Daniel 7 and the Cloud Rider

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Daniel 7 and the Cloud

Rider
January 7, 2016 5 Comments

GokuHasANewNimbus

Cloud Riders
One of the biggest threats to God’s people in the
OT was another god called Baal. Israel was to be
a monotheistic community, a group whose sole
devotion was directed towards YHWH only. But
as the pages of Scripture repeatedly tell us,
Israel didn’t follow the rules.

Baal was the storm and fertility god. So if his

followers needed crops, they would pray for rain
and grain. In some ways it was easier to be
polytheistic, at least for the placebo affect. You
don’t just pray to one god because, really, how
can one God do it all? So you pray to all gods to
get all of your prayers fulfilled.

Yet Baal wasn’t just another face in the crowd.

He was one of the higher deities in the
polytheistic pantheon. And Israel like to worship
him, especially since one form of worship
involved sexual rituals. Who could say no to that?

In some of the texts of Ugarit, Israel’s northern

neighbor, Baal is called “the one who rides the
clouds.” It pretty much became his official title.
LeBron James shoots hoops; Baal rides clouds.

Yet, it wasn’t just Baal who rode clouds.

According to Michael Heiser in The Unseen
Realm, to turn all the attention back to Yahweh
instead of Baal, the biblical authors “occasionally
pilfered this stock description of Baal… and
assigned it to Yahweh…” (251). 

There is none like God, O Jeshurun, who

rides through the heavens to your help,
through the skies in his majesty (Deut
33:26)

O kingdoms of the earth, sing to God; sing

praises to the Lord, Selah
to him who rides in the heavens, the ancient
heavens; behold, he sends out his voice, his
mighty voice (Ps 68:32-33)

Bless the Lord, O my soul!… He lays the

beams of his chambers on the waters; he
makes the clouds his chariot; he rides on the
wings of the wind; he makes his messengers
winds, his ministers a flaming fire (Ps 104:1-
4)

An oracle concerning Egypt. Behold, the

Lord is riding on a swift cloud and comes to
Egypt; and the idols of Egypt will tremble at
his presence, and the heart of the Egyptians
will melt within them (Isa 19:1)

“The effect was to… hold up Yahweh as the deity

who legitimately rode through the heavens
surveying and governing the world” (252).

Every instance in the OT where someone is

riding the clouds, that “someone” is Yahweh.
Except, there is… one exception. There is a
second figure. A human figure. 

Daniel 7:13—the Lone

Exception
Daniel 7:13 reads,

I saw in the night visions, and behold, with

the clouds of heaven there came one like a
son of man, and he came to the Ancient of
Days and was presented before him. And to
him was given dominion and glory and a
kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and
languages should serve him; his dominion is
an everlasting dominion, which shall not
pass away, and his kingdom one that shall
not be destroyed.

In the NT we find a number of connections to

Jesus. A few are given below:

“But that you may know that the Son of Man

has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he
said to the paralytic— “I say to you, rise, pick
up your bed, and go home.” (Mk 2:10-11)

For as the lightning flashes and lights up the

sky from one side to the other, so will the
Son of Man be in his day. But first he must
suffer many things and be rejected by this
generation. (Lk 17:24-25)

“Was it not necessary that the Christ should

suffer these things and enter into his glory?”
(Lk 24:26)

Again the high priest asked him, “Are you

the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?” And
Jesus said, “I am, and you will see the Son of
Man seated at the right hand of the Mighty
One and coming with the clouds of heaven.”
(Mk 14:61-62)

About this Heiser writes, “Caiaphas understood

that Jesus was claiming to be the second Yahweh
figure on Daniel 7:13 — and that was an
intolerable blasphemy” (253). Along with these
Son of Man texts, there are other connections
with Jesus and clouds. 

And when [Jesus] had said these things, as

they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a
cloud took him out of their sight. (Acts 1:9).

Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and

every eye will see him, even those who
pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will
wail on account of him. Even so. Amen. (Rev
1:9)

Some form of the Trinity was seen in the OT. Even

the Jews around and before the first century
were talking about “two powers in heaven.” Yet,
once Christians began to elaborate on the
Trinity, the Jews declared the “two powers” idea
a heresy, and belief that still holds today among
Jews.

So far we’ve only looked at these “two powers,”

but what about the third member of the
Godhead, the Holy Spirit? Are the lines blurred
with the Holy Spirit too? Heiser brings up a few
texts, and I’ll look at them in my next post.

Previous Posts
The Unseen Realm is Coming

The Nephilim
Who Were the Nephilim?
Why This Topic?
Three Interpretations on the Nephilim
Sethites 
Divine Human 
Rebellious Divine Offspring
Heiser’s Thoughts
Why is Genesis 6.1-4 in the Bible?
A Flood of Stories 
Why Do We Need to Know This?
Weird Texts of the Bible

Dividing the Nations

Nimrod
The Tower of Babel
Yahweh Divides the Nations

The OT Trinity
The Trinity in the Old Testament
And He Struggled With the Angel
He Rides the Clouds
The Holy Spirit

Book Review

Buy it on Amazon!

And also Heiser’s more condensed version,

supernatural

Buy it on Amazon!

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TAGS: #ANGEL OF THE LORD #ANGEL OF YAHWEH

#CLOUD RIDER #FEATURED #HEISER #JESUS
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POWERS IN HEAVEN

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5 comments

Pingback: The Cloud Rider | Talmidimblogging

Eric L AUGUST 26, 2022 AT 5:34 PM

Holy smokes – great connection between

the Son of Man and the clouds! Thank you.
Will also look into the two powers idea.

The Ba’al story was a warping of the

original BIG story that all people on earth
once knew. YHWH through carefully-
chosen wording has his prophets set the
record straight – an attempt to de-warp
the story. Great stuff in Job, too, regarding
Leviathan / Litan, where we find out that
YHWH – not Ba’al – is the one who
actually subdued the sea and it’s monster.

You mention “Israel was to be a

monotheistic community” but doesn’t the
divine council in Scripture show that
monotheism is not what was being taught?
Henotheism is broad enough to
encompass the Biblical idea, isn’t it? As
long as the other gods are created, and
therefore less?

! Like

REPLY

Spencer AUGUST 27, 2022 AT 4:52 PM

Hey Eric. Thanks for the comment.

Heiser has an article on whether Israel
was monotheistic or henotheistic. I’ve
been wanting to read it (for years). My
guess is that, possibly, even though
there are the other gods, they are still in
a different and lesser class than
Yahweh, who is in a class of his own.
Only Yahweh is Yahweh. But that’s my
guess.

Here is the link to Heiser’s article, by

the way:
https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/cgi/
viewcontent.cgi?
article=1276&context=lts_fac_pubs

! Like

REPLY

Eric L AUGUST 28, 2022 AT 3:56 AM

Thanks! Will read it.

! Like

Nathan O OCTOBER 25, 2022 AT 9:14 PM

Spencer, I think you’re correct that

Heiser would argue against the idea
that Israel was henotheistic because
there is only one unique God, the
uncreated creator Yahweh. This is
assuming henotheistic refers to a
hindu type pantheon with many fairly
equal gods, with which a group
singling out one god as their sole god
they serve among the pantheon. So it
becomes sort of a word definition
issue — if henotheistic refers serving
one god among many, and god means
the unique uncreated creator
Yahweh, then no Israel wasn’t that.
But if henotheistic refers to elohim as
in the many judges/gods, lumping
together uncreated ones and the sole
creator one, then yes they were.

So much confusion that English

brings to the hebrew word.

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