We make a big deal in America about climbing the ladder of success. There are those who are willing to step over and on others to achieve the top of the ladder. But is this the ladder with which any of us should be concerned? There is a ladder of far greater importance and your place on it may mean eternal life or death. In Genesis 28 is the story of Jacob’s Ladder. Jacob comes to a “certain place” (ba’makom) and lays his head down on a stone and sleeps. He had a dream of a ladder reaching to heaven, and the angels of ADONAI (the LORD) were going up and down on it. Suddenly ADONAI was standing beside him, He said, “I am ADONAI, the God of Abraham, your (grand) father and the God of Isaac” (v 13).
ADONAI repeats the same promise made to both Abraham and Isaac, that the land he was laying on would be given to him and his descendants as numerous as the grains of dust on the earth. Some Jewish commentators say the ladder signifies the encounter between God and the human soul known as prayer. In Jewish tradtion, there are three daily prayers, the morning prayer, shaharit, attributed to Abraham when he stood in the morning looking out (praying) toward Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19:27); the afternoon prayer, minha, attributed to Isaac as he prayed in the field awaiting Rebecca’s arrival (Genesis 24:62-64); and the evening prayer, ma’ariv, representing Jacob’s encounter with God in the night, when God speaks to him and he sees the great vision of the ladder and the angels of God (Genesis 28:12).
Reflected in each of these examples is an element of our spiritual lives. Abraham represents the morning: our journey of faith towards God, leaving the world behind. Isaac the afternoon: our ongoing relationship and conversation with God through our lives. And Jacob: our unexpected encounter with God in the dark night of our fears. Like Jacob, we feel we are waking from a deep sleep realizing that, “Truly, ADONAI is in this place (ba’makom), “and I didn’t know it!” (28:16b). The Hebrew word makom (place) comes from the Hebrew root kum, meaning “to arise,” and is considered a Name for God in Jewish Tradition. The Jewish sages interpret this “place” to be Mount Moriah—the mountain on which the Akedah (binding of Isaac), occurred.
This interpretation is based on the language in Genesis 22:4: “On the third day, Abraham raised his eyes and saw the place (ba’makom) in the distance.” (Sanhedrin 95b, Chilun 91b). Jacob’s dream of the ladder then, could be interpreted as the coming glory of the risen Messiah— the Promised Seed through Whom all of the people of the earth would be blessed. Yeshua says of Himself in John 1:51b, “Yes indeed! I tell you that you will see heaven opened and the angels of God going up and down on the Son of Man!” And in John 14:6, “Yeshua said, “I Am the Way— the Truth and the Life; no one comes to the Father except through me.” It is through heaven’s “Ladder” that people come to God, the greatest intercessory prayer of all. Jacob’s Ladder is a picture of our ba’makom, or place, where we can talk to and encounter God.
