the Ancient of Days

the Ancient of Days

A name for the Christian God, as used in Daniel 7:9 in the Bible. So many people get lost in the consumer frenzy of Christmas that they forget to celebrate it as the moment when the Ancient of Days came to Earth in human form.
See also: ancient, days, of
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

the ancient of Days

a biblical title for God, taken from Daniel 7:9.
See also: ancient, days, of
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary
See also:
  • the age of miracles is past
  • a fig leaf
  • incline
  • incline (one's) ear
  • incline your ear
  • camel through the eye of a needle
  • thumper
  • Bible
  • Bible-basher
  • Bible-thumper
References in classic literature
'the swarm that in the noontide beam were born,' feeling in ourselves the power to direct, this way or that, the forces of Nature--of Nature, of which we form so trivial a part--shall we, in our boundless arrogance, in our pitiful conceit, deny that power to the Ancient of Days? Saying, to our Creator, 'Thus far and no further.
He is the Man of War, the Prince of Peace, the Avenger of our Blood and the Ancient of Days. He is the Lord of Hosts, the Comforter, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah and the All-Consuming Fire.
13 I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him.
Among the passages are Ezra 4: opposition to temple building, Ezra 7: the mission of Ezra, Daniel 3:1-30: Nebuchadnezzar's statue, Daniel 5:1-6:1:Belshazzar's feast, and Daniel 7: the Ancient of Days and the Son of Man.
God is described as the Ancient of Days in the Book of Daniel, Chapter 7, Verse 9.
Presumably Yahweh, the God of Israel, is the God called in Daniel, Chapter 7 "the Ancient of Days, the hair of his head is like white wool."
One of the founding gifts, from Manchester Guardian owner John Edward Taylor, included 266 drawings and watercolours, among them 22 works by Turner and William Blake's The Ancient of Days. We'll be showing a mass hang of the best of them as part of the reopening programme.
The Ancient of Days. Blake was instructed to write the poem by a mocking fairy.
They argue that in the Kabbala the miracle in the wilderness is attributed not to the Almighty but to "the ancient of days." From the Kabbalistic description of "the ancient of days." They deduce that it might have been how a primitive culture would have described a sophisticated machine.
And behold there came with the cloud of heavens, one like unto a son of man [Israel] and he came to the ancient of days [God] and he was brought near before him, and was given dominion, and his kingdom shall not be destroyed (7:9-14).
The riddle of our origins has inspired a number of visionary works of art, including interpretations as diverse as William Blake's illustration of the cosmological designer Urizen in The Ancient of Days (1794) and Auguste Rodin's marble sculpture of primordial man issuing from the outstretched palm of The Hand of God (1898).
If you wanted to have a Standing On Pavement Cracks Day you'd have to register with the Ancient of Days or the Silver Stocking of the Diurnal or something.
His enthusiasm was fired by The Kabbalah Unveiled, by KL Macgregor, published in 1887, claiming to be a translation of The Zohar, an ancient Jewish mystical work about a power/machine called the Ancient of Days, apparently fitted with three skulls in the Russian doll style.
Perennially restless in his voice, Foulds has moments of Elgarian delicacy (brooding horns in "Old Greek Legend") and Holstian grimness (a grinding funeral march in "The Ancient of Days"), but his constant recourse to exotic modes and scales, tending to cancel each other out, has surely lost its shock-effect by now - and the quartertones at the heart of "Columbine" sound tired and mannered within an otherwise ravishingly lovely movement.
Service theme is "Sacred Sounds of the Ancient of Days." The program includes ancient Australian aboriginal didgeridoo, Baha'i Farsi chant, Buddhist Zendo chant, a Romanian Orthodox chant, a Zoroastrian chanted prayer, Andean sacred music, a Sikh ragi playing a classical Sikh shabad, and ancient songs and chants of Sufi, Hindu, Judaic, Muslim Sikh and Catholic traditions.