Genesis chapter 28 presents the story of “Jacob’s Ladder” and, no, it’s not a fancy but antique form of exercise equipment. It should be noticed that Jacob’s experience was not a vision or out-of-body experience like some of the prophets or even the apostle John had. Instead, this appeared to Jacob in a dream, so many of the features are figurative, or representative, and not literal representations of reality. Think of King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream about the statue made of different layers of metal; Daniel explained the metals represented different kingdoms. Unfortunately, Daniel isn’t around to help us understand this dream.

This story is one of the most famous human encounters with God in the Bible, and the story is told in Genesis 28.10-22:

Then Jacob fell asleep in that place 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 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. Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west, east, north, and south. All the families of the earth will pronounce blessings on one another using your name and that of your descendants. I am with you! I will protect you wherever you go and will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I promised you!”

Then Jacob woke up.

According to materials by the Israel Institute for Biblical Studies, there have been many interpretations of Jacob’s dream in Jewish tradition. One may be found in Midrash Tanhuma where the ladder is taken to symbolize the ladder of history. The ascent of one nation on it implies the descent of its predecessor. The ladder does not stretch on into eternity, rather the end can be seen and the Lord stands at its top as the architect of history. God’s presence assures us that the pride and despotism of nation’s leaders will one day be brought low, until Elohim’s sovereignty is given its proper recognition.

Another interesting Jewish interpretation, though suspect in accuracy and relevance, is based on Gematria. Rather than trying to interpret the elements of the dream, This is an interpretive method that calculates the numerical value of a word and then matches it with another word with the same value. The numerical value of the word ladder in Hebrew- Sulam - סֻלָּם is 130 ( ס=60, ל=30 ם=40). Amazingly, 130 is also the value of the word סִינַי Sinai (ס=60, י=10, נ=50 י=10). Jacob’s ladder might therefore represent the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai. This is another crucial moment in history when Heaven and Earth met.

At Think-Biblically.com we first try to allow context to explain difficult elements of any given passage. This is a case in which that is possible. By looking at the Hebrew we see a couple word plays being used that can assist us in interpreting the dream as Jacob understood it. The first of these word-plays is with the term “head”. First, Jacob’s head is laid upon a stone (which he used for a pillow), then the same word is used for the top of the ladder and again for the top of the stone after it is stood on end as a pillar. This also occurs with the Hebrew word for stood, or standing; the Lord “stood” at the top of the ladder, then the stone was stood up as a memorial. These word-plays indicate that Jacob’s memorial was intended to represent the dream. So what did the memorial and the ladder represent together? A timeline of history. The bottom rung represents Abraham, then Isaac on the second, leading to Jacob on the third. We do not know how many rungs were on the ladder but we do know that there is a time when the progression of the covenant God made with Abraham and the descendants will end. When it ends, it ends with God, the one who made the covenant promise to Abraham in the beginning and will keep the promise until the end. It is all God’s work, it is God walking with these characters through history until the promise is fulfilled. God is the beginning and the end of the ladder, representing the covenant promise.