"Son of man" is the translation of one Hebrew and one Aramaic phrase used in the Hebrew Bible. In Hebrew, the term is ben-adam, while in Aramaic its equivalent bar-adam is used. In post-biblical literature, the similar terms bar-anosh and bar-nasha also appear. The Hebrew expression "son of man" appears one hundred and seven times in the Hebrew Bible. This is the most common Hebrew construction for the singular, appearing 93 times in the Book of Ezekiel alone and 14 times elsewhere. In thirty two cases, the phrase appears in intermediate plural form "sons of men". As generally interpreted by Jews, "son of man" denotes mankind generally in contrast to deity or godhead, with special reference to their weakness and frailty.
Hebrew Bible
Numbers
Within the Hebrew Bible, the first place one comes across the phrase son of man is in Book of Numbers at :
Job
In the Book of Job, we see son of man used a total of three times : ' '
Psalms
Within the Book of Psalms, we find the same classical forms employed within Numbers and Job wherewith son of man is used in parallel with man to describe humanity as a whole. ' '
Psalms 146:
Isaiah
' 13 ותשׁכח יהוה עשׂך נוטה שׁמים ויסד ארץ ותפחד תמיד כל־היום מפני חמת המציק כאשׁר כונן להשׁחית ואיה חמת המציק׃ '
The Book of Ezekiel is unique within the tradition of the Tanakh, in that as the story unfolds, the phrase son of man is used approximately 94 times by a divine being to refer to the author. For example: ' ' Son of man here appears to be a title referring to the humanity of the author, much how the word "human" may suffice in English. It is not a respectful appellation, but a humbling one, and this use is a consistent pattern throughout Ezekiel. All uses of son of man within Ezekiel are:
Daniel
In the Book of Daniel, parts of the text are written in Aramaic, this portion of the volume deals with a vision attributed to the author about "the times of the end": ' ' Within the context of Daniel passages, the use of son of man is explained by Rashi to denote: "one like a man was coming" - that is the king Messiah. It has been argued that "there came with the clouds of the sky 'one like a son of man describes one "like a human being". The passage in occurs in Biblical Aramaic.
Post-biblical literature
The most common post-biblical use is similar to that of the English word "human". For example:
Similarly, there are two stories of how Haninah ben Dosa was bitten by a lizard while praying : Y. Ber 5. 1/26
כד הוות נכית לבר נשא אין בר נשא קדים למיא חברברא מיית ואין חברברא קדטם למיא בר נשא מיית
When it bitesthe son of man , if the son of man reaches the water first, then snake dies; and if the snake reaches the water first, the son of man dies.
"Ḥanina never permitted anything to turn him from his devotions. Once, while thus engaged, a lizard bit him, but he did not interrupt his prayers. To his disciples' anxious inquiries he answered that he had been so preoccupied in prayer as not even to feel the bite. When the people found the reptile, dead, they exclaimed, "Woe to the man whom a lizard bites, and woe to the lizard that bites R. Ḥanina b. Dosa!" His wonderful escape is accounted for by the assertion that the result of a lizard's bite depends upon which reaches water first, the man or the lizard; if the former, the latter dies; if the latter, the former dies. In Ḥanina's case a spring miraculously opened under his very feet. The Babylonian Gemara has a different version of this miracle."
Apocryphal literature
The most common apocryphal use is also similar to that of the English word "human". For example:
1QapGen
1QapGen. XXI.13: MT שיא
ואשגה זרעך כעפר ארשא די לא ישכח בר אנוש לממדיה And I will multiply your seed like the dirt of the earth which no son of man can count.
In the Hebrew of Genesis 13:16, the word translated as בר אנוש was איש.
Interpretation
As generally interpreted by Jews, "son of man" denotes mankind generally in contrast to deity or godhead, with special reference to the human weakness and frailty
The term "ben adam" is but a formal substitute for the personal pronoun or maybe a title given to the prophet Ezekiel, probably to remind him of his human weakness.
Son of man in and is ben adam, and "son of man" in is ben enosh. "Among Jews the term "son of man" was not used as the specific title of the Messiah. The New Testament expression ὅ ὑιὸς τοῦ ἀνθρόπου is a translation of the Aramaic "bar nasha," and as such could have been understood only as the substitute for a personal pronoun, or as emphasizing the human qualities of those to whom it is applied. That the term does not appear in any of the epistles ascribed to Paul is significant. In the Gospels the title occurs eighty-one times. Most have come to the conclusion that Jesus, speaking Aramaic, could never have designated himself as the "son of man" in a Messianic, mystic sense, because the Aramaic term never implied this meaning."
