The Ladder of Jacob

James Kugel
Harvard University

O ne of the strangest texts to be included in recent collections of biblical

pseudepigrapha is that known as the Ladder of Jacob.1 Known only
from the Slavonic Tolkovaya Paleya, this text elaborates on the story of
Jacob's dream at Bethel in Gen 28:11-22, adding details to the vision de-
scribed there and containing a prayer and angelic revelation nowhere present
in the biblical narrative. It is clear that the Slavonic text is a translation
from Greek; it appears likely to me that the Greek is itself a translation
from an original Aramaic or Hebrew text dating from, roughly speaking,
the Second Temple period.2

^ h i s work is found in an eclectic translation by Horace Lunt (based on published texts and
several unpublished manuscripts) in OTP 2. 401-12; a translation by A. Pennington of two
published recensions of the Ladder of Jacob is found in Hedley F. D. Sparks, ed.. The Apo-
cryphal Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon, 1984) 453-63. Previously, a translation of the
text had appeared in Montague Rhodes James, ed.. The Lost Apocrypha of the Old Testament
(New York: Macmillan, 1920) 96-103. based on Gottlieb N. Bonwetsch, "Die apokryphe
'Leiter Jakobs,' " Nachrichten von der Königlichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Gottingen 1
(1900) 76-87.1 am most grateful to Professor Lunt, my teacher in Slavonic, for having given
me copies of the manuscripts used in the preparation of his translation. That translation has
guided me throughout, and if I have deviated from it slightly here and there, these deviations
are such as not to upset the talmudic axiom. "If Rabbi [Judah] did not teach it, from whom did
R. Hiyya learn it?" (b cErubin 92a).
2
The connection between this text and rabbinic exegetical traditions are. in my opinion,
striking. These do not preclude an original Greek composition for the Ladder of Jacob, but
make that possibility somewhat less likely. Moreover, the Hebrew words that survive in
transcription in the text, along with other elements to be discussed below, likewise point in

HTR 8 8 2 ( 1 9 9 5 ) 2 0 9 - 2 7
210 H A R V A R D T H E O L O G I C A L REVIEW

There are many mysterious elements in this text that I cannot explain.
Horace Lunt's recent eclectic translation has clarified much; however, a
number of difficulties remain, and the following is more in the nature of
a preliminary exploration than a finished work. In what follows I would
like to illustrate one area of overlap between this text's basic understanding
of Jacob's dream and various rabbinic texts that deal with the same biblical
narrative. Such an examination may lead to a better understanding of the
purpose and origin of the Ladder of Jacob.
Jacob's dream-vision is presented in the opening verses of this text:

Jacob then went to Laban his uncle. He found a place and, laying his
head on a stone, he slept there, for the sun had gone down. He had a
dream. And behold, a ladder was fixed on the earth, whose top reached
to heaven. And the top of the ladder was the face of a man, carved out
of fire. There were twelve steps leading to the top of the ladder, and
on each step to the top there were human faces, on the right and on the
left, twenty-four faces including their chests. And the face in the middle
was higher than all thai I saw, the one of fire, including the shoulders
and arms, exceedingly terrifying, more than those twenty-four faces.3

Somewhat later, in chapter 5, the angel Sariel descends to explain to

Jacob the meaning of this vision:

Then he [the angel] said to me [Jacob]: "You have seen a ladder with
twelve steps, each step having two human faces which kept changing
their appearance. The ladder is this age, and twelve steps are the peri­
ods of this age, and the twenty-four faces are the kings of the lawless 4
nations of this age. Under these kings the children of your children and
the generations of your sons will be tested 5 ; they [the foreign kings]
will rise up because of the wickedness of your offspring. And they [the

the direction of a Hebrew or Aramaic original. See also my brief discussion of this text in In
Potiphar's House (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1990) 117-19.
3
Lad. Jac 1.1-6.
4
bezakonbn-b ( ά ν ο μ ο ς ) ; the Greek word was frequently used by Hellenistic Jewish and
Christian writers to describe foreign nations or individuals. In this respect, indeed, it was used
in a way quite similar to ά θ ε ο ς ("godless") in the same literature; see BAG, s.v. ά ν ο μ ο ς .
Hence, Lunt's translation of bezakonbni> as ungodly, therefore, is the functional equivalent of
ά ν ο μ ο ς . In the Septuagint, ά ν ο μ ο ς often translates the Hebrew j?cn.
5
In place of Lunt's translation "interrogated," we should probably read "tested" (Pennington
[Sparks, Apocryphal Old Testament, 461] uses "tried"). The Slavonic istqzati carries both
meanings, and in context "tested" seems to make better sense. Tests in Second Temple writ­
ings were ordeals, long-term tribulations to be endured. See Jacob Licht. Testing in the He­
brew Scriptures and Post-Biblical Judaism (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1973) 71-76 [Hebrew].
Alternately, this Slavonic root may mean something like "afflict" or "torture" ( τ α π ε ι ν ό ω .
Γίΐΰ) as does its modern Russian cognate, HCTnaaTb.
 JAMES KUGEL 211

foreign kings] will make this place empty by four ascents because of6
the sins of your offspring. And upon the property of your forefathers a
palace will be built, a temple in the name of your God and your
fathers' [God], but in the anger against your children it will become
deserted by the four ascents of this age.7
As in the biblical account, so here Jacob sees a ladder, but in this text the
ladder is adorned with human faces, statues representing the "kings of the
lawless nations of this age." These kings, Jacob is told, will rise up against
the wickedness of his descendants, and "this place," apparently Bethel, will
be made desolate by four ascents brought about by Jacob's progeny. Need-
less to say, none of these dire predictions is found in the biblical account.

