Hebrew Astronomy: Part 5 The Ladder Between the Heavens and Earth

In Genesis 28, the patriarch Jacob has a dream. He sees angels climbing and descending a stairway which reaches from the ground to the ‘top of Heaven’.

Jacob names the place where he has this dream as Bethel, or the House of God. He says it is the ‘gate of Heaven’.

Genesis 28 v 10-17

Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Harran. When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep. He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it…

When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” He was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.”

Jacob’s Ladder

This event is commonly known as Jacob’s Ladder. Theologically, it shows God sending out His angels. Through this dream, God gives Jacob a promise, similar to the one He gives to his grandfather.

The early Church used this story to describe how someone ascends to God through Christ, the ladder. Though I wonder if there is an astronomical link as well.

Gate of Heaven

It is likely the dream Jacob had was not about a ladder, but a stairway climbing up a ziggurat.

A ziggurat was a large stone structure which had one or more stairways leading to a summit. On the top, a temple was built to provide a house for a god. Only priests and temple guards were allowed to ascend the ziggurat.

This dream therefore suggests Creation is a ziggurat. With God’s throne at the top. Humans live the at ground level, while the angels act as priests and guardians. They exist and move between the upper levels.

Astronomical Stairway

The Earth is in the Milky Way. When we look up at a night sky, which is unpolluted by artificial light, we can see it. It contains around 100 billion stars.

If we take Jacob’s Ladder, we can map it onto the Milky Way. When we look at the night sky, we could imagine it as a representation of the stairway up to Heaven. It feels like it leads to the top of the night sky.

And from the view of someone on the Earth, the Milky Way appears to stretch from one horizon to the another. Like it says in the Genesis text,

a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven

I am not saying that the angels use the Milky Way to climb down and rise back to Heaven. But it is a metaphorical way the Hebrews may have conceptualised how the Heavens and Earth were connected to make a single Creation.

Ancient Cultures and the Milky Way

Many ancient cultures had their own idea of what the Milky Way represented.

For example, the Egyptians thought it was a pool of cow’s milk, the Greeks and Romans thought it was breast milk and the Mesopotamians thought it was the tail of the dragon who was cut up and used to build the Creation.

Other stories from around the World give many varied accounts and they seem unique to each culture.

It is believed the Israelites had their own understanding. In Daniel 7 v 9-10:

As I looked, thrones were set in place, and the Ancient of Days took his seat.

His clothing was as white as snow; the hair of his head was white like wool. His throne was flaming with fire, and its wheels were all ablaze. A river of fire was flowing.

Some theologians think that the ‘River of Fire’ was a description of the Milky Way. If God’s throne was on top of the sky, the Milky Way would look like a stream of stars coming from it.

Shooting Stars

Shooting stars are meteorites which glow brightly or even burn up in Earth’s atmosphere. They look like stars streaking across the sky.

As the lights in the sky metaphorically represent angels, then shooting stars could equate to their movement up and down the stairway, which connects the Heavens and the Earth.

In the next post, we are going to look at Joseph’s dream and it’s connection with astronomy.