Son of Man
Posted by Matt Postiff May 29, 2025 on Matt Postiff's Blog under Theology
Today's question has to do with Ezekiel being called the "son of man." Sometimes it is in lower case, and sometimes in upper case. Is there any significance to that?
The question arose because last Sunday I spoke on the "Son of Man" terminology from Luke 22:69 and connected it to Daniel 7:13-14. I said that the phrase did not merely indicate the humanity of Christ, but is also connected to His deity and right to rule as divine King over the Messianic kingdom. The San Hedrin council understood this connection because they then asked Jesus, "Are You then the Son of God?" When Jesus affirmed that proposition, they condemned Him to death.
In Ezekiel, God refers to the prophet as the son of man, but in those uses it has no Messianic implication. God is referring to Ezekiel as a man, who is unlike God, as in Psalm 8:4—"What is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You visit him?" See also Psalm 144:3, 146:3; Isaiah 56:2; Jer. 49:18, 49:33, 50:40, and 51:43.
About the capitalization of "son of man" in Ezekiel, I did a case-sensitive computerized search in the NKJV and found that "Son of Man" (both capitalized) does not occur in the book. That dual capitalization would mean that the translators believe the phrase to refer to the Messiah, as it does in Matthew 8:20. In Ezekiel, "Son of man" is capitalized with a single capital 'S' at the beginning of a sentence or direct address in quotation marks. And sometimes it is dual lowercase, "son of man" when the phrase does not occur at the beginning of a sentence or quotation. So, there is no significance to the capitalization in Ezekiel; all references are to Ezekiel the prophet, not to the Messiah.
It is also interesting that Ezekiel is never called "the" son of man. But in the gospels, Jesus is often called "the" Son of Man. So for Ezekiel, "son of man" refers to his humanity. For Jesus, "Son of Man" does refer to His humanity, but in a different way. He is the perfect man, the second Adam, and as such, the title points us to His Messianic office and in effect His deity.