form-critical examination reveals that Daniel 2–7 share ‘a main goal, the realization of God's kingdom against the mighty empires of the world’ and constitute what must be called a ‘well-structured composition, one that must be considered intentional’. 29 In general, these stories in Daniel 2–6 describe an angel that is a nameless, solitary, heavenly, all-powerful man that intervenes as God's agent of deliverance. There are no human deliverers in any of these episodes, just one angel that intercedes against deadly threats—sometimes beasts in a literal sense—and only through his agency are pious Jews saved. These deliverances are micro in scale and may be read as literarily anticipating the macro deliverance that Daniel's vision guarantees, therefore suggesting that these angel traditions bear particular significance for the meaning of Daniel 7's vision. Overlooking the possibility that the ‘one like a human being’ in Dan. 7.13–14 is the angel of the Lord therefore ignores what Daniel 2–6 may intend to imply regarding God's chosen means of judgment and deliverance.
Old Greek Daniel is dated from the late second to early first century BCE, while Theodotion Daniel, which presupposes Old Greek Daniel, dates in the late first century CE (Collins, Daniel, pp. 3–11).
So argues Rainer Albertz, ‘The Social Setting of the Aramaic and Hebrew Book of Daniel’, in Collins and Flint (eds.), The Book of Daniel, I, pp. 171–204 (175–79).
The first angel account in Daniel 3 describes a man with a divine aura, who appears in order to rescue three Jews (Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego) from the blazing furnace that Nebuchadnezzar prepared for them. This king declares that he saw four men in the furnace and that the ‘fourth has the appearance of a god’ (Dan. 3.25); he concludes that God ‘sent his angel and delivered his servants’ (Dan. 3.28). Both Greek versions of Daniel, the Old Greek and Theodotion, which were treated as canonical texts by their Jewish readers and provide important insight into their translators' interpretive views, 30 repeat these declarations but also expand upon the story by identifying the angel's identity and power by adding that ‘an angel of the Lord came down into the furnace’ and turned the inside of the furnace into a ‘moist breeze’ (Old Greek 3.49; Theodotion 3.49). 31 Daniel 4 and 5 add brief episodes where an angel descends from heaven and displays a human form. In Daniel 4, a ‘holy watcher’ comes down from heaven and cries out a symbolic description of divine judgment on Nebuchadnezzar (Dan. 4.13, 23–24). The Old Greek version identifies the holy watcher as an angel ‘sent in power out of heaven’ (Old Greek 4.10[13]) to destroy Nebuchadnezzar's kingdom (Old Greek 4.20[23]). Then, in Daniel 5, the ‘fingers of a human hand’ appear and write a message of judgment on the wall of Belshazzar's palace (5.5) and Daniel tells the king, ‘from his [God's] presence the hand was sent’ (5.24). This strange partial appearance implies that God's human-looking angel was sent to announce dramatically God's intention to judge Belshazzar by means of an inscription. The ‘hand’ of the angel of the Lord is a repeated feature of its appearances in the Hebrew Bible when it operates as God's agent of judgment (Num. 22.23, 31; Josh. 5.13; 2 Sam. 24.16; cf. 1 Chron. 21.15–17). The last angelic account in Daniel 6 has obvious similarities to the angelic rescue of the three Jews from Nebuchadnezzar's furnace in Daniel 3. In this instance, Darius the king throws Daniel into a lion's den; he is then rescued from certain death when God's angel appears in the den and saves him. While Darius is not a witness to this appearance as Nebuchadnezzar was earlier, Daniel affirms the angel's appearance by declaring that ‘my God sent his angel and shut the lions’ mouth so that they would not hurt me' (Dan. 6.22).
See Alexander A. Di Lella, ‘The Textual History of Septuagint-Daniel and Theodotion-Daniel’, in Collins and Flint (eds.), The Book of Daniel, II, pp. 586–607 (604–605).
