Matthew 8:20

‘And Jesus says to him, “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the heaven have nesting places, but the Son of man has not where to lay his head.” '

Jesus' reply is to point out that while even the lowest of God's creatures have their own homes and places of security, He Himself has no home, and nowhere to lay His head. To follow Him will involve putting aside all luxury, and even losing an average level of prosperity and security. It will involve facing roughness and hardship. It will be to sacrifice prestige. While such a life might not have caused a fisherman, who was used to hardship, to quail, it might well have made a scholar think twice. If the Scribe was hesitant about entering Gentile territory this would also confirm to him that to follow Jesus meant being willing to go anywhere, for he was being informed that those who followed Jesus had nowhere to call home, and therefore had no ties.

There is probably also behind the idea a recognition that to follow Him will soon result in even greater lack of security, and rejection from many places. He had Himself already experienced rejection by His own home town of Nazareth (Luke 4:29), which may well have been why His family later moved to Capernaum (Matthew 4:13). And He will later make clear that in serving Him people may lose both family and friends (Matthew 10:21; Matthew 10:35). Thus the warning of coming hardship was necessary.

‘Nesting places.' The word signifies a dwellingplace. Jesus might well have had in mind the holes in the mountains where the birds made their nests (Jeremiah 48:28; Song of Solomon 2:14), which would parallel the holes of the foxes, the idea including the fact that Jesus and His disciples had no hole to crawl into, and no place of security to hide in. They were therefore totally vulnerable.

‘The Son of Man.' This is the first instance of the use of this term in Matthew. Shortly Jesus will point out that as the Son of Man He has the authority on earth to forgive sins (Matthew 9:6). There He clearly sees the term as giving Him special status. It is a term which in the Gospels is only found on the lips of Jesus, apart from two examples where His use of the term is being cited by others. Thus it was not a term taken up by the early church, the only exception being Acts 7:56 where it was used by Stephen of the glorious and enthroned Son of Man whom he saw during his martyrdom, and this exception is strong evidence that it was a term that otherwise only Jesus applied to Himself. The Son of Man Whom Stephen saw was the enthroned and glorified Christ.

In the Old Testament the term is used in order to indicate man in his lordship over creation (Psalms 8:4), and man in his uniqueness as a law keeping being over against the wild beasts which represented ‘lawless' man (Daniel 7:13). Both result in the exaltation of the son of man over creation (Psalms 8:5; Daniel 7:14, compare Psalms 80:17). It is used of Ezekiel as the chosen of YHWH, while emphasising his human weakness (e.g. Ezekiel 2:1; and often, compare Psalms 144:3; Psalms 146:3; Isaiah 51:12). None of these references, however, in LXX exactly parallel Jesus' use as depicted in the Gospels where it is with the definite article. This last fact should warn us against too glibly stating what the Aramaic was that lay behind it (in Revelation also it is used without the article).

Certainly one central aspect of its use by Jesus was as the son of man who came out from among the suffering of his people to the throne of God to receive glory and kingship (Matthew 26:64; Daniel 7:14), having come out of suffering (Daniel 7:25; Daniel 7:27). In this passage the son of man represents both the King and God's righteous people, who because they are righteous thus behave like human beings should in obeying God's Instruction, rather than behaving like wild beasts (who also represent both kings and nations).

The title thus includes both the thought of Jesus' suffering and humiliation as man, and His final exaltation and enthronement as God's chosen King. It will later be used of Jesus as the final great Judge of all (Matthew 24:30).

(The only way in which all these aspects of the Son of Man can be avoided is either by altering the texts in a way which satisfies few, or by claiming that some of them were invented by the early church. But I have never yet come across a satisfactory explanation as to why, if the early church played with the text in this way and thought it useful to introduce such sayings, they showed the term as unused apart from on the lips of Jesus. If it was so useful we would have expected other references to abound. The truth is that the early church did not appreciate the term Son of Man and preferred rather to think of Jesus as the Christ. But that is fatal to any arguments that suggest that they introduced it into the text).