SECTION XXVI.

SON OF MAN, UNITED WITH THE ETERNAL GOD, AND EXERCISING UNIVERSAL EMPIRE.

Dan. vii. 9, 10, 13, 14.

"I looked, until the thrones were cast down; and [then] the ANCIENT OF DAYS "sat [in judgment]. His robe was white as snow, and the hair of his head as pure wool: his throne, flames of fire; and his wheels, glowing fire. A flowing "stream of fire issued from his presence. Thousand thousands were his attend"ants; and ten thousand ten thousands stood in his presence. The session of 'judgment began, and the books were opened.- -I looked in visions of the "night, and, behold! with the clouds of heaven came [one] like a SON OF MAN; "he approached to the ANCIENT OF DAYS, and was brought near into his presence. "And to him was given dominion and glory and empire; and all peoples, nations, "and languages shall serve him. His dominion is an eternal dominion which "shall not pass away, and his empire that which shall not be destroyed." 1

2

THE Connexion of this prediction, the terms in which it is conveyed, the all but unanimous consent of Jewish and Christian interpreters, and the habitual application by Jesus of its distinguishing epithet to himself, unite to assure us of its direct reference to the Messiah.

It is generally understood as a representation of the Messiah approaching in his official character to the Eternal Father, and entering upon the exercise of his mediatorial empire. It thus contains a testimony to the human nature of Christ, and a confirmation of the doctrine so frequently repeated in the Old and New Testaments, of his glorious exaltation and

See Note [A], at the end of this Section.

See Note [B], at the end of this Section.

universal reign. Unquestionable, however, as is the assertion of the Messiah's real humanity; it is by no means an assertion of a mere and exclusive human nature. So far from that, the magnificent descriptions which it gives, are calculated to excite a strong doubt, whether SUCH POWERS and SUCH AN EXERCISE of them are, by any possibility, compatible with the nature and capacities of any being merely human. It is replied, that the dominion of the Messiah's doctrine is the whole that is intended; the universal prevalence and the perpetual duration of his religion. The justness of this assertion will be hereafter examined, when we shall have to review the numerous declarations of Scripture concerning the reign of the Messiah, and to ascertain what personal agency those declarations may import.

But, of a leading part of the passage before us, I would, with all deference, propose to the reader's candid consideration another interpretation, founded on two grounds, which it will be proper first to state.

1. The description given of the ETERNAL BEING in the former part of our citation coincides with another representation occurring in the New Testament, in a manner so definite and striking, that the latter cannot but be regarded as designedly alluding to the former. Each is the scenery of a prophetic vision; each is composed of the same symbols; and the significancy of each plainly points to the same characters of dignity, holiness, wisdom, and all-pervading and irresistible power. It is needless to say of whom the New-Testament passage is a description :-" I turned "and saw-one like to a son of man; enrobed down "to the feet; and girded around the breasts with a

girdle of gold. His head and his hairs were white "as white wool, as snow; and his eyes as a flame of "fire; and his feet [— the supporters of his throne ?3] "like to fine brass, as if they glowed in a furnace."4

2. Though the word translated "he was brought near "5 does not necessarily imply more than a near approach; yet it may be justly extended to the expression of a personal union. Its radical idea is that of very close contact; and its different forms are applied to many instances of conjunction, indwelling, and union, the most near and intimate that can exist among men."

Upon these grounds it is submitted as a fair and rational interpretation of the whole passage, to view it as declaring, in the symbolical language of prophecy, an assumption of the frail and humble nature of a child of man into an absolute union with the Great ETERNAL; and that this union is the basis of the Messiah's office as the Sovereign and Saviour of the world.

SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES TO SECT. XXVII.

Note [A], page 412.

.ANCIENT OF DAYS עַתִּיק יוֹמִין

The adjective denotes not only old, but permanent, undiminished, unaltered: see Schultens in Job

* Τράπεζαν ἡμῖν φέρε τρεῖς πόδας ἔχουσαν. Aristoph. Pedem et nostrum dicimus et lecti, &c.-Seneca de Benef. lib. ii. § 34.