• Ups and Downs

In order to understand these peculiarities in the Ladder of Jacob, it is
best to begin with the biblical account itself. The story of Jacob's dream-
vision at Bethel was highly significant for ancient readers of the Bible; it
marked the first time that God appeared to Jacob or addressed him directly
and was thus the start, in a sense, of his career as one of God's chosen
servants. At the same time, this vision of Jacob's was somewhat puzzling.
Why, to begin with, had Jacob had a dream at all—why did not God
simply speak to him directly, as he had to Abraham? Moreover, what was
this dream intended to communicate? If the point had been merely to tell
Jacob that "the land upon which you are lying I will give to you and your
descendants" (Gen 28:13), there certainly would have been no need for a
ladder with angels going up and down on it. Further, something about this
dream obviously frightened Jacob, since verse 17 says, "And he was afraid,
and he said, 'How fearful is this place. . .'" What could be so frightening
about a ladder with angels on it?
Pondering these questions, interpreters came to the conclusion that the
ladder itself was some sort of symbolic message about the future, Jacob's

6
The word translated by Lunt as "against" here is indeed Slavonic na (meaning, if followed
by the accusative, "onto" or "against") but the sense cannot be that these kings will rise up
against Israel's iniquity but because of it. That is, God will allow these wicked kings to arise
because of the sins of his people. (So similarly, two sentences later, the text explains that this
site will become deserted "in the [divine] anger against your children"). Hebrew and Aramaic
bv can mean both "against" and "because of," and this is probably the source of the error. More
remotely, the original might have had T;:(D). ("corresponding to") a preposition that also
means "against," but in that case one would have expected the Slavonic to read protivb and
not na.
n
Lad. Jac. 5.1-10; I have duplicated Lunt's rendering of this phrase; for another possibil-
ity, see below, n. 9. On both passages see also Lunt's translation and notes, OTP 2. 407, 409.
212 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW

own or that of his descendants. Such an interpretation, for example, under-

lies the comment of Philo of Alexandria on this passage:
Perhaps as well [Jacob] caught a glimpse of his own [future] life in
this visionary ladder. . . . The affairs of men are by their very nature
comparable to a ladder because of their irregular course. For a single
day (as someone well put it) can carry the person set on high down-
ward and lift someone else upward, for it is the nature of none of us to
remain in the same circumstances, but rather to undergo all manner of
changes. . . . So the path of human affairs goes up and down, subjected
to unstable and shifting happenstance.8
Thus, the ladder in the dream symbolizes for Philo the ups and downs that
lie in store for Jacob (and which characterize human affairs in general).
The idea that the ladder embodied a vision of the future seems to be shared
by the Ladder of Jacob, in which the ladder is said to represent "this age"
and the twelve steps its periods. Moreover, our text speaks specifically of
four "ascents" (or "descents'') 9 that will affect that site in time to come:
here too, the reference seems to be to later history.
What are these four ascents/descents? The four empires presaged in the
book of Daniel certainly come to mind.10 The theme of four empires (though
not necessarily Daniel's four) is also found in later Jewish writings of the
period.11 But the closest correspondent to the Ladder of Jacob here is a
rabbinic explanation of Jacob's vision which exists in several forms; the
most widely attested is a remark attributed to R. Samuel b. Nahman (late
third to fourth century CE):
And he dreamt that a ladder was set on the ground and its top reached
to the heavens and the angels of God were going up and down on it. . .
Said R. Samuel b. Nahman: Is it possible that these were the minister-
ing angels [whose job it is to serve before God in Heaven]? Were they

8
Philo Som. 1.150, 153-56.
9
A number of manuscripts read sxody. "descents'": Lunt (OTP 2. 409 n. d) posits vbsxody.
"ascents." Pennington (Sparks. Apocryphal Old Testament. 458, 461) translates "generations"
but notes that the text literally reads "descents."
10
Dan 3:36-40; 7:3-27.
u
Rome is the fourth empire in 4 Ezra 12 11-36 and 2 Bar 39:2-6: see Michael Stone.
Fourth Ezra (Hermeneia: Minneapolis: Fortress. 1990) 361. 366. Mireille Hadas-Lebel. "Rome,
quatrième empire." in A. Caquot. et al., eds.. Hellenica et Judaica (Louvain: Peeters, 1986)
297-312. Compare the four periods spoken of in 1 Enoch 89-90; also 4Q552 and 4Q553
("Four Kingdoms ar"). On this theme in general see David Flusser, "The Four Empires in the
Fourth Sibyl and in the Book of Daniel." in idem. Judaism and the Origins of Christianity
(Jerusalem: Magnes. 1988) 317-44 and E. C. Lucas. "The Origin of Daniel's Four Empires
Scheme Reexamined." Tyndale Bulletin 39 (1988) 185-202. Note also Louis Ginzberg, The
Legends of the Jews (7 vols.: Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America. 1909-38)
5. 223.
 JAMES KUGEL 213

not instead the guardian angels of the nations of the world (noi« "ΙΌ
c^iri)? 12 He [God] showed him [Jacob] Babylon's angel climbing up
seventy rungs and going down again. Then he showed him Media's
angel going up and down fifty-two, and then Greece's going up and
down one hundred and eighty. Then Rome's went up and up, and he
[Jacob] did not know how many [rungs it would ascend]. Jacob took
fright at this and said: Oh Lord, do you mean that this one has no
descent? God said to him: Even if you see him reach the very heavens,
I will still cause him to go down, as it is written, "Though you soar
aloft like the eagle, though your nest is set among the stars, from there
I will bring you down, says the Lord" [Obad 1:4].13
Now we can understand something more of the Ladder of Jacob, as well
as gain insight into the development of this midrash of R. Samuel b. Nahman.
The latter's point of departure is a relatively minor problem: if the angels
in Jacob's dream were (as the biblical text calls them) the "angels of God"—
presumably the highest class of angels, God's "ministering angels" as they
are known in rabbinic literature—why were they going up and down the
ladder rather than serving God in the loftiest regions of heaven? Added to
this minor matter was the more basic question already mentioned, a ques­
tion that in fact generated all manner of exegetical motifs: 14 What was the
symbolic message being given to Jacob by the sight of this ladder and the
angels? For, to repeat, this dream was not intended merely to inform Jacob
that the spot on which he had slept was, or was destined to become, sacred.
There would have been no need of a ladder with angels for that. Moreover,
why were the angels going up and down! Angels are said to reside in
heaven; they should therefore more properly be said to go down and up.
Such is the background to R. Samuel b. Nahman's remark. He therefore
begins by asserting that, despite the phrase "angels of God" in the biblical
text, these angels were not in fact God's ministering angels, but the angelic
15
"princes" of the nations mentioned in the book of Daniel, each of whom
is assigned to watch over a different country or people. Their "ascending
and descending" (in that order), therefore, had great significance: what
Jacob saw was actually a visual representation of the rise and fall of em­
pires, specifically, those foreign empires which were to dominate his own

