Jacob's Dream of the Ladder: Philo's Four Interpretations of the Ladder
Philo of Alexandria, writing in the decades immediately before Josephus, offered an elaborate interpretation of Jacob’s dream, in which he proposes various ways to understand the image of the ladder or stairway. In the first volume of his work On Dreams, Philo gives four interpretations of the ladder and the movement of the angels, all of which, he believes, are simultaneously true.
The first interpretation is that the ladder represents the element “air,” which exists between heaven and earth. Souls can move up through the air into the realm of spirit in order to free themselves from the physical constraints of the material body or they can move down from the realm of spirit into the physical realm if they desire to become manifest again on earth.
The first interpretation is that the ladder represents the element “air,” which exists between heaven and earth. Souls can move up through the air into the realm of spirit in order to free themselves from the physical constraints of the material body or they can move down from the realm of spirit into the physical realm if they desire to become manifest again on earth.
In the second interpretation, the ladder itself is a symbol of the human soul. The movement upwards represents the ability of God to elevate the human soul toward the divine realm. The downward movement represents the way representatives of God accompany human souls (out of compassion) as they fall back down to earth in order to help lift them up once more. Life is a constant process of ascending and falling back.
The third interpretation Philo offers is a metaphor and has to do with the dynamics of the believer. The believer is caught in an ongoing struggle between righteousness and sinfulness – and this struggle, sometimes moving toward God, sometimes moving away from God -- is visualized in the ladder and the movement of the beings up and down it. Only at the end of days when God comes as judge, according to Philo, does this process stop. Those who are high enough on the ladder, he suggests, will be saved. Those on the lower rungs, destroyed.
The final interpretation Philo offers is a more mundane one – human affairs, he argues, are by their very nature highly variable and subject to swift shifts of fortune. The ups and downs on the ladder, therefore, relate to the material changes in the human realm – simple men becoming powerful leaders, powerful leaders are reduced to slaves, the poor become rich, the rich poor and so on. The dream vision indicated that even these seemingly senseless results of fortune are within the divine plan.
For Philo, the core of the dream image is the appearance of God beside the ladder. Note that like Josephus, Philo emphasizes the elevated nature of God in the scene. He writes:
But the dream also represented the archangel, namely the Lord himself,
firmly planted on the ladder; for we must imagine that the living God
stands above all things, like the charioteer of a chariot, or the pilot
of a ship; that is, above bodies, and above souls, and above all
creatures, and above the earth, and above the air, and above the heaven,
and above all the powers of the outward senses, and above the invisible
natures, in short, above all things whether visible or invisible; for
having made the whole to depend upon himself, he governs it and all the
vastness of nature. (1.158) But let no one who hears that he was firmly
planted thus suppose that any thing at all assists God, so as to enable
him to stand firmly, but let him rather consider this fact that what is
here indicated is equivalent to the assertion that the firmest position,
and the bulwark, and the strength, and the steadiness of everything is
the immoveable God, who stamps the character of immobility on whatever
he pleases; for, in consequence of his supporting and consolidating
things, those which he does combine remain firm and indestructible.
According to Philo, the four-fold meaning of the ladder-scene supports the connection between the vision and God’s message, for the vision is a revelation about how the human and divine worlds connect, while the message reveals God’s commitment to Jacob and his descendents, foremost by making a territorial promise and linking territorial sovereignty with faith.
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