Jacob had lived his whole life in a tent as a desert nomad. He had probably never seen a two story building nor a staircase. Evidently he knew about ladders because he described angels ascending and descending a ladder. Can you imagine angels laboriously climbing a ladder rung by rung to heaven? For that matter, can you imagine a two-way ladder. This paints a rather ludicrous picture to us living in an age of elevators and escalators. No doubt this was Jacob's way of describing some kind of heavenly staircase.
Staircases were rather rare in Bible days. They were massive structures as entrances to palaces or temples, and there were few two story dwellings. We are told that Hezekiah had a sundial with steps, and that Jesus and the disciples met in an upper room. Later on steps became a standard feature in the palatial homes of the Romans and in castles of the medieval period. However, freestanding stairs are a modern invention.
When it became possible to construct multi-storied buildings, staircases became obsolete except as emergency exits. In the 19 th century another way was needed to lift people and freight between levels. The elevator was devised to fill this need. At first it was a crude box lifted on a pillar by hydraulic force, but this was only good for just a few stories, not for high rise buildings. The first commercial elevator using cables instead of a pillar was installed in New York City by Elisha Graves Otis in 1889. Since then improvements have included electrification, automatic operation, a single push-button panel, an alarm system, and telephones. The modern elevator is an indispensable convenience in our modern skyscrapers. However, the elevator is limited as to the number of passengers it can transport. Another more efficient people mover was needed. Thus was born the escalator, which is a moving staircase invented by Jesse W. Reno in 1891 that can handle up to 6,000 persons per hour in both directions simultaneously. Most escalators are 60 feet long, but some are much longer. The longest one is in Hong Kong: it is 745 feet long and rises 372 feet and can carry 4,000 people an hour in each direction.
It seems reasonable that Jacob saw a huge escalator reaching from earth to heaven transporting thousands of angels ascending and descending. This was only a dream, but it represented the constant communication between heaven and earth via the ministry of angels. "And it is through Christ, by the ministration of His heavenly messengers, that every blessing comes from God to us" (Desire of Ages p 143). We can rejoice with Jacob that these heavenly beings are constantly visiting earth carrying all the blessings of heaven on "God's escalator."
