Jacob’s Dream: Why Do God’s Angels Ascend and Descend?

See my book: Yitzhak (Itzik) Peleg, Going up and Going Down: A Key to Interpreting Jacob's Dream (Genesis 28:10-22), LHBOTS 609 (London: Bloomsbury /T&T Clark International Press, 2015).

 For more on this concept, see Gary Rendsburg, “Hapax Legomena: Ten Biblical Examples,” TheTorah (2023).

 See, Elizabeth Stone, “Ziggurat,” in: Oxford Encyclopedia of the Near East, ed. Eric M. Meyers (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 5.390–391:

Like modern skyscrapers or medieval cathedrals, Mesopotamian ziggurats served as the visual foci of Mesopotamian cities, providing a symbol of the power of the city and its god visible for miles around… a true ziggurat a stepped pyramid… with a temple on top…

Biblical Hebrew also has nunation, the addition of a paragogic nun.

 More about this term, see, Yitzhak (Itzik) Peleg, “מהו ה'סלם' שראה יעקב בחלומו?” [What Is the Sullam Jacob Saw in His Dream?], Shnaton: An Annual for Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies vol. 14, (2004): 7–26.

See Martin Buber, The Way of the Bible (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1964), 293, gives lekh lekhah, "go-you-forth" (Fox), as an example, found only twice in the Torah (Gen 12:1; 22:2), [Hebrew].

Yair Zakovitch, “סיפור בבואה: מימד נוסף להערכת הדמויות בסיפור המקראי” [Reflection Stories: Another Dimension of the Evaluation of Characters in Biblical Narrative], Tarbiz 54 (1985): 165-176.

See Alexander Rofé, מלאכים במקרא: האמונה במלאכים בישראל לאור מסורות מקראיות [Angels in the Bible, Israelite belief in Angels as Evidenced by the Bible Traditions] (Carmel, Jerusalem, 2012), 77, who writes: “In their characteristics and nature, the angels of Beth-el and Mahanaim lack the typical features of angels.”

Fidler Ruth,  חלום ההתגלות במקרא: מקומו בתולדות הספרות המקראית ובתולדות אמונת ישראל [The Dream Theophany in the Bible, Its Place in the History of Biblical Literature and Israelite Religion] Ph.D. Dissertation (Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1996), 172.

 I would like to show that if the angels of God symbolize the Patriarchs and the סֻלָּם sullam [ladder] the way between the Promised Land and exile, Abraham having first ascended to the land and then gone down into Egypt (Gen 12:10). Therefore the "angels of God" in Jacob's dream first ascend then descend. What was a "problem" for commentators becomes its "solution".

The Hebrew text of the commentators are taken from AlHaTorah.com.

The English for Rashbam is based on Martin Lockshin, Rabbi Samuel Ben Meir's Commentary on Genesis (New York: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1989), as found on AlHaTorah.com, with some adjustments.

 More about using this linguistic device see, Yairah Amit, Revealed and Hidden in the Bible: Hidden Polemics in Biblical Narrative (Tel Aviv: Yediot Aharonot, 2003), 105. See also my book, Peleg, Going up, 107 [n. 197].

 Some source critical scholars see this account as an example of a spliced story, built from two separate accounts from different documents. They attribute the vision in the dream to source E (v. 12) and God's verbal message (vv. 13-15) in a direct revelation — not a dream — to the J source. See discussion in Baruch J. Schwartz, “Did Jacob Meet YHWH by the Stairway to Heaven in Beth-El?” TheTorah (2018); David Ben-Gad HaCohen, “Where Do Isaac and Rebecca Live When Jacob Leaves Home?” TheTorah (2019). My reading instead focuses on the final form of the text.

This view runs contrary to accepted research as most scholars (especially of source criticism) stress the difference between the two (the visual and the verbal).

See also George Savran, “He Came Upon the Place,” Biblical Theophany Narratives, (Tel Aviv, 2010), 43. The dream also serves an etiological functioning, a hieros logos (“sacred tale”), explaining how Bethel was chosen as a place of worship. See, e.g., discussion in Schwartz, “Did Jacob Meet YHWH by the Stairway to Heaven in Beth-El?”

In rabbinic thinking, each nation has their own angel in charge of them. For a detailed discussion of angels in rabbinic thinking, see Mika Ahuvia, On My Right Michael, On My Left Gabriel: Angels in Ancient Jewish Culture (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2021).

For instance, Tanhuma states: "The angels represent Babylon, Media, Greece and Edom." See also the commentary of R. Obadiah Sforno (ad loc). 

Edward L. Greenstein , “The Retelling of the Flood Story in the Gilgamesh Epic,” in Hesed Ve-Emet: Studies in Honor of Ernest S. Fredrichs, ed. Jodi Magnes and Seymour Gitin (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1998), 197–204. See also, Jean-Pierre Sonnet, “The Torah’s Use of Mise en Abyme,” TheTorah (2022). For more on mise en abyme in general, see: Lucien Dällenbach, The Mirror in The Text, trans. Jeremy Whiteley with Emma Hughes (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1989), 197–204; trans. of Le récit spéculaire: essai sur la mise en abyme (Paris: Seuil, 1977).

Even today, immigrants to Israel are called in Hebrew ʿolim and emigrants are termed yordim.

Though Egypt is south of Israel, that does not mean it is “down” in the ancient conception of directions. See David Ben-Gad HaCohen, “Ancient Mapping: Israelite Versus Egyptian Orientation,” TheTorah (2017). Rhetorically, leaving Canaan in any direction would be yeridah.

 See “Chapter 4: Orientational Metaphors” in George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), 22–28. For biblical usages, see Nechama Leibowitz, עיונים חדשים בספר שמות ]Studies in Exodus] (Jerusalem: Bialik, 1973), 209.

More about Jonah, See Yitzhak (Itzik) Peleg, “’Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown’ (Jonah 3:4) Two Readings of the Book of Jonah,” God's Word for Our World, Biblical Studies in Honor of Simon John De Vries (London: T&T Clark International, 2004) 262–274.