Jacob’s Ladder

The Roman Catechism, issued after the Council of Trent for parish priests, recounts the vision within the history of the promise made to the patriarchs. God renews with Jacob the covenant made with Abraham. It bears on the literal sense: the ladder is one stage in the promise that leads to Christ.

Not long after, to preserve the memory of this promise, God renewed the same covenant with Jacob, the grandson of Abraham. When in a vision Jacob saw a ladder standing on earth, and its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God ascending and descending by it, as the Scriptures testify, he also heard the Lord, who was leaning on the ladder, say to him: I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac; the land, wherein thou sleepest, I will give to thee and to thy seed.

Lapide, citing Theodoret and others, takes the ladder first as a figure of divine providence and government, with God as first cause and first mover. His note gives the literal sense of the vision in the idiom of the schools.

I say therefore with Theodoret, Aben Ezra, the Hebrews and Pererius, that this ladder is, first, a symbol of divine providence and divine government; whence God leans on the ladder as the first cause and first mover of all, He bids all things go, and himself abiding steady gives all to be moved.

Lapide continues with the ladder as providence: the angels are ministers and executors of God’s providence, and the two sides of the ladder are sweetness and strength. His note bears on the literal sense of the ladder reaching from heaven to earth.

Second, the angels ascend and descend as ministers and executors of God’s providence, to whom God distributes severally each one’s duties. Third, this ladder reaches from heaven to earth, because God governs lower things by higher, men by angels. Fourth, the two sides of the ladder are sweetness and strength; for God, governing the world by His wisdom, reacheth from end to end mightily, and ordereth all things sweetly.

Lapide gives the reading of Diodorus of Tarsus, a Father of the Antiochene school, that the descending and ascending angels signify Jacob’s departure and his return. It bears on the literal sense of the vision as a consolation to a fugitive.

Second, more properly and particularly, Diodorus of Tarsus teaches that by the angels descending is signified Jacob’s happy departure into Mesopotamia, but by those ascending his happy return into Palestine. For God willed by this vision to console and encourage Jacob, who, leaving his parents, and hateful to his brother, a fugitive, exile and solitary, sad and anxious, lay here on hard rock, as if to say: Be not sad, fear not, O Jacob. I know three things weigh on and distress thee: country, parents, brother; against these three I set what may console thee, the ladder, God, the angels.

Cornelius a Lapide, the Jesuit commentator, treats in his commentary on Genesis where God stood in the vision. He holds, with Josephus and Cajetan, that the speaking was imaginary or intellectual and not sensible. His note bears on the literal sense of how God could speak to Jacob from heaven.

But Josephus and Cajetan more fittingly hold that God stood in heaven, and leaned on the topmost steps of the ladder. For to God by this ladder angels ascended, to bring His commands to earth; nor is it wonderful that God spoke from heaven to Jacob on earth, because this speaking, like the vision, was not sensible, but imaginary or intellectual, which can occur between the most distant persons, and often occurs, not only from God, but also from angels.

Lapide, in his commentary on Genesis, enumerates six blessings promised to Jacob in the vision. His note bears on the literal sense of the promise at the close of the vision, made to a man sorrowful and afflicted.

Note here the six great blessings which God promises to His servant Jacob, sorrowful and afflicted. The first is, “The land whereon thou sleepest, to thee will I give it”; the second, “Thy seed shall be as innumerable as the dust of the earth”; the third, “In thee shall all the tribes of the earth be blessed”; the fourth, “I will be thy keeper whithersoever thou goest”; the fifth, “I will bring thee back into this land”; the sixth, “Neither will I leave thee, till I have accomplished all that I have said.”

Lapide comments on the pillar that Jacob set up on waking, here called a “title”, a memorial of the vision. His note gives the plain literal sense of the action.

Verse 18. HE SET IT UP FOR A TITLE—Jacob raised up that stone, or rock, on which he had slept, and set it upright, to be a memorial of the vision and apparition granted to him.

