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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 Isaiah 6:3 and Ladder of Jacob 2:8

Hebrew Bible · Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions

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Summary

In Isaiah, the seraphim sing “holy” three times and say God's splendor fills the whole earth. In the Ladder of Jacob, they sing the same but say God fills heaven and earth, language also found in Christian and Hellenistic Jewish versions of the song.

Passages

Isaiah 6:3

Hebrew Bible
1 In the year of King Uzziah’s death, I saw the Lord seated on a high, elevated throne. The hem of his robe filled the temple. 2 Seraphs stood over him; each one had six wings. With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and they used the remaining two to fly. 3 They called out to one another, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Heaven’s Armies! His majestic splendor fills the entire earth!” 4 The sound of their voices shook the door frames, and the temple was filled with smoke. 5 I said, “Woe to me! I am destroyed, for my lips are contaminated by sin, and I live among people whose lips are contaminated by sin. My eyes have seen the king, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.”
740–450 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Isaiah

Ladder of Jacob 2:8

Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions
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.
1–100 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in the Ladder of Jacob

References

“... Note that the phrase “the whole earth” of Isa 6:3 is often rendered “heaven and earth” in Christian versions of the Qĕduššah, though the same change is sometimes found in Hellenistic Jewish sources (E. R. Goodenough, By Light, Light: The Mystic Gospel of Hellenistic Judaism [New Haven: Yale UP, 1935] 307, 324). [...] Ladder of Jacob 2:6–22 has what resembles a magical hymn in which the Qĕduššah in 2:18–19 is followed by seven divine names followed by a string of transliterated Hebrew words resembling voces magicae (tr. H. G. Lunt in Charlesworth, OTP 2:408): Holy, Holy, Holy, Yao, Yaova, Yaoil, Yao, Kados, Chavod, Savaoth, Omlemlech il avir amismi varich, eternal king, mighty, powerful, most great, patient, blessed one! ...”
David E. Aune, Revelation 1–5, WBC 52 (Dallas: Word Books, Publisher, 1997), Notes on Rev 4:8.

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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Isaiah 6:3 and Ladder of Jacob 2:8

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