The Beasts and the Son of Man (the Human One)
My choice is the great apocalyptic vision in the seventh chapter of Daniel.3 It not only has the advantage of speaking explicitly about the connection between the reign of God and the people of God; as regards the time of its composition, the book of Daniel, as one of the last books in the Hebrew Bible—it was created in the second century BCE—comes relatively close to the time of Jesus. Here is the vision in Daniel 7, slightly shortened:
I, Daniel, saw in my vision by night the four winds of heaven stirring up the great sea, and four great beasts came up out of the sea, different from one another. The first was like a lion and had eagles’ wings.… Another beast appeared, a second one, that looked like a bear. It was raised up on one side, had three tusks in its mouth among its teeth and was told, “Arise, devour many bodies!” After this, as I watched, another appeared, like a leopard. The beast had four wings of a bird on its back and four heads; and dominion was given to it.
After this I saw in the visions by night a fourth beast, terrifying and dreadful and exceedingly strong. It had great iron teeth and was devouring, breaking in pieces, and stamping what was left with its feet. It was different from all the beasts that preceded it, and it had ten horns. I was considering the horns, when another horn appeared, a little one coming up among them; to make room for it, three of the earlier horns were plucked up by the roots. There were eyes like human eyes in this horn, and a mouth speaking arrogantly.
As I watched,
thrones were set in place,
and an Ancient One took his throne,
his clothing was white as snow,
and the hair of his head like pure wool;
his throne was fiery flames,
and its wheels were burning fire.
A stream of fire issued
and flowed out from his presence.
A thousand thousands served him,
and ten thousand times ten thousand stood attending him.
The court sat in judgment,
and the books were opened.
I watched then because of the noise of the arrogant words that the horn was speaking. And as I watched, the beast was put to death, and its body destroyed and given over to be burned with fire. As for the rest of the beasts, their dominion was taken away.…
As I watched in the night visions,
I saw one like a human being [lit.: son of man]
coming with the clouds of heaven.
And he came to the Ancient One
and was presented before him.
To him was given dominion
and glory and kingship,
that all peoples, nations, and languages
should serve him.
His dominion is an everlasting dominion
that shall not pass away,
and his kingship is one
that shall never be destroyed. (Dan 7:2-14)
This symbolic text was written in Israel during a period of great crisis. Daniel is the pseudonym of a theologian and prophet whose real name is no longer known. He lived in the second century before Christ under Antiochus III and then Antiochus IV, the Syrian rulers notorious in Jewish history. Antiochus IV ruled from 175–164 BCE. His plan was to Hellenize Israel. He plundered the Jerusalem temple and entered the holy of holies—a sacrilege to Jews who followed the Law. He established a cult of Zeus Olympios in the temple precincts. Jews were forbidden to practice their own worship or to celebrate the Sabbath. That is the immediate historical background for the book of Daniel and its hopes for the end time.
Because this was a time when faith was in crisis and persecution was rampant, the text says it is night. The four winds are the four compass directions and are an image representing the fact that this text is about the whole world, not only Israel. This is about world history. And the great sea spoken of in the night visions is not a body of water that can be geographically located. It is the world ocean, the primeval sea, and thus an image of chaos. For ancient people the sea was chaotic and perilous.
Thus the four beasts emerge from the chaos, and they themselves represent social chaos. They stand for four world empires, or we could say four societies, each more bestial and evil than the one before it. The lion, for the author of the book of Daniel, was the great power Babylon. The bear was the empire of the Medes, the leopard that of the Persians.
Then the prophet sees the fourth beast, and here the imagery almost gets away from him, so horrible is it. This is the beast itself. It is the world power that was most dangerous to Israel’s faith: the Hellenistic empire of the Seleucids, a successor to Alexander’s. The ten horns are ten Hellenistic rulers. The last horn, the “little one,” is Antiochus IV. As the arrogance of the last horn reaches its climax, an ancient one appears: this is God himself. He alone, and not the bestial world empires, is master of the world and of history. They have only been assigned the right to rule in a limited and transferred fashion (Dan 7:6, 12). That God is the true Lord of history is evident in what follows.
A heavenly court is assembled to judge all the world empires, but especially the beasts. The sentence is carried out immediately. Then a fifth empire appears before the world court, a fifth society. As previously the symbols were lion, bear, leopard, beast, now the corresponding symbol is the human being. For “son of man” simply means “human being.” The whole series—lion, bear, leopard, beast, human being—thus represents successive societies. The fifth society is, of course, very carefully dissociated from those that precede it. It is no longer brutal, no longer bestial, but finally a human society. Therefore it is symbolized not by beasts but by a human being.
We must see what a sharp distinction the text makes at this point: the fifth society does not arise out of the sea of chaos but comes from heaven. It comes “with the clouds of heaven” (Dan 7:13). Thus the new, eschatological society comes from above. It cannot be made by human beings. It is God’s gift to the world. It is the end of all violent rule.
And yet, even though this ultimate and final empire, this rule without end, comes from above, it does not float above the world. Despite its heavenly origin it is altogether earthly and worldly. It is the longed-for true, eschatological Israel, for in the subsequent interpretation of the vision it is identified absolutely with the “holy ones of the Most High.” An interpreting angel says to Danieclass="underline"
“As for these four great beasts, four kings shall arise out of the earth. But the holy ones of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever—forever and ever.… The kingship and dominion and the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven shall be given to the people of the holy ones of the Most High; their kingdom shall be an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey them.” (Dan 7:17-18, 27)
Thus not only the vision itself but its context makes clear that this is about empires, societies—and the one society represented by the “human being” is Israel. But it is not simply the Israel of the present. It is the hoped-for eschatological Israel. It is a counter-reality over against all social constructions of history thus far, which either relied on brutal violence or could not survive without it.
The human being/son of man is thus a symbol for the ultimate and final royal rule of God, but at the same time a figure for the true Israel that serves God the Father alone. The two cannot be separated, for the royal rule is “given” (Dan 7:14) forever to this true, eschatological Israel. And that royal rule comes from God; it is God’s own rule, now revealed in all its purity and without blemish—in a finite human society.
Daniel 7 only shows in a carefully developed form what appears in many other late Old Testament texts: the reign of God and the people of God belong together. The “field” within which the reign of God appears is first of all and primarily Israel. It is true that God reigns as king over the whole world, but that royal rule is revealed in Israel. It never manifests itself to the nations independently of Israel but always in connection with Israel and through Israel.