“son of man”, “ben Adam” in Hebrew and “bar Enosh”(formal or high society) or “bar Nasha”(common)in Aramaic simply means man or mankind or children/people or more crudely perhaps “son of/from dirt” as adam means dirt.

In Scripture this sometimes contrasts with “bene Elohim”, “sons of God”, some types of angelic beings or beings from God. Remember the “benot ha Adam”, “daughters of Adam” were taken by the “sons of God” (some sort of non human or superhuman beings) as their wives thus heralding the flood.

“Ben Adam”, “son of God” or man is how the prophet Ezekiel is addressed by an angel. Again it’s a simple contrast to God or even to the angel.

In the song of Moses, the “sons of man” seem to be different to the “sons of Israel” and this presents an, shall we say, prophetic picture of the “sons or children/people” saved by The Lord.

I think at times we place too much emphasis on the word “the” when we refer to Jesus as “the son of man”. He did not deny that he was the expected one but in his reference to the “son of man” being Lord of the Sabbath in Matthew 12:8 (an oft quoted reference for Jesus being The Man)Jesus was referring back to David and maybe to the need to look beyond the set rules (this time of the Sabbath) to meeting essential needs (doing what is normally not permitted on that day yet still honoring the day, if you get what I mean). In the many Gospel references where he refers to himself as “the son of man”, I tend to read it as “this son of man” or “I” (eg, as an idiom)

Yes, Jesus is The Son of Man, The Man, The Messiah – he had to be “of man” to redeem man and “of God” to be without fault. For sin came thru one man, Adam and redemption, thru one man, Yeshua (my paraphrase). This particular son of man, this “kibar Enosh” “one like unto a son of man (Daniel 7) was and is the promised one, as Andy says, our representative before God, victorious, so that we can be also.