Daniel 7:13 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

I saw in the night visions, &c. Here is described by what means these changes were to be brought about; behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven One in the shape and likeness of a man, but clothed with such ensigns of majesty and honour, (signified here by the clouds of heaven,) as showed him to be an extraordinary person, (compare Revelation 1:13; Revelation 14:14,) indeed no less than the Messiah, as the following description of him declares. As the two foregoing verses declare why the fourth beast was destroyed, this part of the vision shows by whom it was done; setting Christ forth in his judicial capacity, and describing him by that title, which, in allusion to this place, he often gave himself, namely, the Son of man. He particularly alludes to this text, Matthew 26:64, where he speaks of his coming in the clouds of heaven; by which expression he acknowledged himself to be the true Messiah here described, and gave a direct answer to the question there proposed to him, Art thou the Christ, the Son of the blessed? Compare Mark 14:61-62; Revelation 1:7. Whereupon they condemned him as guilty of blasphemy. A learned prelate, in his Defence of Christianity from the ancient Prophecies, p. 131, observes, that ענני, anani, the clouds, was a known name of the Messiah among the Jewish writers, which shows that they understood this text as spoken of him.