All Old Greek and Theodotion translations are from The New English Translation of the Septuagint (New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). There are slight variations on Nebuchadnezzar's description of the fourth man having the ‘appearance of a god’ (Dan. 3.25) that allude to its angelic identity. The Old Greek has ‘the likeness of an angel’ (Dan. 3.95[28]) and Theodotion has ‘like a divine son’ (Dan. 3.95[28]). Newsom says that the original readers of Dan. 3.28 would have identified the angel as the angel of the Lord (Daniel, p. 112).
The final act of angelic deliverance in Daniel 6 also provides an additional explanation as to why the ‘one like a human being’ appears in Daniel's vision but is left out of the interpretation that follows. Its explanatory value lies in its role as foreshadowing the vision's crisis and its accompanying interpretation. First, the lions that threaten Daniel are beasts that overpower men, women and children and break ‘all their bones in pieces’ (Dan. 6.19–24), similar to the vision's fourth beast that ‘had great teeth and was devouring, breaking in pieces, and stamping what was left with it feet’ (Dan. 7.7 and 11). This parallel between the lions and the fourth beast suggests that Daniel 6's angelic deliverance account foreshadows Daniel 7's deliverance account, in that a macro deliverance from symbolic beasts follows a micro deliverance from actual beasts. Secondly, after Daniel describes the angel's saving intervention, Darius says that God rescued Daniel but says nothing about the angel sent by God to ‘shut the lions’ mouths' (Dan. 6.25–28), similar to the interpretation that credits the ‘Ancient One’ with the fourth beast's destruction but says nothing about the agent of the beast's destruction (Dan. 7.15–28). This subtle relationship of Daniel 6 in Daniel 7 implies that the vision's ‘one like a human being’ interceded to destroy the fourth beast, as the angel delivered Daniel from the lions, but its role was left out of the interpretation since it was acting as God's agent, just as the angel sent by God to shut the lions' mouths was left out in Darius' interpretation. In this light, the ‘one like a human being’ will act as God's proxy once again, but only God is acknowledged as the true deliverer without reference to the saving angel—as is typical of this angel's intervention in the Hebrew Bible (2 Kgs 19.34–35). 32
Maurice Casey overlooks this pattern when he argues that ‘against individual interpretations of the man-like figure, the absence of an individual in the angel's interpretation should be regarded as decisive’ (‘The Corporate Interpretation of “One like Son of Man” [Dan. VII 13] at the Time of Jesus’, NovT 18 [1976], pp. 167–80 [167 n. 2]).
Taken as a whole, these stories of angelic deliverance in Daniel 2–6 strongly suggest that the human figure of Daniel 7 is another instance of angelic deliverance involving the angel of the Lord. One common denominator shared by the accounts of Daniel 2–6 that further underscore their significance for Dan. 7.13–14 involves angelic engagement with gentile kings over their evil behavior. In every instance, God's nameless, solitary, human-looking, powerful angel defeats kings that oppress righteous Jews (Dan. 3.1–30; 6.1–28), disregard God's sovereignty (Dan. 4.1–37) and desecrate the Temple of Jerusalem—by means of the temple vessels (Dan. 5.1–31). That evil kings will again rise up against God and God's people is implicit in Daniel's vision and explicit in its interpretation (Dan. 7.1–12; cf. 7.15–17, 24–27). In addition, God's intervention is in a manner that is both climactic but also, in light of Daniel 2–6, familiar. The angel that has acted earlier in Daniel 2–6 as a nameless, solitary, powerful man is introduced again, and the vision's royal threats will be fittingly met by the angel that has long acted as God's chosen ‘ruler’ over Israel.
The Greek Additions to Daniel and the Angel of the Lord
The Greek Additions of Daniel are also overlooked by interpreters of Dan. 7.13–14. Here the angel of Lord acts for God and saves Israelites, and its well-defined portrayal should be considered for the meaning of Dan. 7.13–14. These narratives depict the angel as a nameless, solitary figure, implicitly human, divinely empowered, saving oppressed Jews and judging their oppressors. They demonstrate that there were Jews who read Daniel and identified its angel traditions as angel of the Lord traditions when they composed these expansions. These accounts are all deliverance stories and demonstrate that angelic deliverance accounts were popular, and the saving angel's standard features recall Israel's angel of the Lord accounts. Along with Daniel 2–6, they further emphasize that some Daniel readers believed that divine intervention was an absolute necessity, so overlooking an angelic agent in Daniel 7, which foresees a terribly oppressive future for Jews, runs contrary to the Daniel traditions and their use by Second Temple Jews. As such, the Additions to Daniel encourage an angel of the Lord identification for the ‘one like a human being’.