12
This notion of angelic guardians of different kingdoms is reflected in the book of Daniel
(for example, Dan 10:13. 20).
,3
My emphasis. Versions of this midrash appear in Exod R. 32.7, Lev. R 29.2, Tanhuma
vayyese 2; Pesiqta de-Rav Kahana 23 (ed. Bernard Mandelbaum; 2 vols.; Jewish Theological
Seminary of America, 1962) 334; Midrash ha-Gadol Gen. 28:12; Midrash Ps 78.6; Yalqut
Shimconi vayyese 121; Yalqut Shimconi Jeremiah 312; see Jacob Mann, The Bible as Read and
Preached in the Old Synagogue (New York: Ktav. 1971) 171 [Hebrew section].
14
See my In Potiphar's House, 117-18.
15
Above, note 12.
214 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW

descendants in time to come.16 And so, our midrash specifies that the an-
gels that Jacob saw were, in turn, the guardian angels of Babylon, Media,
Greece, and Rome. The seventy rungs that the guardian angel of Babylon
ascends represent the seventy years of the Babylonian captivity as specified
in Jer 25:11-12, 29:10 and later Jewish writings; the number of rungs
ascended by the guardians of Media and Greece similarly corresponds to
traditional chronology.17
The same motif apparently underlies the Ladder of Jacob. Here too, it
is Jacob's vision of the ladder that serves as the vehicle for a revelation of
the "kings of the lawless nations" who will rule over Israel, and if this text
does not specifically mention how many such nations there will be, 18 it
does go on to speak (as we have seen) of four "ascents" or "descents" that
will bring Jacob's progeny to grief. Indeed, the continuation of our text
alludes specifically to the last of the four empires, Rome: "The Most High
will raise up kings from the grandsons of your brother Esau, and they will
receive the nobles of the tribes of the earth who will have maltreated your
seed."19 As is well known, Esau frequently represents Rome in Second
Temple writings.20
Thus, there does appear to be a connection between the midrash of the
Four Guardian Angels and the vision of the Ladder of Jacob, with its
lawless kings and the four ascents/descents. The "fours" in both the midrash
16
Indeed, this midrash gives a new coloring to the words of the biblical text. "And your
progeny will be like the dust of the earth, and you will extend westward and eastward, north
and south" (Gen 28:14)—these words are no longer a prediction of Israel's expansion and
power but of its subjection and dispersion. What Jacob sees in the vision of the ladder is his
own descendants' exile and subsequent domination by foreign peoples. Similarly. "I will be
with you and guard you wherever you shall go" (Gen 28:15) now sounds like a divine assur-
ance that, despite the terrible times to come. Israel will never be completely abandoned. No
wonder, then, that the biblical text says about Jacob when he awakens from this vision. "And
he was afraid and said, 'How fearsome is this place:'" (Gen 28:17).
17
For these figures in rabbinic tradition, see Seder cOlam Rabba. 29. 30 (ed. Baer Rattner;
2 vols, in 1: Vilna: Romm. 1894-97) 2. 133. 141: cf. b Meg 12a and parallels. Note also
Flusser. "Four Empires." 319. One late version of this midrash specifies that the Roman period
of domination is to last five hundred years: see Mann, The Bible as Read and Preached. 171.
18
It says that there will be twelve periods and twenty-four kings, but it does not say how
man) "lawless nations of this age" there are.
i9
Lad Jac. 5 12.
20
See Ginzberg. Legends. 5. 272: Emil Schurer, The History of the Jewish People in the
Age of Jesus Christ (rev. and ed. Geza Vermes and Fergus Millar: 3 vols.: Edinburgh: T. &
T. Clark, 1973-87) 3. 320 n. 78; Gerson Cohen. "Esau as a Symbol in Early Medieval Thought."
in Alexander Altmann, ed.. Jewish Medieval and Renaissance Studies (Cambridge. MA: Harvard
University Press, 1967) 19-48. For some historical background of this idea, see Bruce Cresson.
"The Condemning of Edom in Postexihc Judaism," in Jamed M. Efird. ed.. The Use of the Old
Testament in the New (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1972) 125-48. The equation of
Esau with Rome may ultimately derive from the associations of the Idumaean (that is. Edomite)
King Herod with Rome.
 JAMES K U G E L 215

and the Ladder of Jacob seem, in turn, to derive from the four empires in
the book of Daniel—and rather mechanically so; perhaps, as others have
suggested, the "four empires" theme had simply become a commonplace by
the late Second Temple period.21 For, when one thinks about it, the notion
of four empires or ascents/descents is singularly inappropriate in the con-
text of Jacob's dream. If one starts counting from the time of Jacob, there
are six different kingdoms that will oppress Israel or exile it from its home-
land. Thus, Egypt, where the people of Israel were enslaved and held cap-
tive until the time of Moses, should have figured in Jacob's revelation; so
should Assyria, which conquered and exiled the inhabitants of the northern
kingdom in the eighth century. Daniel, who is said to have lived at the time
of the Babylonian exile, had no need of a revelation concerning these
events, since they had already taken place. But this is not true of Jacob. It
thus seems that this theme in both the midrash cited and the Ladder of
Jacob arose out of a straightforward, if not entirely appropriate, projection
of Daniel's vision of the four beasts back to the time of Jacob; the four
beasts are transformed into (four) "angels of God" said to go up and down
Jacob's ladder. Not only did this act of projection now provide a suitable
message for a dream-vision that otherwise seemed needlessly involved, but
the ladder, because of its association (witnessed above in Philo) with the
ups and downs of life, was an ideal vehicle for a revelation about the rise
and fall of empires.
We may now be in a better position to decide between the two manu-
script possibilities in the Ladder of Jacob, "ascents" and "descents," as
well as to understand a few other ambiguities in the text. The ascents/
descents problem derives, in my opinion, from the fact that both words
were probably used in the original text. That text, I believe, must have read
as follows:
Then he [the angel] said to me [Jacob]: . . . The ladder is this age, and
twelve steps are the periods of this age, and the twenty-four faces are
the kings of the lawless nations of this age. Under these kings the
children of your children and the generations of your sons will be
tested; they [the kings] will rise up because of the wickedness of your
offspring. And they will make this place empty by four ascents be-
cause of the sins of your offspring. And upon the property of your
forefathers a palace will be built, a temple in the name of your God
and your fathers' [God], but in anger against your children it will be
made deserted, until the fourth descent of this age.22
21
See above, note 11. Flusser ("Four Ascents") traces the roots of this conception and its
broad diffusion in late antiquity.
22
The manuscripts offer a variety of different readings of this last phrase and. in the
absence of a critical edition, it is difficult to assess their interrelationship. The above reading
is attested in the Rumiantsev Palaia (1494). (See Lunt, Ladder of Jacob. 402, for a description
of this manuscript).
216 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW

