Reference: Dreams
Hastings
Sleep impressed primitive savages as a great mystery; and they consequently attributed a peculiar significance to the dreams of sleepers, as phenomena which they could not control by their will or explain by their reason. In the lowest stage of culture all dreams were regarded as objectively real experiences; the god or spirit actually visited the dreamer, the events dreamed actually occurred. Hence any one who was subject to frequent dreaming was looked on as a special medium of Divine energy, and many sought to produce the state by artificial means, e.g. fasting or the use of drugs. In process of time dreams came to be treated rather as Divine warnings than as actual occurrences. Such admonitions could be deliberately sought, e.g. by sleeping in a sacred spot, such as the temples of Asklepios or Serapis or the grotto of Trophonius; or they could come unsought, when the gods wished either to reveal or to deceive. (Plato, however, while allowing that the gods may send dreams, denies that they can wish to deceive men). Thus, for instance, among the Babylonians, the Assyrians, the Arabs, the Egyptians, a profound importance was attached to dreams; there were professional interpreters of them (cf. Ge 40:5,8; 41:1; Da 2:5), and manuals were compiled to aid the work of elucidation (cf. the Oneirocritica of Artemidorus of Ephesus). Wiser theorists might discriminate between dreams, but popular superstition tended to regard them all as omens, to be explained, as far as possible, in accordance with definite rules.
1. Among the Jews.
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But God came to Abimelech in a dream of the night, and said to him, Behold, thou are but a dead man, because of the woman whom thou have taken, for she is a man's wife.
And he dreamed, and, behold, a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven. And, behold, the agents of God ascending and descending on it. And, behold, LORD stood above it, and said, I am LORD, the God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac. The land on which thou lay, to thee I will give it, and to thy seed. read more. And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shall spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south. And in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee wherever thou go, and will bring thee again into this land. For I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of. And Jacob awoke out of his sleep, and he said, Surely LORD is in this place, and I did not know it. And he was afraid, and said, How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put under his head, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it. And he called the name of that place Bethel, but the name of the city was Luz at first.
And it came to pass at the time that the flock conceive, that I lifted up my eyes, and saw in a dream, and, behold, the he-goats which leaped upon the flock were ringstreaked, speckled, and grizzled.
And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it to his brothers. And said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream again. And, behold, the sun and the moon and eleven stars made obeisance to me.
And they dreamed a dream both of them, each man his dream, in one night, each man according to the interpretation of his dream, the butler and the baker of the king of Egypt, who were bound in the prison.
And they said to him, We have dreamed a dream, and there is no man who can interpret it. And Joseph said to them, Do not interpretations belong to God? Tell it to me, I pray you.
And they said to him, We have dreamed a dream, and there is no man who can interpret it. And Joseph said to them, Do not interpretations belong to God? Tell it to me, I pray you.
And it came to pass at the end of two full years, that Pharaoh dreamed. And, behold, he stood by the river.
And Joseph said to Pharaoh, The dream of Pharaoh is one; what God is about to do he has declared to Pharaoh.
And he said, Hear now my words. If there be a prophet among you, I LORD will make myself known to him in a vision. I will speak with him in a dream. My servant Moses is not so. He is faithful in all my house. read more. With him I will speak mouth to mouth, even manifestly, and not in dark speeches, and he shall behold the form of LORD. Why then were ye not afraid to speak against my servant, against Moses?
There shall not be found with thee anyone who makes his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, a psychic, he who practices augury, or an enchanter, or a sorcerer, or a charmer, or a medium, or a spiritist, or a necromancer.
And when Gideon came, behold, there was a man telling a dream to his fellow. And he said, Behold, I dreamed a dream. And, lo, a cake of barley bread tumbled into the camp of Midian, and came to the tent, and smote it so that it fel
And Samuel said to Saul, Why have thou disquieted me, to bring me up? And Saul answered, I am greatly distressed, for the Philistines make war against me, and God is departed from me, and answers me no more, neither by prophets, no
In Gibeon LORD appeared to Solomon in a dream by night, and God said, Ask what I shall give thee.
