¹ This work is found in an eclectic translation by Horace Lunt (based on published texts and several unpublished manuscripts) in OTP 2. 401–12; a translation by A. Pennington of two published recensions of the Ladder of Jacob is found in Sparks, Hedley F. D., ed., The Apocryphal Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon, 1984) 453–63Google Scholar. Previously, a translation of the text had appeared in James, Montague Rhodes, ed., The Lost Apocrypha of the Old Testament (New York: Macmillan, 1920) 96–103Google Scholar, based on Bonwetsch, Gottlieb N., “Die apokryphe ‘Leiter Jakobs,’” Nachrichten von der Königlichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen 1 (1900) 76–87Google Scholar. I am most grateful to Professor Lunt, my teacher in Slavonic, for having given me copies of the manuscripts used in the preparation of his translation. That translation has guided me throughout, and if I have deviated from it slightly here and there, these deviations are such as not to upset the talmudic axiom, “If Rabbi [Judah] did not teach it, from whom did R. Ḥiyya learn it?” (b. 'Erubin 92a).

² The connection between this text and rabbinic exegetical traditions are, in my opinion, striking. These do not preclude an original Greek composition for the Ladder of Jacob, but make that possibility somewhat less likely. Moreover, the Hebrew words that survive in transcription in the text, along with other elements to be discussed below, likewise point in the direction of a Hebrew or Aramaic original. See also my brief discussion of this text in In Potiphar's House (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1990) 117–19.

³ Lad. Jac. 1.1–6.

⁴ bezakonъnь (ἄνομος); the Greek word was frequently used by Hellenistic Jewish and Christian writers to describe foreign nations or individuals. In this respect, indeed, it was used in a way quite similar to ἄθεος (“godless”) in the same literature; see BAG, s.v. ἄνομος. Hence, Lunt's translation of bezakonъnь, as ungodly, therefore, is the functional equivalent of ἄνομος. In the Septuagint, ἄνομος often translates the Hebrewעטר.

⁵ In place of Lunt's translation “interrogated,” we should probably read “tested” (Pennington [Sparks, Apocryphal Old Testament, 461] uses “tried”). The Salvonic istezati carries both meanings, and in context “tested” seems to make better sense. Tests in Second Temple writings were ordeals, long-term tribulations to be endured. See Licht, Jacob, Testing in the Hebrew Scriptures and Post-Biblical Judaism (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1973) 71–76Google Scholar [Hebrew]. Alternately, this Slavonic root may mean something like “afflict” or “torture” (ταπεινόω,ח) as does its modern Russian cognate, истязать.

⁶ The word translated by Lunt as “against” here is indeed Slavonic na (meaning, if followed by the accusative, “onto” or “against”) but the sense cannot be that these kings will rise up against Israel's iniquity but because of it. That is, God will allow these wicked kings to arise because of the sins of his people. (So similarly, two sentences later, the text explains that this site will become deserted “in the [divine] anger against your children”). Hebrew and Aramaic לע can mean both “against” and “because of,” and this is probably the source of the error. More remotely, the original might have had דנ;נ, (“corresponding to”) a preposition that also means “against,” but in that case one would have expected the Slavonic to read protivъ and not na.

⁷ Lad. Jac. 5.1–10; I have duplicated Lunt's rendering of this phrase; for another possibility, see below, n. 9. On both passages see also Lunt's translation and notes, OTP 2. 407, 409.

⁸ Philo Som. 1.150, 153–56.

⁹ A number of manuscripts read sxody, “descents”; Lunt (OTP 2. 409 n. d) posits vъsxody, “ascents.” Pennington (Sparks, Apocryphal Old Testament, 458, 461) translates “generations” but notes that the text literally reads “descents.”

¹⁰ Dan 3:36–40; 7:3–27.