Ascents are normally a positive thing and descents usually negative; it is

easy to understand how someone might naturally conclude that Jacob's
homeland would be made desolate by "descents," downturns, rather than
the opposite. However, within the midrash of the guardian angels, an ascent
by one of the four angels (and the empire that each represents) is a down-
turn for Israel. Therefore, the original version of the Ladder of Jacob must
indeed have specified that "this place" would be made desolate by four
ascents. On the other hand, a downturn for the last angel means an end to
Israel's troubles; therefore, the text specifies that the process will go on
until the fourth descent, that is, until the Roman empire in turn begins its
decline.
"This place," incidentally, is not Bethel but Jerusalem. The fact that the
Bible itself identifies the locale of Jacob's dream as the "house of God" and
the "gateway of heaven" (Gen 28:17) was sufficient to bring early inter-
preters to overlook the toponyms "Bethel" and "Luz" in the narrative (Gen
28:19) and claim that in fact Jacob dreamt his dream on the future site of
David's temple.23 That this site in particular will be "made desolate" by the
rise of the four empires thus has a certain sense: not only were the people
of Jerusalem exiled by the Babylonians and the city made to "sit desolate"
(Lam 1:1), but the evils of domination by successor empires were to prove
no less disastrous for the city which was the center of Jewish piety and the
focus of Jewish aspirations.

• Conflicting Motifs
There is still a problem, however, with associating the vision as ex-
plained in the Ladder of Jacob with the midrash of the Four Guardian
Angels. The four ascents and descents mentioned in the the Ladder of
Jacob seem somewhat at odds with the remaining details of Jacob's vision
there, the twelve steps (or rungs) of the ladder and the images of the
twenty-four lawless kings. In the midrash of the ascending and descending
guardian angels, the steps merely symbolize numbers of years, and presum-
ably there could be hundreds of them; each angel goes up a certain number
and then goes back down again, corresponding to the number of years that
its country will hold political domination before falling back down to earth.
In the Ladder of Jacob, on the contrary, there are precisely twelve steps
and twenty-four rulers; each pair of rulers is connected to a particular step,
that is, a particular time-frame in the succession of "periods." These steps,
in other words, seem to symbolize the "staircase of history," on which
motion goes in only one direction, upward, passing from one period and its

23
See Gen R. 69.7 (eds. Yehudah Theodor and Hanokh Albeck; 2d. ed.: Jerusalem: Wahrmann,
1965) 796 (notes): Pirqei de-Rabbi Ehce:er 35.
 JAMES K U G E L 217

rulers to the next. Moving back down on such a ladder would make no
sense, since it would mean moving backward in time.
From the standpoint of the biblical text, the midrash of the Four Guard-
ian Angels works perfectly: the angels of Jacob's dream are the guardians
of four empire-nations, and their ascending and descending therefore sym-
bolizes the rise and fall of their respective empires. From the same stand-
point, the picture presented in the Ladder of Jacob appears confused. It
echoes the four angels idea in its mention of four ascents and descents, but
these ascents/descents take place on a different sort of ladder, not one of
interchangeable years, but one representing the staircase of history. What
sense can the four ascents and descents have on a ladder of periods that
succeed one another? And in any case, if these ascents represent the as-
cents of the four empires, then why are there also precisely twelve periods
and twenty-four kings? Are these to be divided among the four empires—
and if so, in what proportions? It seems as if there are too many numbers
here, too many conflicting symbols. For that reason, it may be worthwhile
to consider the possibility that the Ladder of Jacob, like so many ancient
texts that retell or explain biblical stories, actually embodies a conflation
of two different, originally quite separate, explanations of Jacob's dream.
Perhaps—as in fact often happens in the history of biblical exegesis—an
earlier version of a text containing one motif later came to be supple-
mented with a second motif taken from elsewhere.24
A close examination of the Ladder of Jacob suggests that this might
indeed be the case. For, it is a striking fact that there is no mention of the
four ascents in the initial description of Jacob's dream vision in chapter 1.
There, Jacob sees the ladder with the twelve steps and twenty-four faces,
but nothing is said about four ascents. The first and last time that these
ascents are mentioned is in chapter 5, when the angelus interpres comes to
explain to Jacob the significance of what he has seen. This fact in itself
seems strange. How can the angel in chapter 5 be explaining four things in
Jacob's vision that are nowhere mentioned in the initial description of that
vision?
Moreover, if one eliminates the sentences dealing with these four as-
cents along with the passage that follows detailing the evils of the last of
the four. Esau's (=Rome's) empire, the result is a smoothly flowing narra-
tive:
Then he [the angel] said to me [Jacob]: . . .The ladder is this age, and
twelve steps are the periods of this age, and the twenty-four faces are
the kings of the lawless nations of this age. Under these kings the
children of your children and the generations of your sons will be
24
I have discussed this phenomenon at some length in In Potiphar's House, 38-39. 134-
35. 145-52.
218 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW

tested; they [the kings] will rise up because of the wickedness of your
offspring. [Section on four ascents and sons of Esau. Then:] Know,
Jacob, that your descendants shall be exiles in a strange land, they will
afflict them with slavery and inflict wounds on them every day. But
the Lord will judge the people for whom they slave.25
That the narrative flows smoothly is in itself some indication that the
omitted passage is a later insertion; it is quite rare that one can excise a
brief passage such as this one from a text without somehow disturbing its
flow. Indeed, the beginning of verse 16 ("Know, Jacob. . .") looks suspi-
ciously like a narrative resumption, that is, a phrase or sentence specifi-
cally created so as to return the narrative back to where it was before the
insertion was made. Thus, while the sentence just before the putative inser-
tion says that Jacob's descendants will suffer at the hands of foreign kings,
the sentence in verse 16 (coming just after the putative insertion) asserts
that Jacob's descendants will be exiled and afflicted.
The passage cited above contains yet another indication that something
has been inserted: there is a slight contradiction between the vision of the
four ascents and the surrounding text. For. while these four are not iden-
tified specifically in the Ladder of Jacob, they are identified in the corre-
sponding midrash of Samuel b. Nahman, as well as in numerous other
Second Temple texts,26 as Babylon, Media, Greece, and Rome, and the fact
that there are four ascents in the Ladder of Jacob (rather than six) points
as well to, specifically, these four. (That the last of the four is apparently
Rome has already been pointed out.) Now, as we have seen, the mention
of these four ascents in the Ladder of Jacob is not entirely appropriate to
the time of Jacob and his vision; Egypt and Assyria should also have been
included. Yet the words that follow the four ascents section do indeed
allude to Egypt: "Know, Jacob, that your descendants shall be exiles in a
strange land, they will afflict them with slavery and inflict wounds on them
every day. But the Lord will judge the people for whom they slave." Not
only is slavery a unique feature of the Egyptian exile, but the second
sentence cited appears patently designed to recall God's words to Abraham
about Egypt, "Yet I will judge the people for whom they will slave" (Gen
15:14).27 In other words, while the "fourness" of the four ascents seems to
eliminate Egypt as part of this revelation of the future, the text elsewhere
seems to assume that the period of Egyptian slavery is indeed part of what
is being revealed.28

25
Lad Jac 5.1-6; 16-17.
26
See above, note 11.
27
Note also that the phrase "exiles in a strange land" seems intended to echo Moses' words
in the exodus narrative "I have been a sojourner in a strange land" (Exod 2:22).
28
Egyptian slavery and the events of the exodus are further alluded to in Lad. Jac. 6:9-11.
 JAMES K U G E L 219

• The Twelve Steps

For all these reasons, it seems likely to me that the motif of the four
ascents in the Ladder of Jacob is in fact an interpolation. The interpolator,
a copyist or editor of the original text of the Ladder of Jacob, knew the
midrash of the four ascents (that is, the Four Guardian Angels motif). This
midrash cleverly accounted for the angels ascending and descending on the
ladder and had perhaps therefore acquired a certain authority as the expla-
nation; it simply had to be included in the old text even if only by an
oblique, passing reference to four ascents. Such reference was inserted,
along with some sentences condemning the Roman empire, into the present
chapter 5. In accomplishing this, however, the interpolator neglected to
insert a corresponding reference to the four ascents/descents in the account
of the initial vision in chapter 1, nor did he notice the dissonance created
by the reference to four ascents/descents when, elsewhere, one of Israel's
future oppressors is specified as Egypt, which was not one of the tradi-
tional four empires. The interpolation, in other words, was somewhat
botched, but, smoothed out by the narrative resumption seen earlier, these
defects became less than obvious.
This insertion, however, was made into a text that already contained its
own, rather different, explanation of Jacob's dream vision. What can be
deduced about this original exegetical motif (to which we might refer, in
contrast to the Four Guardian Angels motif, as the Staircase of History
motif)?
In order to understand this other motif, we must begin again with the
biblical text. Jacob sees a ladder in his dream and is frightened. What is
frightening, this motif asserts, is the ladder itself, the ladder represents the
coming ages of history, and Jacob sees the terrible things that lie in store
for his descendents, the twenty-four lawless foreign kings who will hold
sway over them, two in each future period. No wonder he says, "How
fearsome is this place!" (Gen 28:17).
In this second motif, the fact that the Bible also mentions certain angels
ascending and descending on the ladder is relatively unimportant; their
traveling up and down future ages probably holds no particular significance
for Jacob, save perhaps that, in the hard times to come, his progeny will
be watched over and protected. The whole point is the frightening display
of future times and future kings. Now, this idea of the display of future
history does have certain obvious affinities with other Second Temple texts,
many of which likewise conceive of time as divided up into a certain
number (usually ten) of periods or units.29 But there is another exegetical

29
Daniel speaks of 70 weeks of years (490 years), which is the equivalent of ten jubilees
(Dan 9:24): see Jozef Milik. The Books of Enoch: Aramaic Fragments of Qumran Cave 4
220 H A R V A R D T H E O L O G I C A L REVIEW

motif—once again connected to Jacob's dream-vision and, once again, known

from rabbinic midrash—which seems to presuppose a similar staircase, not
a staircase of interchangeable years, but the staircase of history:
R. Berekhya and R. Helbo and R. Simeon b. Yosina: R. Meir ex­
plained the verse "Despite ail this they still sinned; they did not be­
lieve despite his miracles" (Ps 78:32). This refers to Jacob who did not
believe and did not ascend [the ladder]. God said to him: Jacob, if you
had believed and gone up, you would never have had to go down
again; but now, since you have not believed and have not gone up.
your children will become entangled with nations and ensnared with
empires, [and will go] from empire to empire, from Babylon to Media
and from Media to Greece and from Greece to Rome. He said to him:
Ruler of the universe, forever? Said God to him, "'Do not fear, my
servant Jacob, and do not be dismayed Israel" (Jer 30:10).30
At first glance, this midrash might appear to be rather similar to the pre­
vious one: once again we have the ladder and the four empires. But here,
strikingly, it is not the Four Guardian Angels who are to ascend the ladder,
but Jacob himself. Unfortunately, Jacob loses his nerve; he does not suffi­
ciently trust in God and so does not go up. As a result, his descendants will
now become "ensnared with empires." going from one to the next, "from
Babylon to Media and from Media to Greece and from Greece ίο Rome."
With a bit of imagination, one might almost see these four empires as
rungs on this ladder: Jacob's descendants are to go (as the text says) "from
empire to empire" by climbing, slowly making their way to the top. Is this