The Additions to Daniel expand upon Daniel and also add new traditions, and in both types of material the angel of the Lord is evident. The addition known as Bel and the Dragon expands upon Daniel 6 and Daniel's punishment in the lions' den. In it, the angel of the Lord orders Hambakoum 33 to feed Daniel and takes him by the hair to the lions' pit to do so and then returns him home (Old Greek: 34–39; Theodotion: 34–39). The implied flight of the angel as it transports Hambakoum calls to mind Daniel 4, where the ‘holy watcher’ descends from heaven (Dan. 4.13), Daniel 7, where the human figure ‘comes with the clouds of heaven’ (Dan. 7.13), and Daniel 9, where the angel Gabriel comes to Daniel ‘in swift flight’ (Dan. 9.21). 34 The Susanna addition adds a new angelic deliverance tradition with its story of Daniel defending a woman named Susanna against false charges. Here the angel, acting in accordance with God's orders, gives Daniel a ‘spirit of understanding’ to defend Susanna according to the Old Greek version, and then acts as an executioner, standing and armed with a sword, to destroy the false witnesses in both versions (Old Greek: 44–62; Theodotion: 55–59). 35 This executioner element is new to Daniel, where the delivering angel saves Jews without killing or violence, and appears to draw from the accounts where the angel of the Lord appears as an armed warrior and executioner (Num. 22.22–35; Josh. 5.13–15; 1 Chron. 21.14–27). Daniel 7 may possibly have encouraged this image since the judgment of the fourth beast implies divine violence against an enemy in order to save Jews (Dan. 7.11–12). The Susanna addition in its Old Greek version also provides an angelic explanation for Daniel's knowledge that was essential to his survival in Nebuchadnezzar's court in Daniel 1 and 2 (Dan. 1.17, 20; 2.17–23, 27–28, 47). Old Greek Daniel says that angelic help is needed to tell Nebuchadnezzar what he demands (Old Greek 2.11), and its Susanna addition teaches that God ordered the angel of the Lord to give Daniel a ‘spirit of understanding’ to save Susanna. In this instance, this version implicitly identifies the unnamed source and agent of Daniel's saving knowledge in Daniel 1 and 2, as it adapted the angel of the Lord tradition to explain how ‘God gave knowledge and skill in every aspect of literature and wisdom’ to Daniel (Dan. 1.17).
‘Habakkuk’ in the New Revised Standard Version (4th edn).
Zechariah says that human-looking angels patrol the earth on horses and that the ‘winds’ (angels) patrol the earth in horse-drawn chariots (Zech. 1.7–10; 6.1–8), both passages implying that angels were transported by horses around the earth, through the air. 2 Maccabees reflects this motif and says God's saving angel appears from heaven on horseback (2 Macc. 3.25; cf 5.2–4).
Theodotion does not refer to the angel's gift of knowledge to Daniel but instead says that ‘God awakened the holy spirit of a young lad whose name was Daniel’ without naming the agent (Theodotion: 45). Theodotion does refer to the angel of the Lord later in its Susanna addition (Theodotion: 55–59).
Second Temple Texts and the Angel of the Lord
Interpreters have also overlooked the use of Dan. 7.13–14 in later Second Temple texts. While these writings may support an individual interpretation like messiah (1 En. 48.10; 52.4; 4 Ezra 13.26) and an angelic interpretation like Michael (1QM 1.11–12 and 17.7), 36 there are interpretations of Dan. 7.13–14 that call to mind the angel of the Lord tradition. Several of these writings allude to Daniel 7's ‘one like a human being’ and portray this figure as a nameless, solitary, human-looking, powerful heavenly being that judges and delivers, and thus demonstrate an interpretation of Dan. 7.13–14 that aligns with the Hebrew Bible's angel of the Lord.