¹¹ Rome is the fourth empire in 4 Ezra 12:11–36 and 2 Bar 39:2–6; see Stone, Michael, Fourth Ezra (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990) 361, 366Google Scholar. Hadas-Lebel, Mireille, “Rome, quatrième empire,” in Caquot, A., et al. , eds., Hellenica et Judaica (Louvain: Peeters, 1986) 297–312Google Scholar. Compare the four periods spoken of in 1 Enoch 89–90; also 4Q552 and 4Q553 (“Four Kingdoms ar”). On this theme in general see Flusser, David, “The Four Empires in the Fourth Sibyl and in the Book of Daniel,” in idem, Judaism and the Origins of Christianity (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1988) 317–44Google Scholar and Lucas, E. C., “The Origin of Daniel's Four Empires Scheme Reexamined,” Tyndale Bulletin 39 (1988) 185–202Google Scholar. Note also Ginzberg, Louis, The Legends of the Jews (7 vols.; Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1909–38) 5. 223Google Scholar.

¹² This notion of angelic guardians of different kingdoms is reflected in the book of Daniel (for example, Dan 10:13, 20).

¹³ My emphasis. Versions of this midrash appear in Exod. R. 32.7, Lev. R. 29.2, Tanḥuma vayyeşe 2; Pesiqta de-Rav Kahana 23 (ed. Bernard Mandelbaum; 2 vols.; Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1962) 334; Midrash ha-Gadol Gen. 28:12; Midrash Ps. 78.6; Yalqut Shim'oni vayyeşe 121; Yalqut Shim'oni Jeremiah 312; see Mann, Jacob, The Bible as Read and Preached in the Old Synagogue (New York: Ktav, 1971) 171 [Hebrew section]Google Scholar.

¹⁴ See my In Potiphar's House, 117–18.

¹⁵ Above, note 12.

¹⁶ Indeed, this midrash gives a new coloring to the words of the biblical text, “And your progeny will be like the dust of the earth, and you will extend westward and eastward, north and south” (Gen 28:14)—these words are no longer a prediction of Israel's expansion and power but of its subjection and dispersion. What Jacob sees in the vision of the ladder is his own descendants' exile and subsequent domination by foreign peoples. Similarly, “I will be with you and guard you wherever you shall go” (Gen 28:15) now sounds like a divine assurance that, despite the terrible times to come, Israel will never be completely abandoned. No wonder, then, that the biblical text says about Jacob when he awakens from this vision, “And he was afraid and said, ‘How fearsome is this place!’” (Gen 28:17).

¹⁷ For these figures in rabbinic tradition, see Seder'Olam Rabba, 29, 30 (ed. Baer Rattner; 2 vols. in 1; Vilna: Romm, 1894–97) 2. 133, 141; cf. b. Meg. 12a and parallels. Note also Flusser, “Four Empires,” 319. One late version of this midrash specifies that the Roman period of domination is to last five hundred years; see Mann, The Bible as Read and Preached, 171.

¹⁸ It says that there will be twelve periods and twenty-four kings, but it does not say how many “lawless nations of this age” there are.

¹⁹ Lad. Jac. 5.12.

²⁰ See Ginzberg, Legends, 5. 272; Schürer, Emil, The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (rev. and ed. Vermes, Geza and Millar, Fergus; 3 vols.; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1973–87) 3. 320 n. 78Google Scholar; Cohen, Gerson, “Esau as a Symbol in Early Medieval Thought,” in Altmann, Alexander, ed., Jewish Medieval and Renaissance Studies (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967) 19–48Google Scholar. For some historical background of this idea, see Cresson, Bruce, “The Condemning of Edom in Postexilic Judaism,” in Efird, Jamed M., ed., The Use of the Old Testament in the New (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1972) 125–48Google Scholar. The equation of Esau with Rome may ultimately derive from the associations of the Idumaean (that is, Edomite) King Herod with Rome.

²¹ See above, note 11. Flusser (“Four Ascents”) traces the roots of this conception and its broad diffusion in late antiquity.

²² The manuscripts offer a variety of different readings of this last phrase and, in the absence of a critical edition, it is difficult to assess their interrelationship. The above reading is attested in the Rumiantsev Palaia (1494). (See Lunt, Ladder of Jacob, 402, for a description of this manuscript).

