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Ladder of Jacob

About this book
Chapter 4

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.⁠

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Compare Daniel 7:17 and Ladder of Jacob 4:1

Hebrew Bible · Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions

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Summary

In Daniel, four beasts represent kings whose rule gives way to the kingdom of the holy ones. The Ladder of Jacob may have adapted this four-part view of history, interpreting Jacob's dream as foreign rule and four stages of his descendants' punishment.

Passages

Daniel 7:17

Hebrew Bible
15 “As for me, Daniel, my spirit was distressed, and the visions of my mind were alarming me. 16 I approached one of those standing nearby and asked him about the meaning of all this. So he spoke with me and revealed to me the interpretation of the vision: 17 ‘These large beasts, which are four in number, represent four kings who will arise from the earth. 18 The holy ones of the Most High will receive the kingdom and will take possession of the kingdom forever and ever.’ 19 “Then I wanted to know the meaning of the fourth beast, which was different from all the others. It was very dreadful, with two rows of iron teeth and bronze claws, and it devoured, crushed, and trampled anything that was left with its feet.
200–101 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Daniel

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.
1–100 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in the Ladder of Jacob

References

“... Here the twelve steps of the ladder represent the twelve periods of “this age,” while twenty four “minor” faces embody the twenty-four kings of the ungodly nations. Ascending and descending angels on the ladder are envisioned as the guardian angels belonging to the nations hostile to Jacob and his descendants. The angelic locomotion or “ascents” appear to be construed in the passage as the arrogations against Israel. It has been previously noticed that this historic revelation is influenced by the fourfold scheme of the antagonistic empires reflected in the Book of Daniel through a reference to the “four ascents” and also through the peculiar features of the Danielic empires and specifically the last of the four kingdoms, Rome, represented by Esau. [...] In these passages, the similarities with the Danielic account are even more apparent than in the Ladder since the familiar fourfold structure is now represented by Babylon, Media, Greece, and Edom—the empires that are often associated in the history of interpretation with the four beasts of Daniel 7. Kugel notes that in these materials, like in the Ladder of Jacob, “the four beasts [of Daniel’s vision] are transformed into ‘angels of God’ said to go up and down Jacob’s ladder.” This peculiar theme of the hostile angels on the ladder that resist Jacob and his progeny by their ascents and descents might provide additional evidence that the authors of the Ladder were cognizant of the motif of angelic opposition that performs such a pivotal role in the doppelganger lore. It is also important that the heavenly counterpart imagery in the Ladder of Jacob becomes applied to the antagonistic figures when the infamous empires are represented by their angelic “patrons.” We already encountered similar conceptual constellations in the Book of Daniel where the heavenly counterpart in the form of the Son of Man is juxtaposed with the upper identities of the hostile nations. ...”
Andrei A. Orlov, The Greatest Mirror: Heavenly Counterparts in the Jewish Pseudepigrapha (Albany, NY: State University of New York, 2017), 99–100.

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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Daniel 7:17 and Ladder of Jacob 4:1

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