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 by night and said to him, Behold, thou art a dead man, for the woman whom thou hast 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 angels of God ascending and descending on it. And, behold, the LORD stood above it and said, I AM the God of Abraham, thy father, and the God of Isaac; the land upon which thou dost lie, to thee will I give it and to thy seed; read more. and thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt multiply to the west and to the east and to the Aquilon and to the Negev; 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 in all places where thou goest 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 awakened out of his sleep, and he said, Surely the LORD is in this place, and I knew it not. And he was afraid and said, How dreadful is this place! this is none other but 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 for his pillows and set it up for a pillar and poured oil upon the top of it. And he called the name of that place Bethel, since the name of that city was called Luz at first.
And it came to pass at the time that the sheep conceived, that I lifted up my eyes and saw in dreams, and, behold, the rams which leaped upon the females were ringstraked, speckled, and grisled.
And he said unto them, Hear, I pray you, this dream which I have dreamed:
And he dreamed yet another dream and told it to his brethren, saying, Behold, I have dreamed another dream; and, behold, the sun and the moon and eleven stars made obeisance to me.
And both of them dreamed a dream, each man his dream in the same 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 unto him, We have dreamed a dream, and there is no interpreter of it. And Joseph said unto them, Do not interpretations belong to God? Tell me the dreams, I pray you.
And they said unto him, We have dreamed a dream, and there is no interpreter of it. And Joseph said unto them, Do not interpretations belong to God? Tell me the dreams, 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.
Then Joseph said unto Pharaoh, The dream of Pharaoh is one: God has showed Pharaoh what he is about to do.
And he said, Hear now my words: If there is a prophet among you, I the LORD will make myself known unto him in a vision and will speak unto him in dreams. My slave Moses is not so, who is faithful in all my house. read more. With him I will speak mouth to mouth and by sight not by enigmas; he shall see the similitude of the LORD. Why then were ye not afraid to speak against my slave Moses?
There shall not be found among you any one that makes his son or his daughter to pass through the fire or that uses divination or an observer of times or an enchanter or a witch or a charmer or a spiritist or a diviner or a necromancer.
And when Gideon arrived, behold, a man was telling a dream to his fellow, saying, Behold, I dreamed a dream that I saw a cake of barley bread tumbled into the camp of Midian and come unto the tents, and it smote them so that they fell and overturned them, and the tents fell.
And Samuel said to Saul, Why hast thou disquieted me, to bring me up? And Saul answered, I am sore distressed, for the Philistines make war against me, and God is departed from me and no longer answers me neither by prophets nor by dreams; therefore, I have called thee that thou may make known unto me what I shall do.
In Gibeon the LORD appeared to Solomon in a dream by night, and God said, Ask what you wish that I shall give thee.
In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls upon men, in slumberings upon the bed;
Because dreams abound, and vanities and the words are many, but fear thou God.
I have heard what those prophets said, that prophesy lies in my name, saying, I have dreamed, I have dreamed.
The prophet with whom the dream came, let him tell the dream; and he with whom my word came, let him speak my true word. What is the chaff to the wheat? said the LORD.
Behold, I am against those that prophesy false dreams, saith the LORD, and did tell them, and caused my people to err by their lies, and by their flattery; yet I did not send them, nor command them; and they did not profit this people at all, said the LORD.
Therefore do not hearken unto your prophets, nor to your diviners, nor to your dreams, nor to your sorcerers, nor to your enchanters, which speak unto you, saying, Ye shall not serve the king of Babylon:
For thus hath the LORD of the hosts the God of Israel said: Let not your prophets and your diviners that are in the midst of you, deceive you, neither hearken to your dreams which ye dream.
The king answered and said to the Chaldeans, The thing is gone from my memory; if ye will not make known unto me the dream with its interpretation, ye shall be cut in pieces, and your houses shall be made a dunghill.
But there is a God in the heavens who reveals the mysteries, and he has made known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall happen at the end of days. Thy dream, and the visions of thy head upon thy bed, is this:
In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon, Daniel saw a dream and visions of his head upon his bed: then he wrote the dream and penned the sum of the matters.
For the idols have spoken vanity and the diviners have seen a lie and have told vain dreams; they comfort in vain; therefore they went their way like sheep; they were humbled because there was no shepherd.
But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in dreams, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife; for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.
And when they were departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in dreams, saying, Arise and take the young child and his mother and flee into Egypt and remain there until I bring thee word, for Herod will seek the young child to kill him.
saying, Arise and take the young child and his mother and go into the land of Israel, for they are dead who sought the death of the young child.
And the night following the Lord stood by him and said, Be of good cheer, Paul, for as thou hast testified of me in Jerusalem, so must thou also bear witness at Rome.
For the angel of God stood by me this night, whose I am and whom 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 by night and said to him, Behold, thou art a dead man, for the woman whom thou hast taken, for she is a man's wife.
