jacobs ladder- in the old testament - what does it mean?

Answer 1

The dream of the ladder at Bethel is a picture of the progress of regeneration as the truth is lived out in conduct in the world. To a life spent reaching for God and understanding, the windows are always open to heaven and to the Lord. The two phases of regeneration are pictured in the ascending and descending angels, the stage in which we are learning the truth of the Divine law and trying to do it, and the stage when the current is reversed and love, coming from within, makes good life spontaneous and even delightful. The Lord applied to Himself this vision of the ladder when He said, "Hereafter ye shall see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man." (John 1:51) Jesus there is saying that He is the ladder, the link, between heaven and earth.

Answer 2

Jacob was 77 years old when he left Beer-sheba for the land of his foreparents, a land where he spent the next 20 years of his life. (After traveling NNE about 100 km in the Judean hills for the night, using a stone for his pillow. There in his dreams he saw a ladder, or flight of stairs, reaching into the heavens, upon which angels were ascending and descending. At the top God was envisioned, and He now confirmed with Jacob the divine covenant mThe only Biblical reference to a ladder is at Genesis 28:12, where the Hebrew term sul·lam′ applies to a ladder Jacob beheld in a dream. The patriarch saw a ladder (or perhaps what looked like a rising flight of stones) stationed upon the earth, with its top reaching up to the heavens. God’s angels were ascending and descending on the ladder, and a representation of Jehovah God was above it. This ladder with the angels upon it indicates the existence of communication between earth and heaven and that angels minister in an important way between God and those having his approval.
When Jesus said to his disciples, “Most truly I say to you men, You will see heaven opened up and the angels of God ascending and descending to the Son of man,” he may have had in mind Jacob’s visionade with Abraham and Isaac.

Answer 3

It represents a connection between God and humans.