Collins discusses the Jewish interpretation of Dan. 7.13–14 (Daniel, pp. 72–89 and 306–308).
2 Maccabees dates as early as the second half of the second BCE but no later than the late first century CE, 37 and appears to be an early interpretation of Dan. 7.9–14. In striking contrast to 1 Maccabees, it argues for the decisive role of God's ‘good angel’ in Judas Maccabees' battles against the Greeks and its ‘angel-assisted’ battles reveal an interpretive model that draws from the angel of the Lord tradition in conjunction with Daniel 7's vision of the ‘Ancient One’ and the empowered ‘one like a human being’. 38 Judas's prayers for an angelic deliverer in 2 Maccabees are the first of their kind in Israelite literature and demonstrate an explicit ideology of angelic deliverance. Twice Judas asks God ‘to send a good angel to save Israel’ (2 Macc. 11.6; 15.23) and twice he invokes the account of Hezekiah's angel of the Lord deliverance from Sennacherib's army before he leads Jews against their enemies (2 Macc. 8.16–19; 15.21–23). Judas' prayers for a ‘good angel’ leave no doubt that he prays for the angel of the Lord and while he identifies this angel under a different angelic designation (‘the good angel’), he clearly believes that God saves through this intervening angel. In response to Judas' first prayer, God sends a nameless, human-looking, powerful, heavenly being to devastate a Greek enemy (2 Macc. 11.6–12), and 2 Maccabees alludes to another powerful angelic manifestation after his second prayer (2 Macc. 15.25–27, 34).
For the date of 2 Maccabees, see Robert Doran, 2 Maccabees: A Critical Commentary (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2012), pp. 1–19.
For the role that Israel's angel of the Lord interests and Dan. 7 play in 2 Maccabees, see Phillip Munoa, ‘The Good Angel that delivered the Jews: How 2 Maccabees Adapted Daniel 7 and the Angel of the Lord Tradition’, in J.H. Ellens et al. (eds.), Wisdom Poured Out Like Water: Studies on Jewish and Christian Antiquity in Honor of Gabriele Boccaccini (Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 2018), pp. 315–33.
Subtle allusions to Daniel 7's vision appear to enclose 2 Maccabees' first and last angelic deliverances. In these accounts of Jewish oppression and divine judgment, God's deployment of a nameless, human-looking, mighty heavenly deliverer echoes the empowerment of the ‘one like a human being’ by the ‘Ancient One’. Before the first angelic deliverance, God is depicted as the ‘Sovereign of the spirits’ that ‘caused so great a manifestation’ in response to oppressed Jews praying for God's intervention (2 Macc. 3.13–30). Before the last battle, Judas addresses God as the ‘Sovereign of the heavens’, whom he asks ‘to send a good angel’ to spread terror and strike down their enemies (2 Macc. 15.23–24). These divine titles, ‘Sovereign of the spirits’ and ‘Sovereign of the heavens’, allude to Daniel's ‘Ancient One’, 39 as does their conception of God as an absolute ruler who empowers a nameless, human-looking, powerful heavenly figure during a time of oppression and judgment. 2 Maccabees thus appears to have used Daniel 7's vision of the ‘Ancient One’ empowering the ‘one like a human being’ as a paradigm of angelic delegation, whereby God responds to Jewish suffering by sending the angel of the Lord to deliver Israel.
Doran (2 Maccabees, p. 87) and Jonathan A. Goldstein (II Maccabees: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary [AB, 41A; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1983], pp. 212–13) note that the title ‘Sovereign of spirits’ (2 Macc. 3.24) is very similar to the title, ‘Lord of the Spirits’, the most frequent title (104×) for God in the Parables of 1 Enoch used to identify Daniel's ‘Ancient One’ (1 En. 46.1–3; cf. Dan. 7.9–14). Given the similarity of ‘Lord of the Spirits’ to ‘Sovereign of the spirits’, and its very similar, ‘Sovereign of the heavens’, there is reason for detecting an allusion to Dan. 7.9–14 when 2 Maccabees uses these titles, especially when the titles appear in the context of God's association with a nameless, human-looking, powerful heavenly being.
