Jacob's Ladder (hbo|{{Script/Hebrew|סֻלָּם יַעֲקֹב) is a ladder or staircase leading to Heaven that was featured in a dream the Biblical Patriarch Jacob had during his flight from his brother Esau in the Book of Genesis (chapter 28).
The significance of the dream has been debated, but most interpretations agree that it identified Jacob with the obligations and inheritance of the people chosen by God, as understood in Abrahamic religions.
The description of Jacob's Ladder appears in Genesis 28:10–19:
The classic Torah commentaries offer several interpretations of Jacob's Ladder. In Pirkei De-Rabbi Eliezer 35:6-10, the ladder signified the four exiles the Jewish people would suffer before the coming of the messiah. First, the angel representing the Neo-Babylonian Empire climbed "up" 70 rungs and then fell "down": a reference to the 70-year Babylonian exile. Then, the angel representing the exile of the Achaemenid Empire went up several steps and fell, as did the angel representing the exile of Greece (the Hellenistic period, Ptolemaic Kingdom, and the Seleucid Empire). Only the fourth angel, who represented the final exile of the Roman Empire, called "Edom" (whose guardian angel was Esau himself), kept climbing higher and higher into the clouds. Jacob feared that his children would never be free of Esau's domination, but God assured him that at the End of Days, Edom too would fall.[1]
Another interpretation of the ladder keys into the fact that the angels first "ascended" and then "descended". The Midrash explains that Jacob, as a holy man, was always accompanied by angels. When he reached the border of the land of Canaan (the future Land of Israel), the angels who were assigned to the Holy Land returned to Heaven and the angels assigned to other lands came down to meet Jacob. When Jacob returned to Canaan, he was greeted by the angels who were assigned to the Holy Land.
Yet another interpretation is that the place at which Jacob stopped for the night was, in reality, Moriah, the future home of the Temple in Jerusalem, which was considered to be the "bridge" between Heaven and Earth.[2] The ladder therefore signifies the "bridge" between Heaven and Earth. Moreover, the ladder alludes to the giving of the Torah as another connection between Heaven and Earth. In this interpretation, it is also significant that the word for ladder and the name for the mountain on which the Torah was given, have the same Gematria.
The Hellenistic Jewish philosopher Philo, born in Alexandria, presents his allegorical interpretation of the ladder in the first book of his Latin: De somniis. There, he gives four interpretations, which are not mutually exclusive:[3]
The narrative of Jacob's Ladder was used, shortly after the destruction of the Second Temple in the Siege of Jerusalem (70 CE), as the basis for the pseudepigraphic Ladder of Jacob. This writing, preserved only in Old Church Slavonic, interprets the experience of Patriarchs in the context of Merkabah mysticism.
A hilltop overlooking the Israeli settlement of Beit El north of Jerusalem, believed by some to be the site of Jacob's dream, is a tourist destination during the holiday of Sukkot.[4]
Jesus said in, "And he saith unto him, 'Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see Heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.'" This statement has been interpreted as associating Jesus with the ladder in that Jesus bridges the gap between Heaven and Earth. Jesus presents himself as the direction to which the ladder points. As Jacob saw the reunion of Heaven and Earth in a dream, Jesus brought this reunion—metaphorically the ladder—into reality. Adam Clarke, an early 19th-century Methodist theologian and Bible scholar, elaborates:
The theme of a ladder to Heaven is often used by the Church Fathers. Irenaeus, in the second century, describes the Christian Church as the "ladder of ascent to God".[5]
In the third century, Origen[6] explains that there are two ladders in the life of a Christian: the ascetic ladder that the soul climbs on Earth, by way of—and resulting in—an increase in virtue, and the soul's travel after death, climbing up the heavens toward the light of God.
In the fourth century, Gregory of Nazianzus[7] wrote of ascending Jacob's ladder by successive steps toward excellence, interpreting the ladder as an ascetic path. At the same time, Gregory of Nyssa narrated[8] that Moses climbed l Jacob's ladder to reach the heavens, where he entered a remade tabernacle; thus giving the ladder an apparent mystical meaning. The ascetic interpretation is found also in John Chrysostom, who wrote:
Jacob's ladder as an analogy for a spiritually ascetic life enjoyed wide influence thanks to the classical work The Ladder of Divine Ascent by John Climacus. As such, the Carthusian monk Guigo II used it as inspiration for his description of the steps of the Lectio Divina, and the contemporary philosopher Peter Kreeft used it in his apologetics.[9]
Jacob's ladder is depicted on the facade of Bath Abbey in England, with angels climbing up and down ladders on either side of the main window on the west front.
In Islam, Jacob (ar|يَعْقُوب|Yaʿqūb) is revered as a prophet and patriarch. Muslim scholars drew a parallel between Jacob's vision of the ladder[10] and Muhammad's event of the Miʿrāj.[11] The ladder of Jacob was interpreted to be one of the many symbols of God, and many see Jacob's Ladder as representing in its form the essence of Islam, which emphasizes following the "straight path". The twentieth-century scholar Martin Lings described the significance of the ladder in the Islamic mystic perspective: