_Son of Man._――This expression has acquired a peculiarly exalted sense in our minds, in consequence of its repeated application to Jesus Christ, and its limitation to him, in the New Testament. But in those days it had no meaning by which it could be considered expressive of any peculiar characteristic of the Savior, being a mere general emphatic expression for the common word “man,” used in solemn address or poetical expressions. Both in the Old and New Testament it is many times applied to men in general, and to particular individuals, in such a way as to show that it was only an elegant periphrasis for the common term, without implying any peculiar importance in the person thus designated, or referring to any peculiar circumstance as justifying this appellative in that case. Any concordance will show how commonly the word occurred in this connection. The diligent Butterworth enumerates eighty-nine times in which this word is applied to Ezekiel, in whose book of prophecy it occurs oftener than in any other book in the Bible. It is also applied to Daniel, in the address of the angel to him, as to Ezekiel; and in consideration of the vastly more frequent occurrence of the expression in the writers after the captivity, and its exclusive use by them as a formula of solemn address, it has been commonly considered as having been brought into this usage among the Hebrews, from the dialects of Chaldea and Syria, where it was much more common. In Syriac, more particularly, the simple expression, “man,” is entirely banished from use by this solemn periphrasis, Illustration: (‡ Syriac word) (_bar-nosh_,) “SON OF MAN,” which every where takes the place of the original direct form. It should be noticed also, that in every place in the Old Testament where this expression (“son of man”) occurs, before Ezekiel, the former part of the sentence invariably contains the direct form of expression, (“man,”) and this periphrasis is given in the latter part of every such sentence, for the sake of a poetical repetition of the same idea in a slightly different form. Take, for instance, Psalm viii. 4, “What is man, that thou art mindful of him? or the son of man, that thou visitest him?” And exactly so in every other passage anterior to Ezekiel, as Numbers xxiii. 19, Job xxv. 16, xxxv. 8, Isaiah li. 12, lvi. 2, and several other passages, to which any good concordance will direct the reader.