The Parables of 1 Enoch 37–71 date from the late first century BCE to the early second century CE 40 and display an explicit, extended interpretation of Dan. 7.9–14. This account affirms those traits of the ‘one like a human being’ that typify the angel of the Lord tradition. While the Parables are a Jewish sectarian speculation about God's agent of redemption that draws on several sources, its description of Daniel 7's human figure as nameless, solitary, human-looking, heavenly, and divinely empowered is revealing. Three questions introduce its extended interpretation of Daniel 7's ‘one like a human being’: ‘Who he was and whence he was (and) why he went with the Head of Days?’ (1 En. 46.2). 41 These are the very issues of identity, origin and role raised for many readers due to the laconic quality of Daniel 7's vision of ‘the one like a human being’.
For a discussion of the date and setting of the Parables, see George W.E. Nickelsburg and James C. VanderKam, 1 Enoch 2: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch 37–82 (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2012), pp. 58–64.
As translated by Nickelsburg and VanderKam, 1 Enoch 2, p. 153. All other quotations of 1 Enoch are from James H. Charlesworth (ed.), The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (2 vols.; Garden City, NY; Doubleday, 1983–85).
According to the description given in the Parables, the human figure of Dan. 7.13–14, identified as ‘the Son of Man’ (1 En. 46.3), 42 has characteristics that reflect the angel of the Lord tradition: (1) has a human appearance (his ‘face was like that of a human being’, 1 En. 46.1); (2) appears without a name (Enoch asks, ‘Who is this?’, 1 En. 46.2); (3) has a heavenly association (‘he was concealed in the presence of the Lord’, 1 En. 48.6); (4) is a solitary figure chosen by God (‘the Lord of Spirits has chosen him’, 1 En. 46.3); (5) will act as God's judge against evil kings (‘He shall depose the kings from their thrones and kingdoms’, 1 En. 46.5); and (6) is glorified by God and given authority over all (‘his glory is forever and ever and his power is unto all generations’, 1 En. 49.2). To these Dan. 7.13–14 traits, the Parables add others that allude to Daniel and Hebrew Bible traditions about the angel of the Lord, such as its role in dispensing God's wisdom to the righteous (‘he has revealed the wisdom of the Lord of Spirits to the righteous and holy ones’, 1 En. 48.7) and delivering God's people (‘He will be a staff for the righteous, that they may lean and not fall’, 1 En. 48.4). While the Parables will later answer the question of ‘who is this figure before God’ by identifying Daniel's figure as Enoch at the close of the Parables (1 En. 71.14), 43 they do affirm the traits of ‘one like a human being’ in Dan. 7.13–14 that correlate with the Hebrew Bible angel of the Lord tradition and seemingly identify one with other. 44 The result is that Daniel's human figure becomes an object of hope and deliverance in the Parables of 1 Enoch.
Three different Ethiopic phrases are identified as translation variants of ‘one like a human being’ (Dan. 7.13) in either the Aramaic or Hebrew original of the Parables (Nickelsburg and VanderKam, 1 Enoch 2, pp. 113–16). Grabbe asserts that the phrase ‘Son of Man’ in the Parables is ‘not just a brief reference as in Daniel’ but takes on the status of a title through its constant use along with other titles: ‘the Chosen One, the Anointed One and the Righteous One’ (“‘Son of Man”: Its Origin and Meaning in Second Temple Judaism’, in Stuckenbruck and Gabriele Boccaccini (eds.), Enoch and the Synoptic Gospels, pp. 169–98 [186]).