(Oxford: Clarendon. 1976) 254: see also Matthew Black. The Book of Enoch or I Enoch
(Leiden: Brill. 1985) 288. The Sibylline Oracles speaks often periods (Sib Or 4.20-21. 47).
as does 1 Enoch 91.12-17, HQMelch 2.7-8: and Barn 4.4. On these ten periods, see Flusser.
"Four Empires." 331. Tg Sheni Esth 1:1. beginning, and Pirqei de-Rabbi Elfezer 11 both
speak of ten kings whose reigns span all of human history (for the latter see the standard
WTarsaw edition [1852. reprinted many times]. 28a and b). A number of Second Temple texts
likewise speak of twelve periods or units, but there is no indication that they are based on a
common tradition: twelve, like ten, was a conventional number, perhaps connected with the
twelve months of the year and/or twelve hours of the day (compare the specific mention of
"hours" in 1 Enoch 89.72. Apoc Abr 30.2). The twelve periods of 1 Enoch 89.72 seem to
extend from the end of the Babylonian exile until Alexander the Great (compare Black. /
Enoch. 79, 273): our text's twelve periods in "this age" may have been fashioned in accordance
with this. 2 Bar 26:1-27:15 also speaks of future time being divided into twelve parts, but
these are more precisely twelve stages of misfortune and not specific periods of time (contrast
28:1-2): nor are they connected with foreign rulers, as is made clear by 2 Bar 53:6 and
chapters 56-70. Some versions of 4 Ezra 14:11-12 speak of the "age" being divided into
twelve "periods": see Stone. Fourth Ezra. 414. 420-21. Apoc Abr 29.2 also speaks of twelve
"times" of this age: see Ryszard Rubinkiewicz, L apocalypse d'Abraham en vieux slave (Lublin:
Société des Lettres et des Sciences de l'Université de Lublin. 1987) 191-93.
30
Mordecai Margulies. Midrash Wayyiqra Rabbah (5 vols, in 2: New York and Jerusalem:
Jewish Theological Seminary of America. 1993) 671-72. For other versions, see above n. 13.
 JAMES KUGEL 221

not in fact the point of the text's saying that Jacob's descendents will be­
come "entangled" and "ensnared"—that they will be impeded in their climb?
The implication seems to be that, had Jacob trusted in God. he himself
would have gotten over these rungs unscathed. But since he did not be­
lieve, it is his descendants who will have to start from the bottom of this
ladder, and they will not have so easy a time.
Some support for this view is offered by the verse cited at the end of
this passage, "Do not fear, my servant Jacob, and do not be dismayed
Israel" (Jer 30:10). The word normally translated as "dismayed" here, Γ,ΠΓ..
can be understood to derive from ~n:, meaning "go down," "descend" (and
not from r.r,n, "dismay"). This is precisely the playful switch being pro­
posed by this midrash. For, by substituting this other meaning, the midrashist
can make God out to be telling "Israel" (that is. Jacob's descendants) not
to go down, not to be discouraged by the long climb that lies before them. 31
But this pun only underlines the fact that, in this motif, it is the ladder
itself that frightens Jacob, and that first Jacob, and then Israel. Jacob's
descendants (and not the four empires or their guardian angels), are the
ones who are to climb. The four empires are, on the contrary, what will
entangle and ensnare Jacob's descendants, apparently, as they climb "from
Babylon to Media and from Media to Greece and from Greece to Rome":
if so, these empires would seem to be part of the ladder itself.

• Which Came First?

Thus, even within the rabbinic tradition these two fundamentally differ­
ent approaches to understanding Jacob's dream appear to have coexisted.
Both approaches successfully explain what was frightening about the dream,
the vision of the future that it presented, and both accounted for the prin­
cipal prop of the dream, the ladder, in similar ways: the steps represent
units of time. These resemblances might well indicate that one approach
derived from the other. Even if this is true, however, the two approaches
as they developed ultimately became irreconcilable. The steps can represent
(interchangeable) years in the first approach, in which case the (guardian)
angels' ascending and descending is explained as indicating what a particu­
lar empire's "high point" will be—that is, its maximum number of years—
much as a thermometer on a hot day. Or the steps can represent specific
periods of years in succession, in which case the angels' motion up and
down is essentially meaningless; what is significant about this second type
31
Indeed, this midrash apparently seeks to locate the two halves of Jer 30:10 in two differ­
ent time-frames: "Do not fear, my servant Jacob." was uttered by God when he first showed
Jacob the ladder and asked him to climb it. But Jacob lost his nerve, and so the second half
of the verse, "and do not be dismayed Israel"—in the sense of "And do not go down. Israel"—
was then uttered by God to Jacob's descendants.
222 H A R V A R D T H E O L O G I C A L REVIEW

of ladder is Jacob's (or Israel's) contemplation of the frightening prospect

of climbing the rungs of future history. But the two conceptions of the
ladder cannot work together; those who climb the one cannot climb the
other.
Given the likelihood that one motif derived from the other, one might
ask which of the two came first. I believe that the evidence points fairly
unambiguously to the Staircase of History motif. First, we have seen that
this motif forms the bulk of the Ladder of Jacob; the four ascents/descents
are only briefly interpolated into chapter 5, apparently as something of an
afterthought. This would suggest that the Staircase of History motif was in
existence before the other had been created. Secondly, the Four Guardian
Angels motif is simply a better midrash: it makes use of both elements in
Jacob's dream, the ladder and the angels, while the Staircase of History
motif only uses the first. While it is not an inviolable rule, the general
tendency in exegesis seems to be that a new motif enters into circulation
only when it is perceived as being better than the motif it proposes to
supplant or supplement. If this is so, the Staircase of History motif could
hardly have been created after the exegetically superior Four Guardian
Angels.
But beyond these two considerations, there is a third, still more compel-
ling, argument. When, after all, was the Four Guardian Angels motif cre-
ated? In both the midrash of Samuel b. Nahman and in the Ladder of
Jacob, the last imperial dominator of Israel is, unambiguously, the Roman
empire. Clearly, then, this motif must belong (at the very earliest) to the
period of rising Roman power in the region. Indeed, in the Ladder of
Jacob, the angel tells Jacob that "this place"—Jerusalem, or at least the site
of the Jerusalem temple—will be made "desolate" or "empty" until the
fourth descent. Such a formulation points at least to a date after the de-
struction of that temple in 70 CE, and perhaps even to the period after the
Bar Kokhba rebellion.
The same cannot be said for the Staircase of History motif. For, the
basic conception underlying this motif is that each and every period32 to
come has its "lawless" foreign powers; Jacob will simply have to go on
being dominated by one or another of them until he comes to the end of
"this age." It is difficult for me to imagine that such a motif could have
been created in the wake of the destruction of the temple in 70 CE, a
cataclysmic event that overshadowed anything since the Babylonian con-
quest of 586/7 BCE. A midrashist would hardly want to claim that such a
32
The Slavonic here simply has vrêmena ('"times'"); Lunt (OTP 2. 409 n. 5a) credibly
theorizes that this word stands for the Greek καιροί ("times"). This word may represent such
Hebrew words as rsipr. ("circuit, season") or 'i' ("season"), but I suspect the original word
was vp ("period"), as in. for example. 4Q181. (See Stone. Fourth Ezra, 213 n. 45.)
 JAMES KUGEL 223

