Go to Related Reading
About this book

Ladder of Jacob

About this book
Chapter 2

1 And when I heard it from above, fear and trembling fell upon me, and I rose up from my dream. 2 And while the voice of God was still in my ears, I said, How dreadful is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. 3 And I set up the stone that was under my head for a pillar, and poured oil on the top of it, and I called that place the house of God. 4 And I prayed to God and said: Lord God of Adam, of your [creature?], and Lord God of Abraham and Isaac my father, and of all whose ways are right before you, you who sit mighty upon the Cherubim and upon the throne of the majesty, of fire and full of eyes, as I saw in my dream;⁠ who holds the Cherubim with four faces, who bears the Seraphim full of eyes,⁠ who bears the whole world under his arm, and is borne by none. 5 You have established the heaven for the glory of your name. 6 You have spread out upon the clouds of the heaven the heaven that flies under you, so that under it you may move the sun and hide it in the night so that it is not taken for God; you have ordained the way for the moon and the stars, and you make her wax and wane, but for the stars, you have commanded them to pass over, so that these too should not be thought gods. 7 Before the face of your majesty the six-winged Seraphim fear, and hide their feet and their face with their wings, and with the others they fly, and sing: […] Highest, with twelve faces, many-named, fiery, lightning-formed, holy one! 8 Holy, Holy, Holy,⁠ Jao Jaova, Jaoel, Sabakdos, Chabod, Sabaoth, Omlelech, Elaber, S'me Barech, eternal king, strong, mighty, very great, patient. 9 Blessed One, who fill heaven and earth and the sea and the abyss and all aeons with your glory. 10 Hear my song, with which I have praised you, and grant me my petition for which I pray to you, and show me the interpretation of my dream. 11 For you are strong and mighty and glorious, a holy God, my Lord and the Lord of my fathers.

Texts in conversation

Compare Ezekiel 1:18 and Ladder of Jacob 2:4

Hebrew Bible · Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions

Share:

Summary

In Ezekiel, eyes cover the wheels surrounding the heavenly beings. In the Ladder of Jacob, Jacob describes seraphim full of eyes in his prayer, using similar imagery to interpret his dream as a vision of God's heavenly throne.

Passages

Ezekiel 1:18

Hebrew Bible
15 Then I looked, and I saw one wheel on the ground beside each of the four beings. 16 The appearance of the wheels and their construction was like gleaming jasper, and all four wheels looked alike. Their structure was like a wheel within a wheel. 17 When they moved they would go in any of the four directions they faced without turning as they moved. 18 Their rims were high and awesome, and the rims of all four wheels were full of eyes all around. 19 When the living beings moved, the wheels beside them moved; when the living beings rose up from the ground, the wheels rose up too.
600–501 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Ezekiel

Ladder of Jacob 2:4

Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions
3 And I set up the stone that was under my head for a pillar, and poured oil on the top of it, and I called that place the house of God. 4 And I prayed to God and said: Lord God of Adam, of your [creature?], and Lord God of Abraham and Isaac my father, and of all whose ways are right before you, you who sit mighty upon the Cherubim and upon the throne of the majesty, of fire and full of eyes, as I saw in my dream; who holds the Cherubim with four faces, who bears the Seraphim full of eyes, who bears the whole world under his arm, and is borne by none. 5 You have established the heaven for the glory of your name.
1–100 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in the Ladder of Jacob

References

“... Several details are eye-catching in this description. Jacob’s prayer reveals that his dream about the Face might represent the vision of the Throne of God’s Glory. A number of features seem to point to such a possibility. First, the prayer refers to “his many-eyed ones,” alluding to האופנים, the Wheels, the special class of the Angels of the Throne who are described in Ezekiel 1:18 as the angelic beings “full of eyes.” Second, the text describes the deity as seated on the fiery Throne of Glory. Third, the vision contains references to the angelic liturgy and the Trisagion. Fourth, the text refers to the fear of the angelic hosts, who stand in the front of the terrifying fiery Face while trying to protect themselves with their wings. ...”
Andrei A. Orlov, The Greatest Mirror: Heavenly Counterparts in the Jewish Pseudepigrapha (Albany, NY: State University of New York, 2017), 96.

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

Your feedback

Ezekiel 1:18 and Ladder of Jacob 2:4

Leave a comment

Your questions and comments are welcome!

Comments

Glossary

Search the Library