In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls upon men, in slumberings upon the bed.
For in the multitude of dreams there are vanities, and in many words. But fear thou God.
I have heard what the prophets have said, who prophesy lies in my name, saying, I have dreamed, I have dreamed.
The prophet who has a dream, let him tell a dream. And he who has my word, let him speak my word faithfully. What is the straw to the wheat? says LORD.
Behold, I am against those who prophesy lying dreams, says LORD, and tell them. And cause my people to err by their lies, and by their vain boasting. Yet I sent them not, nor commanded them, neither do they profit this people at al
But as for you, hearken ye not to your prophets, nor to your diviners, nor to your dreams, nor to your soothsayers, nor to your sorcerers, who speak to you, saying, Ye shall not serve the king of Babylon.
For thus says LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Let not your prophets who are in the midst of you, and your diviners, deceive you, nor hearken ye to your dreams which ye cause to be dreamed.
The king answered and said to the Chaldeans, The thing is gone from me. If ye do not make the dream and the interpretation of it known to me, ye shall be cut in pieces, and your houses shall be made a dunghill.
but there is a God in heaven who reveals secrets. And he has made known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days. Thy dream, and the visions of thy head upon thy bed, are these:
In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon, Daniel had a dream and visions of his head upon his bed. Then he wrote the dream and told the sum of the matters.
For the teraphim have spoken vanity, and the diviners have seen a lie, and they have told FALSE dreams. They comfort in vain. Therefore they go their way like sheep. They are afflicted, because there is no shepherd.
But while he considered these things, behold, an agent of Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take Mary to be thy wife, for that which was begotten in her is from Holy Spirit.
Now after they departed, behold, an agent of Lord appears to Joseph in a dream, saying, After rising, take the child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and thou be there until I tell thee, for Herod is going to seek the child to
After rising, take the child and his mother, and go into the land of Israel, for those seeking the child's life have died.
And the following night the Lord, having stood by him, said, Cheer up, Paul, for as thou have testified these things about me at Jerusalem, so thou must testify also at Rome.
For there stood by me this night an agent of the God whose I am, whom also I serve,
Morish
Though associated in some passages with trifles and vanities, Job 7:14; Ec 5:7, there is yet abundant evidence in the scriptures that God often conveyed His mind to people by means of dreams, and this not only to those who obeyed Him, but also to the heathen. Ge 20:3,6; Jg 7:13. "God speaketh once, yea twice, yet man perceiveth it not. In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the bed: then he openeth the ears of men, and sealeth their instruction, that he may withdraw man from his purpose, and hide pride from man." Job 33:14-17. God said that He would instruct His prophets in dreams. Nu 12:6. He also used dreams in the case of Nebuchadnezzar and of Daniel in order to reveal His will and purpose concerning, the future.
Joseph, the reputed father of the Lord, was directed several times by means of dreams; and Pilate was warned by his wife to have nothing to do with that just man because of what she had suffered in a dream. Mt 1:20; 2:12-22; 27:19. It is to be remarked that in the last days when God pours out His Spirit on all flesh the sons and daughters will prophesy, and the young men shall see visions, and the old men shall dream dreams. Joe 2:28; Ac 2:17. This will be the way that God will make known His mind in those days.
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But God came to Abimelech in a dream of the night, and said to him, Behold, thou are but a dead man, because of the woman whom thou have taken, for she is a man's wife.
And God said to him in the dream, Yes, I know that in the integrity of thy heart thou have done this. And I also withheld thee from sinning against me. Therefore I did not allow thee to touch her.
And he said, Hear now my words. If there be a prophet among you, I LORD will make myself known to him in a vision. I will speak with him in a dream.