cataclysm was merely one more step on the staircase, comparable to the
other eleven.33 For this reason, along with the previous two, it seems to me
that the Staircase of History must be the older motif, and that it predates
the destruction of the Jerusalem temple.
But how early can this motif be? Previous attempts to date the Ladder
of Jacob have all fixed on the references to Rome in chapter 5 in order to
conclude that the text as a whole must derive from the first century CE at
the earliest. However, if I am correct in believing that Lad. Jac. 5:7-16a
is in fact an interpolation, then there is no reason to connect the entire text
to that period specifically. Many apocalypses and biblical retellings have
survived from earlier periods; there is no reason a priori to conclude that
the original text of the Ladder of Jacob is late.
Indeed, there is one striking element about the Staircase of History motif:
it does not seem to envisage any period of political independence.
Babylonians, Persians, Medians—somehow, the lawless nations will always
be pushing Jacob's descendants around. On each of the twelve steps that
correspond to the periods of "this age" there are always foreign rulers who
will dominate Israel. I find it difficult to believe that such a motif could
have been created after the Maccabean revolt and the period of Hasmonean
independence. What Jewish author after that time (no matter what his po-
litical allegiance) could conceive of Israel's history as an unbroken series
of basically comparable steps, each characterized by its "lawless" outside
rulers?
For this reason, it seems to me that one ought to consider the possibility
that the Staircase of History motif is actually rather old, antedating the
Maccabees and even those events in the reign of Antiochus IV that imme-
diately preceded them. Such a motif might have developed at a time when
Israel's history in "this age" did indeed seem to be an unbroken story of
one foreign ruler after another, Persian, Ptolemaic, and perhaps Seleucid,
with no one of them particularly better or worse than the last. There is no
disputing that, even in pre-Maccabean times, Jews were interpreting scrip-
ture by means of such motifs: similar bits of midrashic elaboration of the
biblical text are found, for example, in the books of Judith, Ben Sira, and
Jubilees, all of which belong to the same period.34 Of course, it may be that
the original motif is post-Maccabean, but then one would have to account
for the twenty-four foreign rulers in "this age." A post-70 CE date seems

33
Indeed, it was precisely because the destruction of the temple by the Romans had been
so cataclysmic that the Four Guardian Angels motif was created. Its message was that, despite
the cataclysm, one should not despair: both Jacob and Daniel had foreseen four empires, and
Rome is thus the last of the four—its fall will eventually come as well.
34
I have discussed the historical background and given some examples in Early Biblical
Interpretation (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1986).
224 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW

to me still less likely, not only because Rome would hardly be presented
as merely another step on the staircase but because, apart from the inter-
polated passage, there is nothing in this text that even remotely alludes to
Rome. 35 Given the text's central focus on Jacob, its Ur-version's failure to
allude not only to Rome itself, but to Jacob's brother Esau as the Roman
archetype, would seem rule out any date during the period of Roman as-
cendancy.36

• How the Ladder of Jacob Was Composed

We are now in a position to try to retrace the steps that led up to the
composition of the Ladder of Jacob as we know it. Faced with the question
of the significance of Jacob's dream, and in particular his frightened reac-
tion to it, an ancient author came up with the staircase of history idea: what
Jacob saw was the succession of outside kings under whom his descendants
would be forced to live. It seems that this basic notion—that Jacob was
being shown in the vision of the ladder something of his decendants' future
history—first developed out of the words spoken to Jacob after the vision
itself, in particular those of Gen 28:14-15, where God mentions Jacob's
"offspring" and then assures him that he will be returned "to this land."
With a little imagination, this might well sound as if Jacob had been shown
his descendants' future exile(s) and return(s)—not only the coming exile of
Jacob's sons to Egypt, but the future Babylonian exile as well, indeed, all
the ups and downs of future Jewish history. Such was the frightening glimpse
that Jacob's vision afforded. (The whole idea that this dream was a vision
of the future was probably also influenced by the revelation to Abraham in
Gen 15:12-17, which specifically mentioned the coming exile to Egypt;

35
This is not the only reason why I feel compelled to reject Rubinkiewicz's proposal
(L'Apolcalypse d'Abraham. 73-74) that the twenty-four faces correspond to the twelve Roman
emperors from Pompey to Vespasian, each represented on his step along with a bust of the
goddess Rome. Surely this is midrash on midrash. If the text had intended to represent these
twelve, then it would simply have said that there were twelve steps each corresponding to a
different ruler (and not to a different "period"), or would have said that each step had a single
face on it. As for the reference to the kingdoms of Edom and Moab in Lad. Jac. 6.15. it is to
be understood in the light of the tradition documented by Cresson ("The Condemning of
Edom" 125-48). Edom here is certainly not Rome—for if so. who is Moab 0 —but both nations
symbolize Israel's eschatological enemy whose destruction will, according to the oracles of
Obadiah, Jeremiah 48-49. and Isaiah 34 and 63. mark the dawn of the new age (just as will
the destruction of the Leviathan and the "lawless Falkon" in Lad Jac 6.13)
36
The passing reference to Esau m Lad. Jac. 4.4 reinforces this conclusion: surely here was
an opportunity to say "Esau the wicked," "my cruel brother," that is. something that would
certainly have imposed itself after Rome had begun to rule in Jerusalem. Yet there is no such
reference here.
 J A M E S KUGEL 225

