The Hyperlinked Bible
Intertextuality Pair
Allusion
Later text
In my vision in the night I continued to watch, and I saw One like the Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into His presence. And He was given dominion, glory, and kingship, that the people of every nation and language should serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and His kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.
Earlier text
Above the expanse over their heads was the likeness of a throne with the appearance of sapphire, and on the throne high above was a figure like that of a man. From what seemed to be His waist up, I saw a gleam like amber, with what looked like fire within it all around. And from what seemed to be His waist down, I saw what looked like fire; and brilliant light surrounded Him. The appearance of the brilliant light all around Him was like that of a rainbow in a cloud on a rainy day. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD. And when I saw it, I fell facedown and heard a voice speaking.
Ezekiel's inaugural vision sees, above the throne-chariot, "a figure like that of a man" (כְּמַרְאֵה אָדָם, kemar'eh adam) wrapped in fire and surrounding brilliance — "the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD." Daniel 7 inherits this throne-room tradition: thrones are set, the Ancient of Days takes His seat with a throne "flaming with fire" and "wheels all ablaze" (Dan 7:9, drawing Ezekiel's galgal wheels), and into that fiery court comes "One like the Son of Man." Both visions hold together a divine throne-theophany and a human-form figure of glory; both belong to the exilic prophetic substrate of throne-chariot imagery. The connection is a longitudinal allusion: Daniel develops the human-likeness-enthroned-in-glory motif Ezekiel pioneered, advancing it from a vision of God's glory to the formal grant of universal and everlasting dominion to a representative human figure. This trajectory issues in Revelation 1:13-16, where John fuses Ezekiel's and Daniel's figures into the glorified Christ. The telos is the human-faced glory of God made visible and approachable in the Son of Man — the One whose throne is fire yet who is "like a son of man," so that to see Him is to see the glory of the LORD now near in a form we may behold and adore.
▸ The Son of Man Receiving Dominion