²³ See Gen. R. 69.7 (eds. Yehudah Theodor and Ḥanokh Albeck; 2d. ed.; Jerusalem: Wahrmann, 1965) 796 (notes); Pirqei de-Rabbi Eliʿezer 35.

²⁴ I have discussed this phenomenon at some length in In Potiphar's House, 38–39, 134–35, 145–52.

²⁵ Lad. Jac. 5.1–6; 16–17.

²⁶ See above, note 11.

²⁷ Note also that the phrase “exiles in a strange land” seems intended to echo Moses' words in the exodus narrative “I have been a sojourner in a strange land” (Exod 2:22).

²⁸ Egyptian slavery and the events of the exodus are further alluded to in Lad. Jac. 6:9–11.

²⁹ Daniel speaks of 70 weeks of years (490 years), which is the equivalent of ten jubilees (Dan 9:24); see Milik, Jozef, The Books of Enoch: Aramaic Fragments of Qumran Cave 4 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1976) 254Google Scholar; see also Black, Matthew, The Book of Enoch or I Enoch (Leiden: Brill, 1985) 288Google Scholar. The Sibylline Oracles speaks often periods (Sib. Or. 4.20–21, 47), as does 1 Enoch 91.12–17; 11QMelch 2.7–8; and Barn. 4.4. On these ten periods, see Flusser, “Four Empires,” 331. Tg. Sheni Esth. 1:1, beginning, and Pirqei de-Rabbi Eliʿezer 11 both speak of ten kings whose reigns span all of human history (for the latter see the standard Warsaw edition [1852, reprinted many times], 28a and b). A number of Second Temple texts likewise speak of twelve periods or units, but there is no indication that they are based on a common tradition; twelve, like ten, was a conventional number, perhaps connecṭed with the twelve months of the year and/or twelve hours of the day (compare the specific mention of “hours” in I Enoch 89.72, Apoc. Abr. 30.2). The twelve periods of 1 Enoch 89.72 seem to extend from the end of the Babylonian exile until Alexander the Great (compare Black, I Enoch, 79, 273); our text's twelve periods in “this age” may have been fashioned in accordance with this. 2 Bar 26:1–27:15 also speaks of future time being divided into twelve parts, but these are more precisely twelve stages of misfortune and not specific periods of time (contrast 28:1–2); nor are they connected with foreign rulers, as is made clear by 2 Bar 53:6 and chapters 56–70. Some versions of 4 Ezra 14:11–12 speak of the “age” being divided into twelve “periods”; see Stone, Fourth Ezra, 414, 420–21. Apoc. Abr. 29.2 also speaks of twelve “times” of this age; see Rubinkiewicz, Ryszard, L'apocalypse d'Abraham en vieux slave (Lublin: Société des Lettres et des Sciences de l'Université de Lublin, 1987) 191–93Google Scholar.

³⁰ Margulies, Mordecai, Midrash Wayyiqra Rabbah (5 vols. in 2; New York and Jerusalem: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1993) 671–72Google Scholar. For other versions, see above n. 13.

³¹ Indeed, this midrash apparently seeks to locate the two halves of Jer 30:10 in two different time-frames: “Do not fear, my servant Jacob,” was uttered by God when he first showed Jacob the ladder and asked him to climb it. But Jacob lost his nerve, and so the second half of the verse, “and do not be dismayed Israel”—in the sense of “And do not go down, Israel”—was then uttered by God to Jacob's descendants.

³² The Slavonic here simply has vrĕmena (“times”); Lunt (OTP 2. 409 n. 5a) credibly theorizes that this word stands for the Greek καιροί (“times”). This word may represent such Hebrew words as הפוקח (“circuit, season”) or ןמז (“season”), but I suspect the original word was ץק (“period”), as in, for example, 4Q181. (See Stone, Fourth Ezra, 213 n. 45.)

³³ Indeed, it was precisely because the destruction of the temple by the Romans had been so cataclysmic that the Four Guardian Angels motif was created. Its message was that, despite the cataclysm, one should not despair: both Jacob and Daniel had foreseen four empires, and Rome is thus the last of the four—its fall will eventually come as well.

³⁴ I have discussed the historical background and given some examples in Early Biblical Interpretation (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1986).

