Angels-JACOB’S LADDER

Jacob, third in the line of the patriarchs of Israel, (after Abraham and
Isaac), had two remarkable encounters with angels. In the first, Jacob
was on his way to Haran to take a wife from
among the daughters of his uncle Laban. At the
end of the first day’s travel, he laid his head on
a stone and slept:
And he dreamed that there was a ladder set
up on the earth, and the top of it reached to
heaven. And behold, the angels of God
were ascending and descending on it! And
behold, the Lord stood above it and said, “I
am the Lord, the God of Abraham your
father and the God of Isaac; the land on
which you lie I will give to you and your
descendants; . . . I will not leave you until I
have done that of which I have spoken to
you.” Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and
said, “Surely the Lord is in this place and I
did not know it.” And he was afraid, and
said, “how awesome is this place! This is
none other than the house of God, and this
is the gate of heaven.” (Gen. 28:12–17)
This dream confirmed that Yahweh would
honor the Abrahamic covenant with Jacob,
even though Jacob had tricked his father, Isaac,
into bestowing his blessing on him rather than
on Jacob’s brother, Esau.
Scholarly commentary on this verse asserts that the image of the
ladder is more accurately rendered as a stairway or ramp. The image
seems to allude to a Mesopotamian ziggurat (a temple built in a stepwise
fashion). The gods contacted humanity at the top of the ziggurats,
and the temple priests ascended and descended the tower in service
to the divinities. Jacob’s dream seems to apply this image to God
and his ongoing interactions with humanity.
This dream emphasizes two characteristics of the Hebrew God.
First, Yahweh is a sky god who resides in the celestial regions. Second,
Yahweh is conceived of in regal fashion as a king from whose throne
angels are dispatched on missions and to whose throne they return to
report. For angels whose missions take them to the earth, the passageway
from heaven leads them down the stairway Jacob saw in his dream.
The idea of a particular place where heaven and earth meet is a universal
constant of the religious consciousness. Jacob, seemingly by accident,
had stumbled upon such a sacred spot. He erected a stone marker
to identify the place, which he named Beth-el, the “House of God.”
From a folkloric perspective, talismans in the shape of miniature
ladders were common in the ancient world and represented the means
of ascent to heaven. The Mangors of Nepal still set up miniature ladders
beside graves, and a ladder made of dough is traditionally placed
next to coffins in some parts of Russia.