And when Gideon came, behold, there was a man telling a dream to his fellow. And he said, Behold, I dreamed a dream. And, lo, a cake of barley bread tumbled into the camp of Midian, and came to the tent, and smote it so that it fel
For God speaks once, yea twice, [though man] does not regard it. In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls upon men, in slumberings upon the bed. read more. Then he opens the ears of men, and seals their instruction that he may withdraw man [from his] purpose, and hide pride from man.
For in the multitude of dreams there are vanities, and in many words. But fear thou God.
And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. Your old men shall dream dreams. Your young men shall see visions.
But while he considered these things, behold, an agent of Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take Mary to be thy wife, for that which was begotten in her is from Holy Spirit.
And divinely warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed into their own country by another way. Now after they departed, behold, an agent of Lord appears to Joseph in a dream, saying, After rising, take the child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and thou be there until I tell thee, for Herod is going to seek the child to read more. And having awaken, he took the child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt. And he was there until the end of Herod, so that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet might be fulfilled, which says, Out of Egypt I called my Son. Then Herod, when he saw that he was scorned by the wise men, was exceedingly angry, and having sent forth, he killed all the boys in Bethlehem, and in all the borders of it, from two years old and under, according to the time that Then that which was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled, which says, A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children. And she did not want to be comforted, because they are not. But when Herod perished, behold, an agent of Lord appears in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, After rising, take the child and his mother, and go into the land of Israel, for those seeking the child's life have died. And having awaken, he took the child and his mother, and came into the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And divinely warned in a dream, he withdrew into the parts of Galilee.
And while he was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent to him, saying, There is nothing for thee and that righteous man. For I suffered many things this day in a dream because of him.
And it will be in the last days, says God, I will pour out from my Spirit upon all flesh. And your sons and your daughters will prophesy, and your young men will see visions, and your elders will dream dreams.
Smith
Dreams.
The Scripture declares that the influence of the Spirit of God upon the soul extends to its sleeping as well as its waking thoughts. But, in accordance with the principle enunciated by St. Paul in
dreams, in which the understanding is asleep, are placed below the visions of prophecy, in which the understanding plays its part. Under the Christian dispensation, while we read frequently of trances and vision, dreams are never referred to as vehicles of divine revelation. In exact accordance with this principle are the actual records of the dreams sent by God. The greater number of such dreams were granted, for prediction or for warning, to those who were aliens to the Jewish covenant. And where dreams are recorded as means of God's revelation to his chosen servants, they are almost always referred to the periods of their earliest and most imperfect knowledge of him. Among the Jews, "if any person dreamed a dream which was peculiarly striking and significant, he was permitted to go to the high priest in a peculiar way, and see if it had any special import. But the observance of ordinary dreams and the consulting of those who pretend to skill in their interpretation are repeatedly forbidden.
De 13:1-5; 18:9-14
Schaff.
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If there arise in the midst of thee a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and he gives thee a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder comes to pass, of which he spoke to thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou have not known, and let us serve them, read more. thou shall not hearken to the words of that prophet, or to that dreamer of dreams, for LORD your God proves you, to know whether ye love LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul. Ye shall walk after LORD your God, and fear him, and keep his commandments, and obey his voice, and ye shall serve him, and cling to him. And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death, because he has spoken rebellion against LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed thee out of the house of bondage, to draw thee aside
When thou have come into the land, which LORD thy God gives thee, thou shall not learn to do according to the abominations of those nations. There shall not be found with thee anyone who makes his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, a psychic, he who practices augury, or an enchanter, or a sorcerer, read more. or a charmer, or a medium, or a spiritist, or a necromancer. For whoever does these things is an abomination to LORD. And because of these abominations LORD thy God drives them out from before thee. Thou shall be perfect with LORD thy God. For these nations, that thou shall dispossess, hearken to those who practice augury, and to psychics. But as for thee, LORD thy God has not allowed thee to do so.
What is it therefore? I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the intellect also. I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the intellect also.
