Ladder

(סֻלָּם, sullatm', a staircase, perh. from סָלִל, to raise up; Sept. κλῖμαξ; the Arab. sullamnun has the same signification) occurs only once, in the account of Jacob's vision in his dream at Bethel (Ge 28:12), where the " ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven; and behold, the angels of God ascending and descending on it," represented the Gospel dispensation, the blessings of which the patriarch's posterity were to inherit; the Redeemer himself being this mystic channel of intercourse between heaven and earth (John i, 51). (See Lang, Visio Scalce Jacob, Alt. 1699; Schramm, De Scala Jacobcea, F. ad 0. 17-.) Scalingladders for war (κλίμακες) are mentioned in the Apocrypha (1 Macc. 5:30). That this was a contrivance known from the earliest times, we have abundant evidence on the monuments of Thebes, where attacks on fortified places are represented as being made by soldiers provided with scaling-ladders (Wilkinson, i, 390). (For illustration, see opposite page.) Similar scenes are frequently depicted on the Assyrian monuments (Layard, Nineveh, ii, 284). SEE FORTIFICATION.