Lapide, following Abulensis, takes the oil poured on the stone as a sign of consecration, neither a libation nor a sacrifice. His note bears on the literal sense of the anointing: the stone and place are set apart for God.

POURING OIL UPON THE TOP OF IT—as a sign of consecration, says Abulensis, because things consecrated are anointed with oil. This pouring of oil was therefore not a libation or a sacrifice; for nowhere do we read that oil alone was poured out or sacrificed to God. And so Jacob, waking in the morning after this divine vision, brought oil, says Abulensis, from the neighbouring city of Luza, afterwards called by him Bethel, and with it anointed the stone on which, as he slept, so wondrous a vision had befallen him, and by anointing it consecrated it, as it were, to God.

Lapide records from Jerome’s Hebrew Questions that the city once called Luz was named Bethel, the house of God, by Jacob. His note bears on the literal sense of the naming of the place, which the later senses of the passage take up.

The city which was before called Luz, or Luza, from the abundance of nuts or almonds (for luz in Hebrew signifies a nut), as St. Jerome says in his Hebrew Questions, was called Bethel by Jacob, that is, the house of God, because, sleeping near it, he had seen God leaning upon the ladder.

Lapide, with Cajetan, explains the vow of Jacob as a promise of a special worship of God, with tithes and the dedication of the place. His note bears on the literal sense of the last verses: the vow answers the promise God had made.

The Lord had already been God to Jacob from his birth, and in verse 1. The sense therefore is, as if he said: If God shall give me food and clothing, and a happy return to my country, I vow and promise to Him that henceforth I will worship Him with a special and greater worship than I have worshipped God before, namely, that I will give Him tithes, both for sacrifices and for any other worship of Him; and that after my return from Mesopotamia I will dedicate this place to God as an altar and temple or chapel: for thus Jacob himself explains this vow of his in what follows, as Cajetan rightly observes.

The Haydock Bible carries here a brief annotation on the ladder and angels. It bears on the literal sense: the mysterious vision comforts the patriarch with the assurance of God’s particular protection.

Ver. 12. A ladder and angels, &c. This mysterious vision tended to comfort the patriarch, with the assurance that God would now take him under his more particular protection, when he was destitute of human aid. (Haydock)

The Haydock Bible, citing Calmet, annotates Jacob’s words on waking, “Indeed the Lord is in this place”. It bears on the literal sense: Jacob supposes the place to have been consecrated to the true God, perhaps by Abraham.

Jacob was not ignorant that God fills all places. But he thought that he would not manifest himself thus in a land given to idolatry. He begins to suspect that the place had been formerly consecrated to the worship of the true God, (Calmet) as it probably had by Abraham, who dwelt near Bethel, (Chap. xii. 8, ) and built an altar on Mount Moria, chap. xxii. 14.

The Haydock Bible, citing Worthington, annotates Jacob’s vow. It bears on the literal sense of the vow as a promise of peculiar veneration by an altar and by tithes.

A vow; not simply that he would acknowledge one God, but that he would testify his peculiar veneration for him, by erecting an altar, at his return, and by giving voluntarily the tithes of all he had. (Worthington) (Chap. xxxv. 7.) How he gave these tithes, we do not read. Perhaps he might hereby engage his posterity to give them under the law of Moses.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church lists the angels’ part in the history of salvation, from the closing of paradise to the annunciation by Gabriel. It bears on the literal sense: the angels of the ladder are among the messengers who serve the accomplishment of the divine plan.

Angels have been present since creation and throughout the history of salvation, announcing this salvation from afar or near and serving the accomplishment of the divine plan: they closed the earthly paradise; protected Lot; saved Hagar and her child; stayed Abraham's hand; communicated the law by their ministry; led the People of God; announced births and callings; and assisted the prophets, just to cite a few examples. Finally, the angel Gabriel announced the birth of the Precursor and that of Jesus himself.