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251 nessed left no doubt in his mind that the place was a "Gate- way to Heaven"—a place from which the Elohim could rise skyward. The wording is akin to that applied to Babylon (Bab-Ili, "Gateway of the Elohim") where the incident of the launch tower "Whose head shall reach to heaven" had taken place. The commander identified himself to Jacob as "Yahweh, the Elohim"—the DIN.GIR—"of Abraham thy forefather and the Elohim of Isaac." The operators of the "ladder" are identified as "Angels of Elohim," not simply as angels; and Jacob, realizing that he had unknowingly stumbled upon a site used by these divine aeronauts, named the place Beth-El (The House of El"), El being the singular of Elohim. A few words on etymology and thus on the identity of these "angels" are required. The Bible is careful to identify the subordinates of the deity as "Angels of Elohim" and not simply as "angels," because the Hebrew term Mal'akhim does not mean "angels" at all; it literally means "“emissaries"; and the term is em- ployed in the Bible for regular, flesh-and-blood human emis- saries who carried royal rather than divine messages. King Saul sent Mal'akhim (commonly translated "messengers") to summon David (I Samuel 16:19); David sent Mal'akhim (also translated "messengers") to the people of Jabesh Gilead to inform them that he had been anointed king (II Samuel 2:5); King Ahaz of Judaea sent Mal'akhim ("emissaries") to the Assyrian king Tiglat-Pileser for help to ward off enemy at- tacks (II Kings 16:7), and so on. Etymologically, the term stems from the same root as Mela'kha which has been vari- ably translated as "work," "craft," "workmanship." The Bible employs the term in this derivation in connection with the "Wisdom and Understanding" that Yahweh gave Bezalel to be able to carry out the Melakha required for building the Tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant in the Sinai wilder- ness, so a Mal'akh (the singular of Mal'akhim) signified not a mere messenger but a special emissary, trained and qualified for the task and with some powers of discretion (as an ambas- sador would have). It is to "Angels of Elohim," the Divine Emissaries, that the reference will be in the following pages. The story of Jacob is dotted with oracle dreams and angelic Angels and Other Emissaries