Angels ascend and descend a golden ladder, dwarfing a blue human figure. God is making contact with the figure, Jacob, and through him continuing the covenant that began with Abraham and Isaac, renaming him Israel and promising that Jacob’s sons will lead the 12 tribes of Israel.
In Illuminating the Word: The Making of the Saint John’s Bible, Christopher Calderhead quotes Donald Jackson: “I wanted [this vision] to be surreal, shining things and light, with dawn about to break.” (p. 165). Calderhead further reports that this illumination represents artistic integrity. The Committee on Illumination and Text, which provided Jackson with theological and historical background for each illumination, had
mentioned in passing a common monastic image from the Middle Ages — the Ladder of Perfection, depicting monks mounting upwards toward their heavenly goal as some fall to their doom. They compared this admonitory image to the Jacob story. (p. 165)
According to this view of the story, some angels would fall while others rose to heaven, but Jackson “stuck to his guns” and decided that the story was not about separating the good from the bad, but rather a moment when heaven and earth were momentarily joined.
The butterflies are an apt analogy for angels, Jackson felt, because of their “enormous rarity! They are beautiful, full of grace, and very mysterious…You bat your eyelid and the butterfly is gone” — a fleeting vision, just as Jacob’s vision was momentary. Moreover, “[Butterflies] have such life-will…their incredible fragility contrasts with the thousands of miles they travel on their yearly migrations.” (p. 166)
The lacy pattern of gold against which the butterflies appear is a textile print, acrylic medium applied to a crocheted material.