For instance, Gen. xxv. 22; Isa. viii. 3; Lev. i. 13; Ps. v. 9 ; xlix. 11. Even Gesenius appears to admit, by implication, that the idea of "an incarnate Jehovah" is contained in the 13th verse.— Comm. üb. d. Jesaia, I. 365.

xxi. 7, et in Prov. viii. 18, and Eichhorn in Simonis Lex. Perhaps the epithet would be more adequately rendered by the single expression, THE IMMORTAL,- SON OF MAN, , the name appropriated to imply the frailty, sorrows, and mortality of human nature, and thus contradistinguished from and . Michaelis renders it, One in human form. literally, they brought him near : but it is a well known idiom of the Hebrew and its cognate languages to use the third person, either singular or plural, no nominative being expressed or intimated, in an impersonal or indefinite sense. This idiom, indeed, is by no means confined to the Hebraic dialects. See the remarks on Jer. xxiii. 6.

Note [B], page 412.

The Rabbinical commentators without exception appear to have acknowledged this application. Carpzovius, in his Dissertation on this passage, (ap. Menthenii Thesaurum, tom. i.) has made an ample collection of their testimonies. The following are a specimen. "The interpreters explain the words, As a son of man, of the King Messiah, as being the one man who shall come to judgment and to supplicate for his people."-Abrabenel, Comm. in loc. "This is the Messiah, our Righteousness, who shall draw near into the presence of God."-Joseph ben Jarchi, ed Const. l'Empereur. "I cannot interpret this passage otherwise than of the kingdom of the Messiah."J. D. Michaelis, Anmerk. "Son of man, no doubt the Messiah."Dr. Priestley, in loc. De Wette makes it one of his objections to the genuineness of the Book of Daniel, that it contains "the doctrine of a Messiah, in ch. vii. 13, 14; xii. 1—3.”—(Lehrb. d. Hist. Krit. Einl. A. T. p. 319, 4th ed. Berlin, 1833.) He assigns it to the age of the Maccabees. If then he did not design to be inconsistent with himself, he must have been prepared to admit that the Jews, in the second century before our era, expected a Messiah to whom the predicates in the passages would belong, and which he himself admits to imply a pre-existent and divine nature.

The objections of Bertholdt, de Wette, and others, have been well examined and answered by Hengstenberg; (Die Authentie des Daniel, Berlin, 1831;) and I beg to refer to a brief statement of the arguments on both sides, and the grounds of my own conviction, in The Principles of Interpretation, as applied to the Prophecies of Holy Scripture, pp. 58-65, 1831. De Wette's work I had not then seen; but I venture to think that the substance of his arguments is met; except one, which I shall now notice. It is that four names of musical instruments, and five words besides, which have the appear

ance of a Greek derivation, occur in the book, viz. in ch. i. 3; ii. 6, and v. 17; iii. 4, 5, 7, 10, 15, 16; and iv. 14; i. 4; and v. 29. To this it is replied, that Partemim, Nebisbah, and Pishgam, assumed to be Chaldee expressions of προτιμοι, νόμισμα, and φθέγμα, are not so, but oriental words; Gesenius (see his Lexic.) assigns to them a Persian origin :-that Petish and Keraz with its noun Keroz (supposed to be for πέτασος, and κηρύσσειν κήρυξ,) are by the same competent authority declared to be words from a common origin to the Sanscrit, Persian, Greek, Latin, and the Teutonic languages :—that Sambuca is regarded by Athenæus (Deipnosoph. xiv. 34,) and Strabo (p. 686, ed. Falconer,) as an oriental word :—and it is not unlikely that, even so early (and yet it was, in the age of Pisistratus), Greek musicians might have been obtained by the luxurious court of Babylon, who would retain the names of their own instruments; and this will account for the acknowledged Greek names Citharis, Psalterium, and Symphonia.