Son of Man

Occurrences in Scripture

Old Testament

• In the book of Ezekiel, God addresses the prophet Ezekiel as "Son of man" some ninety times (Ezekiel 2:1 and elsewhere).
• In Psalm 8:4 the phrase stands in parallel with "man" and refers to frail humanity.
• In Daniel 7:13–14, following the vision of the four beasts, "one like the Son of man" comes "with the clouds of heaven" and receives everlasting dominion and a kingdom from "the Ancient of days."

New Testament

• In the Gospels it is the term Jesus most often used to refer to himself, and it appears almost exclusively on his own lips.
• Outside the Gospels it appears in the following passages:
• The vision Stephen saw before his death (Acts 7:56)
• Hebrews 2:6, which quotes Psalm 8
• "One like unto the Son of man" in Revelation 1:13 and 14:14

Meaning and Background of the Term

The Hebrew ben adam literally means "son of man." In Hebrew, however, "son of ..." denotes a member of a given class, so the phrase simply means "a human being" or "a man." This portion of Daniel 7 is written in Aramaic, which uses the phrase bar enash. In contrast to the kingdoms depicted as beasts, a figure in human form appears. The New Testament renders the expression in Greek as ho huios tou anthrōpou.

Usage in the Gospels

Scholars commonly divide the Son of Man sayings in the Gospels into three groups:

• Earthly ministry: the authority to forgive sins (Mark 2:10); lord of the Sabbath (Mark 2:28)
• Suffering: suffering, being killed, and rising again (Mark 8:31); serving and giving his life as a ransom (Matthew 20:28)
• Coming in glory: coming on the clouds (Matthew 24:30–31); executing judgment (John 5:25–29)

Before the high priest, Jesus answered in words that evoke both Daniel 7:13 and Psalm 110:1 (Mark 14:62). The Gospel of John speaks of the cross and glory together when it says that the Son of man must "be lifted up" (John 3:14).

Interpretations and Debates

• Humanity and divinity: Since the patristic era, many traditions have read "Son of Man" as referring to the humanity of the incarnate Jesus, in contrast to "Son of God" as referring to his divinity. Other interpreters, reading the term against the background of Daniel 7, emphasize that "Son of Man" is instead a title carrying heavenly authority.
• The Son of Man in Daniel 7: Some interpret the figure as an individual Messiah. Others see it as a symbol of "the saints of the most High" (7:27), that is, the people of God.
• Scholarly debate: Scholars are divided over whether Jesus used the expression as a fixed title or, in the manner of an Aramaic idiom, to mean "I" or "a man." Its relationship to the Son of Man figure in the pseudepigraphal book of 1 Enoch is also debated.
• Why Jesus used the term: A frequently cited explanation for why Jesus used this term rather than "Messiah" is that he sought to avoid expectations of a political messiah. The text itself, however, does not directly state the reason.

In Korean Translations

The New Korean Revised Version renders all of the passages above as inja (人子). Some versions, such as the Revised New Korean Standard Version, translate the term in Ezekiel as "O man" (saram-a).

The New Korean Revised Version also frequently uses the word injahasim ("lovingkindness"; e.g., Psalm 136). This word derives from inja (仁慈), meaning "benevolence and compassion," which is used to translate hesed; it is a homophone of the inja discussed in this article but an entirely different word in meaning.