Texts in Conversation
In the Ladder of Jacob, the ladder is this age and its faces are the kings who rule Jacob's descendants. Rabbinic tradition in Leviticus Rabbah similarly describes the ladder's angels as the guardian angels of Babylon, Media, Greece, and Edom.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Ladder of Jacob 4:1
Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions
1 But he said this to me: The ladder which you saw, which had twelve steps having two human faces which changed their appearance — now this ladder is this age, and the twelve steps are the times of this age, and the twenty-four faces are the kings of the lawless Gentiles of this age. 2 Under these kings [your children's children and the line] of your sons will be tested: they will rise up against the lawlessness of your descendants, and will lay this place waste through four descents of the sins of your descendants. 3 And from the wealth of the ancestors this palace will be built in the temple of the name of your God and your fathers; but through the anger of your descendants it will be desolate until the fourth descent of this age; for you saw four visions.
Leviticus Rabbah 29:2
Aggadah
Rabbinic
Rabbi Naḥman began: “You, have no fear, My servant Jacob” (Jeremiah 30:10) – it is speaking of Jacob, as it is written: “He dreamed, and behold, a ladder was set on the ground…[God’s angels were ascending and descending on it]” (Genesis 28:12). Rabbi Shmuel bar Naḥman said: These are the guardian angels of the nations of the world, as Rabbi Shmuel bar Naḥman said: It teaches that the Holy One blessed be He showed him the guardian angel of Babylon ascending seventy rungs, [the guardian angel] of Media [ascending] fifty–two, [the guardian angel] of Greece [ascending] one hundred and eighty, and [the guardian angel] of Edom ascending, but [Jacob] did not know how many.
Date: 500 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
“... These “ascents” do not appear in the account of the dream in 1:1–6, leading Kugel (ibid.: 17–18) to suggest that the interpretation is the conflation of two different traditions, and in support he demonstrates that the text flows smoothly with the elimination of vv. 7–15. There is no MS evidence for this proposal, but the state of the witnesses to the text would probably preclude this. He also suggests (ibid.: 212–15) that the four ascents equate to the four world empires of Dan 3:36–40; 7:3–27, with the angels being the princes of those empires (Dan 10:13, 20). See the midrash on Jacob’s dream attributed to R. Samuel b. Nahman (third-fourth century CE), where Media’s angel ascends and descends fifty-two times, Greece’s one hundred and eighty times, and Rome’s continues to ascend. While these connections seem valid, certainty is not possible. ...”
Church, Philip
Hebrews and the Temple: Attitudes to the Temple in Second Temple Judaism and in Hebrews
(p. 252) Brill, 2017
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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