³⁵ This is not the only reason why I feel compelled to reject Rubinkiewicz's proposal (L'Apolcalypse d'Abraham, 73–74) that the twenty-four faces correspond to the twelve Roman emperors from Pompey to Vespasian, each represented on his step along with a bust of the goddess Rome. Surely this is midrash on midrash. If the text had intended to represent these twelve, then it would simply have said that there were twelve steps each corresponding to a different ruler (and not to a different “period”), or would have said that each step had a single face on it. As for the reference to the kingdoms of Edom and Moab in Lad. Jac. 6.15, it is to be understood in the light of the tradition documented by Cresson (“The Condemning of Edom” 125–48). Edom here is certainly not Rome—for if so, who is Moab?—but both nations symbolize Israel's eschatological enemy whose destruction will, according to the oracles of Obadiah, Jeremiah 48–49, and Isaiah 34 and 63, mark the dawn of the new age (just as will the destruction of the Leviathan and the “lawless Falkon” in Lad. Jac. 6.13).

³⁶ The passing reference to Esau in Lad. Jac. 4.4 reinforces this conclusion: surely here was an opportunity to say “Esau the wicked,” “my cruel brother,” that is, something that would certainly have imposed itself after Rome had begun to rule in Jerusalem. Yet there is no such reference here.

³⁷ Indeed, some of these elaborations attribute to Abraham, as to Jacob, a vision of the four empires. The justification for this association is the mention of the fourth generation in Gen 15:16. For this fourth generation seemed somewhat at odds with the four hundred years mentioned by God a few verses earlier as the time of Israelite enslavement in Egypt in Gen 15:13; it seemed likely to ancient interpreters that the fourth generation referred to something else. Since the book of Daniel had foreseen the succession of four empires that will hold sway over Israel, it seemed possible to some that the fourth generation mentioned here might be connected with the four empires. Perhaps what God had shown Abraham was the rise and fall of those four empires, after which the the fourth generation (that is, the fourth generation of Jews to survive the fall of a foreign empire) would “return” once more to be sovereign in their homeland. This motif appears in the Apoc. Abr. 27.3, 28.4–5: “[Abraham says:] And behold, I saw four ascents coming upon them [my progeny], and how they [the nations] burned the Temple with fire and carried off the sacred things that were there… And [God] showed me the multitude of His people and said to me [Abraham], ‘Because of this, my anger will be [kindled] against them through the four ascents that you saw, and through these will come retribution for their deeds.’” The same motif appears in Targ. Neofiti Gen 15:12: “And the sun was about to set and a sweet sleep fell on Abraham and behold, Abraham saw four empires rising against him, ‘fear,’ that is Babylon, ‘darkness,’ that is Media, ‘great,’ that is Greece, “falling,” that is [evil Rome, which is destined to fall and rise no more].” This motif likewise appears in a tannaitic source: “He [also] showed him [Abraham] the four kingdoms that were destined to enslave his descendants, as it says, ‘And the sun was about to set and a deep sleep fell on Abraham, and behold, fear and great darkness falling upon him’ [Gen 15:12]. ‘Fear’ is the kingdom of Babylon, ‘darkness’ is the kingdom of Media, ‘great’ is the kingdom of Greece, ‘falling’ is the fourth kingdom, wicked Rome” (Mekhilta de-Rabbi Yishmaʾel Baḥodesh 9). Note further 4 Ezra 3:14, Gen. R. 44.15, and Philo Quis rerum divinarum haeres 249–306.

³⁸ Lad. Jac. 1.3–4; see my discussion in In Potiphar's House, 117–19. The idea that the angels were not ascending and descending upon it (that is, the ladder) but upon him (that is, Jacob) is reflected in various rabbinic texts as well as John 1:52: “And he said, ‘Truly, truly I say to you, you will see the heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the son of man.” See again my In Potiphar's House, 112–15.

³⁹ The twelve months are, of course, an extremely ancient notion; while there is no biblical evidence of the twelve hours, this idea is well attested in tannaitic sources as well as in a few earlier, Second Temple texts. See above, note 29.