Source Text: Daniel 7:13-14
Target Text(s):
Source: G.K. Beale, A New Testament Biblical Theology (Baker, 2011), ch. 6; Beale & Carson, Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (Baker, 2007)
Reference Type: Allusion
Connection Method(s): Longitudinal Theme + Redemptive-Historical Progression
Anchor Text: Dan 7:13-14 — The Son of Man Receiving Dominion
Significance: Psalm 8 asks, "what is man that You are mindful of him, or the son of man (בֶּן־אָדָם, ben-ʾadam) that You care for him?" — and answers that God "crowned him with glory and honor" and "placed everything under his feet." This is the lyrical celebration of the Adamic dominion of Genesis 1:26-28. Daniel 7:13-14 takes the same phrase, "son of man," and casts it in apocalyptic register: a figure "like a son of man" comes on the clouds of heaven and is "given dominion, glory, and kingship" — the very pair, glory and dominion, that Psalm 8 ascribes to crowned humanity. The two texts are the lyrical and the apocalyptic faces of one trajectory: the vocation of the son of man to rule under God. The connection is longitudinal and redemptive-historical, the theme advancing from the dignity of created humanity (Ps 8) to the eternal enthronement of the representative Man (Dan 7), with escalation from a dominion presently incomplete to one "that will not pass away." This is why the NT freely fuses the two with Psalm 110:1 (Heb 2:6-9; 1 Cor 15:25-27; Eph 1:20-22): they describe the same enthroned figure. The telos is not human self-exaltation but the Son of Man crowned — the King in whom Psalm 8's wondering "what is man?" finds its glad answer, so that beholding His glory we are drawn to desire and serve Him.