SPEAKER_1: Alright, so last time we traced Zechariah's portrait of the humble king arriving on a donkey — a conqueror whose weapon was surrender. That set up a question I've been sitting with: where does Jesus get the title he actually used most for himself? SPEAKER_2: That's the thread Daniel 7 pulls on. Jesus called himself the Son of Man more than any other title in the Gospels — over eighty times across all four accounts. And the source is a single vision in Daniel 7:13, written roughly 550 years before Jesus was born. SPEAKER_1: So walk everyone through what Daniel actually sees, because I think most people picture Daniel as a book about lions' dens and fiery furnaces — not cosmic throne-room visions. SPEAKER_2: The vision is genuinely apocalyptic. Daniel sees four terrifying beasts rising from the sea — a lion with eagle's wings, a bear with three ribs in its mouth, a four-headed leopard, and a fourth beast with iron teeth and ten horns. These represent world empires. Then the scene shifts entirely. The Ancient of Days takes his throne — clothing white as snow, hair like pure wool — and tens of thousands stand before him. Books are opened. Judgment begins. The fourth beast is killed and burned. SPEAKER_1: And then the Son of Man appears in the middle of all that? SPEAKER_2: Right at the climax. One like a son of man comes with the clouds of heaven to the Ancient of Days and is presented before him. And to him is given dominion, glory, and a kingdom — all peoples, nations, and languages serving him. His dominion is everlasting and shall not pass away. His kingdom shall not be destroyed. SPEAKER_1: So here's what our listener might be thinking — son of man just sounds like a way of saying 'a human being.' The Aramaic phrase, bar enash, literally means that. So why isn't this just a vision of an idealized human figure? SPEAKER_2: That's the honest tension in the text, and it's exactly why the title is so loaded. Yes, bar enash means human being. But the figure in Daniel 7 does things no human being does. He comes with the clouds of heaven — and in the Old Testament, cloud-riding is exclusively a divine vehicle. Psalm 104 says God makes the clouds his chariot. Isaiah 19 describes God coming on a swift cloud. When Daniel's figure arrives on clouds, the original audience would have heard a divine claim, not just a human one. SPEAKER_1: So the title is simultaneously humble and enormous. SPEAKER_2: That's precisely why Jesus chose it. It encapsulates both poles of his identity — genuinely human, the incarnate Second Person taking on flesh, and yet the one to whom all dominion belongs. Some scholars read the dominion language as an echo of Genesis 1:26, where humanity is given dominion over creation. Jesus is the true human, the one who finally fulfills what Adam forfeited. SPEAKER_1: How does Jesus actually deploy this title? Because eighty-plus uses — that's not casual. There has to be a pattern. SPEAKER_2: There is. He uses it in three distinct registers. First, for his humiliation and earthly ministry — the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head. Second, for his suffering, rejection, death, and resurrection — the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of men. Third, for his future coming in glory — and that's where Daniel 7 becomes explicit. SPEAKER_1: Give everyone the moment where Jesus makes that connection undeniable. SPEAKER_2: His trial before the High Priest. Caiaphas asks directly: are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed? And Jesus answers — in Mark 14:62 — 'I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming with the clouds of heaven.' He quotes Daniel 7:13 verbatim, in the present tense, to his accusers. Caiaphas tears his robes and calls it blasphemy. He understood exactly what Jesus was claiming — not just messiahship, but the divine figure of Daniel's vision. SPEAKER_1: That's a remarkable moment. He's essentially saying: the vision Daniel saw — that's me. SPEAKER_2: And the charge of blasphemy confirms it. If Jesus had merely claimed to be a human Messiah, that wouldn't have warranted the reaction. The claim to come on clouds, to receive universal dominion from the Ancient of Days — that's a claim to divine identity. The High Priest heard it correctly. SPEAKER_1: There's also a timing prophecy in Daniel 9 — the Seventy Weeks. What does that add to the picture? SPEAKER_2: Daniel 9 gives the Messiah a deadline. The prophecy of seventy weeks of years — 490 years — specifies that the Anointed One will be cut off, meaning killed, after sixty-nine of those weeks. Scholars working from the decree to restore Jerusalem in 445 BC land remarkably close to the first century. The prophecy doesn't just describe what the Messiah will do. It narrows when he will die. SPEAKER_1: So Daniel gives both the identity and the timing. SPEAKER_2: Exactly. The Son of Man vision answers who — a figure both human and divine, receiving eternal dominion. The Seventy Weeks answers when — the Anointed One cut off within a calculable window. Together they form a prophetic coordinate that points to one historical moment. SPEAKER_1: So for Quinn and everyone tracking this series — what's the single thing they should carry forward from Daniel 7? SPEAKER_2: That the title Jesus used most for himself wasn't modest. Son of Man sounds humble — and it is, it signals genuine humanity — but it's drawn from a vision of a cosmic figure receiving eternal dominion from God himself. When Jesus stood before Caiaphas and invoked those clouds, he wasn't reaching for a vague metaphor. He was claiming to be the one Daniel saw. The humanity and the divine authority aren't in tension. In Jesus, they're the same person.