Some argue that Enoch's identification as the ‘Son of Man’ (1 En. 71.14) is secondary. For a discussion of its status, as well as the role of this figure in the Parables, see Nickelsburg and VanderKam, 1 Enoch 2, pp. 330–32 and 113–23. For a fuller discussion regarding the use of Dan. 7.13–14 by the Parables, see Darrell D. Hannah, ‘The Elect Son of Man of the Parables of Enoch’, in Larry W. Hurtado and Paul L. Owen (eds.), Who Is this Son of Man? The Latest Scholarship on a Puzzling Expression of the Historical Jesus (LNTS, 390; London: T&T Clark International, 2011), pp. 130–58; VanderKam, ‘Daniel 7 in the Similitudes of Enoch (1 Enoch 37–71)’, pp. 291–307.
Nickelsburg and VanderKam assert that Dan. 7 does not ascribe a judicial function to the Dan. 7's human figure, but their commentary demonstrates that the Parables give this function to this figure, along with others that are traditionally associated with the angel of the Lord in the Hebrew Bible (1 Enoch 2, p. 157).
Daniel. 7.13–14, the Angel of the Lord and Israel's Angelic Hope
While the identity of ‘one like a human being’ in Dan. 7.13–14 has long been a conundrum, readers should consider this figure's traits, Daniel's angel narratives, the angelic interests of later Daniel versions and traditions, and later interpretations of Daniel's vision. In their light, there is reason to believe that this nameless, human-looking, solitary, heavenly, divinely empowered figure corresponds to the angel of the Lord. Later readers did speculate and expand upon this account, due to its very terse description and their own developing angelology that soon emphasized God's many angels, of varying identities, duties and powers. Therefore, Daniel 7's human figure was eventually subject to naming and further specification, as Second Temple Jewish texts and later rabbinic texts argued for their saving heroes like Enoch in the Parables of 1 Enoch, Michael and Melchizedek in the Qumran scrolls, 45 Yahweh in 4Q246, 46 Jesus of Nazareth in the Gospel traditions, 47 David by Rabbi Akiva, 48 and Metatron by later rabbis. 49
Michael in 1QM 13.10 and 17.7, Melchizedek in 11QMelch 2.13.
Michael Segal identifies Yahweh as the ‘one like a human being’, who, as Israel's heavenly representative and the future universal sovereign, will put down all other powers that aspire to rule and detects this interpretation in 4Q246 (‘Who Is the “Son of God” in 4Q246? An Overlooked Example of Early Biblical Interpretation’, DSD 21 [2014], pp. 289–312; ‘Monotheism and Angelology in Daniel’, in Reinhard G. Spieckermann [ed.], One God, One Cult, One Nation: Archaeology and Biblical Perspectives [Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 2010], pp. 405–19).
H. Daniel Zacharias argues for Matthew's use and interpretation of Old Greek Dan. 7.13–14 in ‘Old Greek Daniel 7:13–14 and Matthew's Son of Man’, BBR 21 (2011), pp. 453–61.
b. Hag. 14a. Akiva's view is similar to 4 Ezra 12.31–34 and 13.1–4, where a Davidic messiah comes on the clouds in a Danielic allusion.
P.S. Alexander argues for this identification based on the Enoch and Metatron traditions (‘The Historical Setting of the Hebrew Book of Enoch’, JJS 18 [1977], pp. 156–80). Daniel Boyarin describes the significance of Dan. 7.9–13 for rabbinic views of Metatron in what he sees as an intense debate involving ‘different historical trends within historical Judaism’ over several ways to conceptualize the Son of Man that included Metatron, David, Enoch and Jesus as viable candidates (‘Beyond Judaisms: Metatron and the Divine Polymorphy of Ancient Judaism’, JSJ 41 [2010], pp. 323–65 [350 and 358]).
