White Bearded Ancient of Days

Daniel 7:9-10

Ask a child in any part of the world to draw a picture of God and we will still often get an old man with a white beard sitting on the seat of judgment. Where did this image emanate from? Many scholars trace the evolution of this patriarchal image to today’s astounding vision in the Book of Daniel, describing Daniel’s dream, as narrated and interpreted by him.

Chapter seven of Daniel shakes the foundations of biblical imagery with a vision so surreal and substantial, it remains lodged in our theological imagination. After seeing four beasts emerging from the four corners of the earth, each one more terrible than the next, with multiple horns and teeth of steel, Daniel dreams the ultimate source of power:

חָזֵה הֲוֵית עַד דִּי כׇרְסָוָן רְמִיו וְעַתִּיק יוֹמִין יְתִב לְבוּשֵׁהּ  כִּתְלַג חִוָּר וּשְׂעַר רֵאשֵׁהּ כַּעֲמַר נְקֵא כׇּרְסְיֵהּ שְׁבִבִין דִּי־נוּר גַּלְגִּלּוֹהִי נוּר דָּלִק׃ נְהַר דִּי־נוּר נָגֵד וְנָפֵק מִן־קֳדָמוֹהִי אֶלֶף (אלפים) [אַלְפִין] יְשַׁמְּשׁוּנֵּהּ וְרִבּוֹ (רבון) [רִבְבָן] קָדָמוֹהִי יְקוּמוּן דִּינָא יְתִב וְסִפְרִין פְּתִיחוּ׃

As I looked on,

Thrones were set in place,

And the Ancient of Days took a seat—

Wearing a garment like white snow,

And with hair like lamb’s wool.

This throne was tongues of flame;

Its wheels were blazing fire;

A river of fire streamed forth from it.

Thousands upon thousands rendered service;

Myriads upon myriads stood in attendance;

The court sat and the books were opened.

Daniel 7:9-10

This vision isn't just apocalyptic pyrotechnics. It marks a theological milestone: the divine depicted with gender, age, wisdom, a seat of judgment. Here is God not as thunder or wind, not as presence or voice, but as form. As humanlike. As Elder - the definition of the patriarch, white beard and all.

Jewish tradition wrestled with this. The Talmud (Hagigah 14a) famously debates whether it is even appropriate to describe God in such terms. And yet, this image of Atik Yomin—with snow-white hair and a fiery throne—endures.

The Zohar, Judaism’s cornerstone mystical work, central to medieval Jewish mysticism, embraces and expands the imagery. In Zohar III:129a, Atik Yomin becomes the most hidden aspect of divinity, the source of mercy and mystery from which all life and all Sefirot - the spheres of the world - emanate. For generations of Jews and seekers of solace as hostile regimes kept making life difficult for them - Daniel’s vision of justice at the end of tough times was always a relief, and the Ancient of Days was the promise hidden within hardships.

Don Isaac Abarbanel, Portuguese-Jewish banker to kings, communal leader, philosopher and interpreter of the Bible, was exiled twice - from Portugal and from Spain. While fining refuge in Naples after the 1492 expulsion from Spain, he turned to the Book of Daniel for consolation and critique. In Daniel’s visions he deciphered coded resistance and exilic resilience, even dates for when the redemption will arrive. In Atik Yomin, Abarbanel saw hope for justice. As an old man himself displaced by the empire, he resonated with this divine elder, enthroned amid fire but robed in compassion.

Rabbi Moses Cordovero, the great 16th-century Kabbalist who was also from a Spanish-Jewish family that endured the expulsion and exile, framed Atik Yomin as the inner dimension of Keter, the crown of the divine. For Cordovero, the Ancient of Days is not just old, but primordial, the first stirrings of divine will before time begins. Here, age is not decrepitude but eternity. In his book Pardes Rimonim, the Orchard of Pomegranates, he wrote:

“Atik Yomin is the most hidden of all hidden things, and it is from this level that the flow of divine energy begins.”

Known by some, imagined by many, Atik Yomin still haunts the edge of imagination, sometimes as a relic of bearded-God-in-the-sky theology, but also as a symbol of moral order beyond time. That is what William Blake tried to capture in his famous depiction of the Ancient of Days. Blake even renames this godhead - Urizen. The evolution of of this image keeps on happening, even as the patriarchal notion of the divine as male elder is increasingly challenged by modern readers and seekers of more nuanced and inclusive set of images the depict divinity.

In The Book of Nightmares, American poet Galway Kinnell wrote:

"And when the light fails at last, Atik Yomin / will sit / not to judge, but to remember / every flicker of mercy you gave the world."

It’s this vision of the divine as ultimate source of mercy and hope that endures beyond the seat of judgment.

What begins as Daniel’s dream vision becomes a metaphor for the ages.

The evolution of Atik Yomin is the evolution of how we imagine the divine: transcendent yet personal, terrifying yet tender, ancient yet always becoming. Like us. The books open, the fire roars, and Daniel’s visions continue for the following chapter, giving generations of people who seek solace and hope some very specific markers, milestones, hopes and visions. Even if we know now that Abarabael and Cordevero, among many others, got the math wrong and the messianic time are still not here, we do sense that beyond particular prophetic data, the poetry of this imagination lives on, transcending our limited concept of sense and non-sense, time and space.

Will our sense of mercy overcome our righteous justice and rage?

Image: William Blake, Ancient of Days

Below the Bible Belt: 929 chapters, 42 months, daily reflections.

Become a free or paid subscriber and join Rabbi Amichai’s 3+ years interactive online quest to question, queer + re-read between the lines of the entire Hebrew Bible. Enjoy daily posts, weekly videos and monthly learning sessions. 2022-2025.

Become a Paid Subscriber? Thank you for your support!

#Daniel #BookofDaniel #hebrewbible #כתובים #Ketuvim #Bible #Tanach #929 #דניאל #ספרדניאל #labshul #belowthebiblebelt929

#Daniel6

#AncientofDays #AtikYomin #AtikaKadisha #patriarchy #God’swhitebeard #problemwithpatriarchy #Kabbalah #Spanishexile #Ramak #DonIsaacAbarbanel #peace #prayforpeace #nomorewar #stopthewarnow