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In the Ladder of Jacob, the ladder represents this age, with its steps as the times when foreign kings rule Jacob's descendants. Philo's On Dreams instead describes people who practice virtue as going up and down as if on a ladder.
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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.
(1.151) And perhaps this is no incorrect statement; for the wise have obtained the heavenly and celestial country as their habitation; having learnt to be continually mounting upwards, but the wicked have received as their share the dark recesses of hell, having from the beginning to the end of their existence practised dying, and having been from their infancy to their old age familiarised with destruction. (1.152) But the practisers of virtue, for they are on the boundary between two extremities, are frequently going upwards and downwards as if on a ladder, being either drawn upwards by a more powerful fate, or else being dragged down by that which is worse; until the umpire of this contention and conflict, namely God, adjudges the victory to the more excellent class and utterly destroys the other.
Date: 20-50 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
“... Jacob sees a ladder in his dream and is frightened. What is frightening, this motif asserts, is the ladder itself. In this respect it bears some resemblance to Philo’s explanation of Jacob’s dream, with which we began. The difference is that, while Philo wished to relate the “irregular course” symbolized by the ladder to Jacob’s own life, the “Staircase of History” motif relates it to the life of Jacob’s descendants, the people of Israel: the ladder represents the coming ages of history, and Jacob sees the terrible things that lie in store for his offspring. No wonder he says, “How fearsome is this place!” ...”
Kugel, James L.
The Ladder of Jacob: Ancient Interpretations of the Biblical Story of Jacob and His Children
(p. 30) Princeton University Press, 2006
* 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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