The Gabriel and Michael accounts in Daniel 8–12 appear be the earliest instances of this interpretive effort to clarify the exact identity of this angelic agent that was never named in the angel of the Lord traditions of the Hebrew Bible. Daniel has long been recognized as a composite text with materials of varying dates, and Daniel's later chapters are often read as an extended gloss on Daniel 7's vision. As such, the Gabriel references in Daniel 8 and 9, where Gabriel appears to Daniel ‘having the appearance of a man’ and as the man that Daniel ‘had seen before in a vision’ (Dan. 8.15–16; 9.21), 50 and Daniel 12's prophecy that Michael will appear to deliver Israel from a king plotting her destruction (Dan. 11.20–12.1; 7.7–14), 51 may be read as later speculations about the identity and role of the vision's figure. Therefore, Daniel 7, along with Daniel's angelic traditions, bear witness to a distinct angelic hope that emerged as Second Temple Jews faced enemies so oppressive that only God could deliver. This developing ideology of Israel's angelic deliverance displays how Israel's exodus traditions, with its emphasis on the saving role of the angel of the Lord, gave shape to Jewish hopes by drawing on this well-known exodus agent. 52
In contrast to Collins, who argues for Michael on the basis of Daniel's later chapters, Zevit argues that Dan. 8–9 make a case for the angel Gabriel. He points out that after Daniel sees ‘the man Gabriel’, he says that this is the one whom he saw in the vision (Dan. 9.21), and notes that this precise identification was made possible because Daniel heard a voice earlier whereby Gabriel was called upon by name to help Daniel (Dan. 8.16). On this basis, Zevit concludes that Gabriel is the human figure that Daniel saw in Dan. 7.13 (‘The Structure and Individual Elements of Daniel 7’, p. 396).
Newsom states that while the interpreting angel in Dan. 7.15–27 does not specifically identify the human figure of Dan. 7.13 with any leader of the holy ones, and the human figure may have originally been a collective symbol for the angels, ‘the subsequent visions in Daniel reinterpret this figure with increasing specificity, as prince of the host (8.11) and as Michael’ in Dan. 10.21 and 12.1 (Daniel, p. 238). Newsom cites Amy C. Merrill Willis for this reading of Daniel (Dissonance and the Drama of Divine Sovereignty in the Book of Daniel [New York: T&T Clark International, 2010], p. 77). Catchpole had earlier called Dan. 8–12 ‘an essential commentary on the scheme and substance of Daniel 7’ (‘The Angelic Son of Man in Luke 12:8’, p. 262). Albertz identifies a contrast between Dan. 7 and 12 and argues that they represent two visions of deliverance that differ completely in their conceptions regarding the establishment of God's kingdom due to the differing ideologies of the militant and quietistic Jewish communities responsible for Daniel (‘The Social Setting of the Aramaic and Hebrew Book of Daniel’, I, pp. 191–97). Goldingay insists that the human figure's lack of identity is the intent of the author and that Dan. 8–12 not be read back into Dan. 7.13 in an attempt to name the figure (Daniel, p. 172).
For an analysis of the exodus angel motif in Tobit's depiction of the angel Raphael, see Phillip Munoa, ‘Raphael the Savior: Tobit's Adaptation of the Angel of the Lord Tradition’, JSP 25 (2016), pp. 228–43. For an introduction to the exodus angel tradition, see Alexander A. Fischer, ‘Moses and the Exodus Angel’, in Frederich V. Reiterer et al. (eds.), Angel: The Concept of Celestial Beings—Origins, Developments and Receptions (DCLY, 2007; Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 2007), pp. 79–93.
It is something of a scholarly dictum for some interpreters that the phrase ‘one like a human being’ // ‘Son of Man’ was never a title nor indicative of a savior tradition among Second Temple Jews. 53 These pronouncements are right, but also wrong. ‘Son of Man’ was not used or introduced as a title in Dan. 7.13, 54 but, as others have observed, this does not mean there was never a Second Temple Jewish hope for God's delegation of a human-looking, heavenly deliverer. 55 When Daniel's human-looking figure is understood in light of the angel of the Lord tradition and its various formulations in the Hebrew Bible, then, yes, there was a hope for a human-looking agent of God as later Second Temple writings illustrate. Therefore, the phrase ‘one like a human being’ // ‘Son of Man’ should not be read in isolation as merely a non-titular expression for a human appearance, but as part of a traditional description of the angel of the Lord. When understood too narrowly, this phrase, with its inherent degree of ambiguity, proves to be of little use in fully detecting the relevant traditions that are indicative of the angel of the Lord and their role in Second Temple ideologies of deliverance.
