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Ladder of Jacob

About this book
Chapter 1

1 Now Jacob went to his uncle Laban, and he found a place and fell asleep there, laying his head on a stone, for the sun had set, and there he saw a vision. 2 And there, a ladder was set up on the earth, whose top reached to heaven. 3 And the top of the ladder was a face like a man's, hewn out of fire.⁠ 4 Now it had twelve steps up to the top of the ladder, and upon each step up to the top were two human faces on the right and on the left — twenty-four faces seen down to their chests, on the ladder. 5 But the middle face was higher than them all, which I saw made of fire, to the shoulder and the arm, very terrifying, more than the twenty-four faces. 6 And as I looked, there were the angels of God ascending and descending on it; but the Lord was set above it, and he called me, saying, Jacob, Jacob. 7 And I said, Here I am, Lord. 8 And he said to me, The land where you sleep I will give to you and to your seed after you, and I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven and as the sand of the sea; through your seed all the earth shall be blessed, and those who live there, to the last times, the years of the end.⁠ 9 My blessing, with which I have blessed you, shall pour out from you to the last generation. 10 All in the east and the west shall be full of your seed.

Texts in conversation

Compare Genesis 28:12 and Ladder of Jacob 1:3

Hebrew Bible · Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions

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Summary

In Genesis, the Hebrew word for the “top” of Jacob's ladder can also mean “head.” In the Ladder of Jacob, a fiery face is at the top of the ladder, which may reflect that second meaning.

Passages

Genesis 28:12

Hebrew Bible
11 He reached a certain place where he decided to camp because the sun had gone down. He took one of the stones and placed it near his head. Then he fell asleep in that place 12 and had a dream. He saw a stairway erected on the earth with its top reaching to the heavens. The angels of God were going up and coming down it 13 and the Lord stood at its top. He said, “I am the Lord, the God of your grandfather Abraham and the God of your father Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the ground you are lying on. 14 Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west, east, north, and south. And so all the families of the earth may receive blessings through you and through your descendants.
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Genesis

Ladder of Jacob 1:3

Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions
1 Now Jacob went to his uncle Laban, and he found a place and fell asleep there, laying his head on a stone, for the sun had set, and there he saw a vision. 2 And there, a ladder was set up on the earth, whose top reached to heaven. 3 And the top of the ladder was a face like a man's, hewn out of fire. 4 Now it had twelve steps up to the top of the ladder, and upon each step up to the top were two human faces on the right and on the left — twenty-four faces seen down to their chests, on the ladder. 5 But the middle face was higher than them all, which I saw made of fire, to the shoulder and the arm, very terrifying, more than the twenty-four faces.
1–100 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in the Ladder of Jacob

References

“... Here, Jacob’s dream has undergone a radical transformation. Instead of a ladder with angels, what Jacob sees here are human heads—a fiery head at the very top of the ladder, and then human faces to the left and right side of each of the ladder’s twelve steps. Such a ghoulish display might indeed explain why Jacob was frightened when he awoke—but what is the point of it all? The head at the very top of the ladder seems to have been generated by the biblical text itself. It says of the ladder that “its top reached up to heaven,” but the Hebrew word for “top” (rō’š) can also mean “head.” Taken in this sense, the biblical text would seem to be saying that the ladder had an actual head on it—hence, the fiery head in our text. ...”
James L. Kugel, The Ladder of Jacob: Ancient Interpretations of the Biblical Story of Jacob and His Children (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006), 25.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Genesis 28:12 and Ladder of Jacob 1:3

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