Jacob's Ladder

Discussion Class with Daniel

Why would the archaic people set a place to be sacred/holy?
-to develop a feeling of closeness to God
-setting place and time apart from the mundane
-reserved for a specific purpose
for example: holy and prostitution share the same Hebrew root. How did it come to be? Prostitutions in ancient times are reserved for "specific purpose."

The place where Jacob, descendent of Abraham, received the dream of God's promise of fertility to Jacob became the cornerstone of Jerusalem.

The sacred consecration of the place where Jerusalem will be founded upon.
How does the place, and not just any other place, get chosen to be sacred? The passage (Jacob's Ladder) implies that God has preordained that Jacob will be at the place where he will receive the dream. The passage describes a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of the it reached up to heaven--signifies that the role of the sacred place is to connect heaven and earth. It is a medium through which man could understand another realm of reality. Jacob was afraid because he felt the need to treat the sacred place with reverence. Then, he took the stone that he lied upon and created a monument of the sacred experience in the sacred place. He also renamed the sacred place as Beth-el. Consecration, in this sense, represents the making of a covenant with God.