Watsons
DREAMS. The easterns, in particular the Jews, greatly regarded dreams, and applied for their interpretation to those who undertook to explain them. The ancient Greeks and Romans had the same opinion of them, as appears from their most eminent writers. We see the antiquity of this attention to dreams in the history of Pharaoh's butler and baker, Genesis 40. Pharaoh himself, and Nebuchadnezzar, are instances. God expressly condemned to death all who pretended to have prophetic dreams, and to foretel futurities, even though what they foretold came to pass, if they had any tendency to promote idolatry, De 13:1-3. But the people were not forbidden, when they thought they had a significative dream, to address the prophets of the Lord, or the high priest in his ephod, to have it explained. Saul, before the battle of Gilboa, consulted a woman who had a familiar spirit, "because the Lord would not answer him by dreams, nor by prophets," 1Sa 28:6-7. The Lord himself sometimes discovered his will in dreams, and enabled persons to explain them. He informed Abimelech in a dream, that Sarah was the wife of Abraham, Ge 20:3,6. He showed Jacob the mysterious ladder in a dream, Ge 28:12-13; and in a dream an angel suggested to him a means of multiplying his flocks, Ge 31:11-12, &c. Joseph was favoured very early with prophetic dreams, whose signification was easily discovered by Jacob, Ge 37:5. God said, that he spake to other prophets in dreams, but to Moses face to face. The Midianites gave credit to dreams, as appears from that which a Midianite related to his companion; and from whose interpretation Gideon took a happy omen, Jg 7:13,15. The Prophet Jeremiah exclaims against impostors who pretended to have had dreams, and abused the credulity of the people: "They prophesy lies in my name, saying, I have dreamed, I have dreamed. The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream; and he that hath my word, let him tell it faithfully, saith the Lord," Jer 23:25,28-29. The Prophet Joel promises from God, that in the reign of the Messiah, the effusion of the Holy Spirit should be so copious, that the old men should have prophetic dreams, and the young men should receive visions, Joe 2:28.
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But God came to Abimelech in a dream of the night, and said to him, Behold, thou are but a dead man, because of the woman whom thou have taken, for she is a man's wife.
And God said to him in the dream, Yes, I know that in the integrity of thy heart thou have done this. And I also withheld thee from sinning against me. Therefore I did not allow thee to touch her.
And he dreamed, and, behold, a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven. And, behold, the agents of God ascending and descending on it. And, behold, LORD stood above it, and said, I am LORD, the God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac. The land on which thou lay, to thee I will give it, and to thy seed.
And the agent of God said to me in the dream, Jacob. And I said, Here I am. And he said, Lift up now thine eyes, and see, all the he-goats which leap upon the flock are ringstreaked, speckled, and grizzled, for I have seen all that Laban does to thee.
And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it to his brothers, and they hated him yet the more.
If there arise in the midst of thee a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and he gives thee a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder comes to pass, of which he spoke to thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou have not known, and let us serve them, read more. thou shall not hearken to the words of that prophet, or to that dreamer of dreams, for LORD your God proves you, to know whether ye love LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.
And when Gideon came, behold, there was a man telling a dream to his fellow. And he said, Behold, I dreamed a dream. And, lo, a cake of barley bread tumbled into the camp of Midian, and came to the tent, and smote it so that it fel
And it was so, when Gideon heard the telling of the dream, and the interpretation of it, that he worshipped. And he returned into the camp of Israel, and said, Arise, for LORD has delivered the army of Midian into your hand.
And when Saul inquired of LORD, LORD answered him not, neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets. Then Saul said to his servants, Seek me a woman who has a familiar spirit, that I may go to her, and inquire of her. And his servants said to him, Behold, there is a woman who has a familiar spirit at En-dor.
I have heard what the prophets have said, who prophesy lies in my name, saying, I have dreamed, I have dreamed.
The prophet who has a dream, let him tell a dream. And he who has my word, let him speak my word faithfully. What is the straw to the wheat? says LORD. Is not my word like fire? says LORD, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?
And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. Your old men shall dream dreams. Your young men shall see visions.