Abraham's vision was likewise elaborated by early exegetes to include other,

later, events in Jewish history.) 37
In any case, this author had to create a frightening staircase and, prin­
cipally for that purpose, came up with the notion of the kings' faces eerily
adorning each of the twelve steps. The original textual feature that led to
these heads adorning the ladder is actually found in Gen 28:12, which
speaks of a ladder whose "top" reached to the heavens. The word " t o p " —
σκι in Hebrew, the same word as "head"—generated the idea that the
ladder in fact had a human head at its summit. So it is in the Ladder of
Jacob:
He had a dream. And behold, a ladder was fixed on the earth, whose
"head" [that is, am] reached to heaven. And the "head" of the ladder
was the face of a man, carved out of fire.38
In the Ladder of Jacob, this one head is then supplemented by the twenty-
four kingly heads, making the whole thing an extremely fearsome appari-
37
Indeed, some of these elaborations attribute to Abraham, as to Jacob, a vision of the four
empires. The justification for this association is the mention of the fourth generation in Gen
15:16. For this fourth generation seemed somewhat at odds with the four hundred years men­
tioned by God a few verses earlier as the time of Israelite enslavement in Egypt in Gen 15:13;
it seemed likely to ancient interpreters that the fourth generation referred to something else.
Since the book of Daniel had foreseen the succession of four empires that will hold sway over
Israel, it seemed possible to some that the fourth generation mentioned here might be con­
nected with the four empires. Perhaps what God had shown Abraham was the rise and fall of
those four empires, after which the the fourth generation (that is, the fourth generation of Jews
to survive the fall of a foreign empire) would "return" once more to be sovereign in their
homeland. This motif appears in the Apoc Abr 27.3, 28.4-5: "[Abraham says:] And behold,
I saw four ascents coming upon them [my progeny], and how they [the nations] burned the
Temple with fire and carried off the sacred things that were there. . . And [God] showed me
the multitude of His people and said to me [Abraham], 'Because of this, my anger will be
[kindled] against them through the four ascents that you saw, and through these will come
retribution for their deeds/" The same motif appears in Targ. Neofiti Gen 15:12: "And the sun
was about to set and a sweet sleep fell on Abraham and behold, Abraham saw four empires
rising against him, 'fear.' that is Babylon, 'darkness,* that is Media, 'great,' that is Greece,
"falling,' that is [evil Rome, which is destined to fall and rise no more]." This motif likewise
appears in a tannaitic source: "He [also] showed him [Abraham] the four kingdoms that were
destined to enslave his descendants, as it says, "And the sun was about to set and a deep sleep
fell on Abraham, and behold, fear and great darkness falling upon him' [Gen 15:12]. 'Fear' is
the kingdom of Babylon, 'darkness' is the kingdom of Media, 'great' is the kingdom of Greece,
'falling' is the fourth kingdom, wicked Rome" {Mekhilta de-Rabbi Yishma^el Bahodesh 9).
Note further 4 Ezra 3:14, Gen. R 44.15, and Philo Quis rerum divinarum haeres 249-306.
n
Lad. Jac. 1.3-4; see my discussion in In Potiphar's House, 117-19. The idea that the
angels were not ascending and descending upon it (that is, the ladder) but upon him (that is,
Jacob) is reflected in various rabbinic texts as well as John 1:52: "And he said, 'Truly, truly
I say to you, you will see the heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending
upon the son of man." See again my In Potiphar's House, 112-15.
226 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW

tion—certainly one that justified Jacob's frightened reaction in the biblical

narrative. Exactly what the significance of the numbers twelve and twenty-
four might be in the Ladder of Jacob is not clear. As I have suggested,
twelve elsewhere appears to be a conventional figure in visions of the
future (rather than representing a single tradition shared by the various
texts in which it appears); the twelve here may thus simply be derived from
the other twelves commonly found in time calculation, the twelve months
of the year or the twelve hours in a day.39 In any event, the division of
future time into specific periods surely represents the common Second
Temple attempt to make sense of the "messiness of history" by asserting
that there is some order to it after all—as with the seven groups of seventy
in Dan 9:24 or the chronological jubilees in the Book of Jubilees.
The Staircase of History motif may well have existed long before it
acquired the particular form in which it appears in the Ladder of Jacob. In
any case, its basic idea—that Jacob saw a frightening vision of steps rep-
resenting the future periods of domination that would have to be surmounted
by his descendents—probably circulated orally, and in varying forms, both
before and after the Ladder of Jacob was written. At a certain point this
exegetical motif acquired a new embellishment, the addition of Jer 30:10
in the sense of "Don't worry and don't go down." Now Jacob would not
only contemplate the frightening spectacle of future ages, but God would
order him to climb the ladder and so, symbolically, inaugurate the Jewish
people's journey through history. Jacob would hesitate, only to be reassured
by Jeremiah's words. In this form (or a slightly modified one, as we have
seen) the motif survived into rabbinic writings; the punchline was too pre-
cious to give up even after the original framework, the Staircase of History,
had been abandoned.
And abandoned it was; once the idea of the Four Guardian Angels came
along, this new motif was recognized as better midrash, and the first notion
all but disappeared. That this new motif is transmitted in rabbinic texts in
the name of a late third-century amora may or may not be significant; the
motif itself might well go back to the second or even first century. What
is surely significant, however, is that the interpolator of this motif into the
Ladder of Jacob likewise felt constrained to add something about the Roman
Empire, to which he found no allusion in the original text. A text centering
on Jacob which made no mention of his wicked brother, ancestor of Rome,
simply seemed defective to this interpolator, and so the anti-Esau material
was inserted alongside.

39
The twelve months are, of course, an extremely ancient notion: while there is no biblical
evidence of the twelve hours, this idea is well attested in tannaitic sources as well as in a few
earlier. Second Temple texts. See above, note 29.
 JAMES K U G E L 227

I have spoken of the original form of the Ladder of Jacob as having

existed as written text and not merely as an orally transmitted motif; that
is, the four ascents section of the Ladder of Jacob was inserted into a
preexisting document. The interpolator failed to mention the four ascents in
the initial description of the dream—something that most probably would
not have happened if we were dealing with a single author bent on harmo-
nizing two separate motifs with which he was familiar. Moreover, the whole
section dealing with these ascents and, specifically, the Roman empire {Lad.
Jac. 5:7-16) can be removed without disturbing the flow of the narrative;
here is a sure sign of interpolation into an existing text rather than a mere
blending or confusion of ideas in the mind of a single author.
Nor was this the last interpolation to be made in the Ladder of Jacob.
As many scholars have noted, it was a still later author, a Christian, who
added chapter 7 to this earlier, Jewish work. However, if one peels away
all these later layers, one is left with a document that arguably belongs
among the earliest exegetical works of the "rewritten Bible" genre. In the
present article I have tried to account for its basic form, but many other
items—in particular, the mysterious names that appear in various places in
this work, as well as one or two historical references—await further clari-
fication.
 ^ s
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