As Ragnar Leivestad argues in his article, ‘Exit the Apocalyptic Son of Man’, NTS 18 (1971), pp. 243–67. Casey argues that ‘there was no Son of man concept in Judaism’ largely on the basis that the ‘one like a human being’ in Dan. 7.13 is simply an Aramaic expression for a man that symbolizes the ‘holy ones’ of Dan. 7.15–28 and the non-titular uses of ‘Son of man’ as ‘man’ in 4 Ezra 13 and the Parables of 1 Enoch (Son of Man: The Interpretation and Influence of Daniel 7 [London: SPCK, 1979], pp. 137–39).
Grabbe concludes that the phrase ‘one like a human being’ in Dan 7.13 was later used as a title in the Parables of 1 Enoch and the New Testament Gospels and Acts of the Apostles (“‘Son of Man”’, pp. 182–97).
Rowland describes the apocalyptic hope of Second Temple Judaism for an exalted heavenly savior with a human appearance and identifies the human description in Dan. 7.13 as a description that should be understood as a ‘reference to a heavenly, angelic figure’ that ‘resembles a man’. But like others, he does not engage the angel of the Lord tradition in the Hebrew Bible nor the angel accounts in Dan. 2–6 and the Additions to Daniel (The Open Heaven, pp. 178–89, esp. 182 and 186).
The popular Western hero, the Lone Ranger, illustrates the important difference between title and description. ‘Lone Ranger’ is a title, and, as a title, ‘Lone Ranger’ identifies a hero with several distinct characteristics: masked man, rides a horse and arrests outlaws. So too, the phrase ‘angel of the Lord’ is a title that identifies an Israelite hero with several established characteristics: nameless, human-looking, solitary, heavenly and divinely empowered. An encounter with ‘Lone Ranger’ does not explain everything about this hero and may create a sense of mystery, as voiced by those who met the ‘Lone Ranger’ and asked, ‘Who was that masked man?’ So too, an encounter with the ‘angel of the Lord’ does not explain everything about this hero and might force some puzzled by its human appearance to ask, ‘Who is this man?’ Thus, the descriptions ‘masked man’ and ‘one like a human being’ do not function as titles but are visual descriptions in place of outright identifications. Those who have searched Second Temple traditions for a figure called ‘one like a human being’ // ‘Son of Man’ predictably failed because that phrase was not used as a title in Daniel. One must instead be familiar with the Hebrew Bible's account of the angel of the Lord and take note of those discreet characteristics of this angel that are were utilized in the deliverer traditions of Second Temple texts. This type of quest will lead to texts such as Daniel 2–7 and 2 Maccabees, which embrace the angel of the Lord tradition in its classic nameless form, 56 and other texts such as Daniel 8–12, the Parables of 1 Enoch, the Qumran writings, the New Testament Gospels, and rabbinic traditions, which answer the perplexing question asked by Jews who were captivated but also perplexed by the human figure in Dan. 7.13–14, and then wondered, ‘Who is this man?’
Catchpole points out that the Gospels witness to ‘nameless’ uses of Dan. 7.13–14 (Mt. 24.27, 37, 39 = Lk. 17.24, 26, 30) that may be authentic Jesus traditions (‘The Angelic Son of Man in Luke 12:8’, p. 261). Rudolf Bultmann had earlier drawn the same conclusion (The History of the Synoptic Tradition [trans. John Marsh; New York: Harper & Row, rev edn, 1968], pp. 112, 122, 128 and 151–52). The Synoptic accounts that describe the powerful, but unnamed man expectation of John the Baptist (Mk 1.7–8; Mt. 3.11–12; Lk. 3.16–17), though introduced by the evangelists as a Christological prophecy fulfilled by Jesus, may also relate to Dan. 7.13–14 and the angel of the Lord hope in its ‘nameless’ version. Probably less likely is a passage in the Sibylline Oracles where an unnamed man from heaven descends to judge an evil king (5.414).