Tag Archives: Psalm 68

God’s Entourage

“Jacob’s Ladder” by Albert Huthusen

This week’s parasha, Vayetze, begins with Jacob’s famous vision of the Heavenly Ladder, upon which he saw angels “ascending and descending” (Genesis 28:12). Many of our Sages have pointed out that the gematria of “ladder” (סלם) is equivalent with “Sinai” (סיני). The Zohar (I, 149a, Sitrei Torah) states that Jacob saw a vision of his descendants receiving the Torah at Mt. Sinai. The Zohar goes on to discuss the profound connection between the two, focusing on the mysterious words of Psalm 68, which describes the Sinai Revelation.

It begins by stating that atop the Ladder, Jacob saw the chief angel Metatron, the “elder” of the Heavens. In the Talmud (Chagigah 14b), we read how the rabbi Elisha ben Avuyah became an apostate after ascending to Heaven and seeing Metatron, the Heavenly “scribe”, sitting on what appeared to be a throne. In a serious error, Elisha confused Metatron for some kind of deity of his own. The Talmud doesn’t say too much more on this, but the Zohar passage here clarifies the matter.

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Anunaki: Giants and Aliens in the Torah

In this week’s parasha, Devarim, Moses recounts the journeys and battles of the Israelites and mentions a number of mysterious peoples:

The Emim dwelled there previously, a great and numerous and tall people, like the Anakim. They are also considered Rephaim, like the Anakim, and the Moabites called them Emim… Rephaim dwelled there formerly, and the Ammonites called them Zamzumim. A great and numerous and tall people, like the Anakim, but God exterminated them… For only Og, the king of Bashan, was left from the remnant of the Rephaim. His bed was a bed of iron… nine cubits was its length and four cubits its width… (Deuteronomy 2:10-11, 20-21, 3:11)

Moses is apparently describing a race of giants, “great and tall”, of whom only one remained—Og (of whom we’re written in the past)—whose bed was nine cubits long, or approximately 18 feet! Who were these Rephaim, and how are they different from Anakim? What do they have to do with the Nephilim of Genesis, who are also thought to be giants?

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