And God said unto him in a dream, Yes, I know that thou didst this in the integrity of thy heart; for 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 is a prophet among you, I the LORD will make myself known unto him in a vision and will speak unto him in dreams.
And when Gideon arrived, behold, a man was telling a dream to his fellow, saying, Behold, I dreamed a dream that I saw a cake of barley bread tumbled into the camp of Midian and come unto the tents, and it smote them so that they fell and overturned them, and the tents fell.
then thou dost scare me with dreams and terrify me with visions.
Nevertheless, in one or two manners God speaks to the one who does not see. 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 the man from his own work and cover the man from pride.
Because dreams abound, and vanities and the words are many, but fear thou God.
And it shall come to pass after this 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 thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in dreams, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife; for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.
And being warned by divine revelation in dreams that they should not return to Herod, they departed into their own country another way. And when they were departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in dreams, saying, Arise and take the young child and his mother and flee into Egypt and remain there until I bring thee word, for Herod will seek the young child to kill him. read more. And awaking, he took the young child and his mother by night and departed into Egypt and was there until the death of Herod, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son. Then Herod, seeing that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth and sent forth and killed all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the borders thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had understood of the wise men. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by the Lord through Jeremiah the prophet, saying, In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation and weeping and great mourning, Rachel was weeping for her children and would not be comforted because they perished. But when Herod was dead, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared in dreams to Joseph in Egypt, saying, Arise and take the young child and his mother and go into the land of Israel, for they are dead who sought the death of the young child. And he arose and took the young child and his mother and came into the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus reigned in Judaea in the place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there; notwithstanding, being warned by divine revelation in dreams, he withdrew into the parts of Galilee,
When he was seated upon the judgment seat, his wife sent unto him, saying, Have thou nothing to do with that just man, for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him.
And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall 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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When there arises among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and gives thee a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder comes to pass, of which he spoke unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them, read more. thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams; for the LORD your God proves you, to know whether ye love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul. Ye shall walk after the LORD your God and fear him and keep his commandments and hear his voice, and ye shall serve him and cleave unto him. And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death because he has spoken rebellion against the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and ransomed you out of the house of slavery, to thrust thee out of the way which the LORD thy God commanded thee to walk in. So shalt thou put the evil away from the midst of thee.
When thou shall have come into the land which the LORD thy God gives thee, thou shalt not learn to do after the abominations of those Gentiles. There shall not be found among you any one that makes his son or his daughter to pass through the fire or that uses divination or an observer of times or an enchanter or a witch read more. or a charmer or a spiritist or a diviner or a necromancer. For anyone that does these things is an abomination unto the LORD, and because of these abominations the LORD thy God drove them out from before thee. Thou shalt be perfect with the LORD thy God. For these Gentiles, whom thou shalt inherit, hearkened unto observers of times and unto diviners, but as for thee, the LORD thy God has not allowed thee to do so.
What is it then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also; I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding 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 by night and said to him, Behold, thou art a dead man, for the woman whom thou hast taken, for she is a man's wife.
And God said unto him in a dream, Yes, I know that thou didst this in the integrity of thy heart; for 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 angels of God ascending and descending on it. And, behold, the LORD stood above it and said, I AM the God of Abraham, thy father, and the God of Isaac; the land upon which thou dost lie, to thee will I give it and to thy seed;
And the angel of God spoke unto me in dreams, saying, Jacob: And I said, Here am I. And he said, Lift up now thine eyes and see, all the rams which leap upon the sheep are ringstraked, speckled, and grisled; for I have seen all that Laban has done unto thee.
And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it to his brethren; and they hated him yet the more.
When there arises among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and gives thee a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder comes to pass, of which he spoke unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them, read more. thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams; for the LORD your God proves you, to know whether ye love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.
And when Gideon arrived, behold, a man was telling a dream to his fellow, saying, Behold, I dreamed a dream that I saw a cake of barley bread tumbled into the camp of Midian and come unto the tents, and it smote them so that they fell and overturned them, and the tents fell.
And when Gideon heard the telling of the dream and its interpretation, he worshipped; and when he had returned into the camp of Israel, he said, Arise, for the LORD has delivered the camp of Midian into your hands.
And Saul enquired of the LORD, but the LORD did not answer him by dreams nor by Urim nor by prophets. Then Saul said unto his slaves, Seek me a woman that is a spiritist that I may go to her and enquire of her. And his slaves said to him, Behold, there is a woman that is a spiritist at Endor.
I have heard what those prophets said, that prophesy lies in my name, saying, I have dreamed, I have dreamed.
The prophet with whom the dream came, let him tell the dream; and he with whom my word came, let him speak my true word. What is the chaff to the wheat? said the LORD. Is not my word like as a fire? saith the LORD; and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?
And it shall come to pass after this 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: