The boy Samuel ministered before the Lord under Eli. In those days the word of the Lord was rare. The priests and people were not seeking the Lord and God was not pleased. Isaiah said dreams and visions being rare was a sign of God’s punishment. God’s purpose was twofold. He planned to bring judgement on the old regime for not dealing with sin in its midst and He wanted to start speaking again to the nation through his new prophet Samuel.

God sent this dream to an unnamed Midianite soldier 700 years after the last of the Genesis dreams and over 200 hundred years after Balaam’s dreams. In those days dreams were scarce. This dream demonstrated God’s total dominion over all the powers and principalities attacking His covenant people and their seed line.

Balaam clearly heard from God. He also understood his metron. He said, How can I curse those whom God has not cursed? How can I denounce those whom the Lord has not denounced?

He also gave seven beautiful prophecies over Israel, one of which foretold the coming Messiah.

Balaam was a Gentile prophet who heard clearly from God and gave some beautiful prophecies. Although He was more than happy to curse Israel for money Balaam had enough spiritual sense to realise he needed God’s permission to do so.

This was God’s eight interaction with Jacob in Scripture. Jacob recognised God’s voice and was comforted to know it was God’s will for him to go down to Egypt.

God interprets Pharaoh’s dreams and by this shows He is greater than all the gods of

Egypt. Four hundred years later He will begin to punish and destroy the whole

Egyptian Empire.

God’s purpose was to use this difficult situation to highlight Joseph’s credibility as a

dream interpreter in the eyes of the cupbearer and later Pharaoh. God was advancing

His Messianic purpose, still focused on keeping His promises to Abraham.

God’s purpose was to raise Joseph to a position of influence within Egypt so Joseph could advance God’s plans and purpose for Abraham’s seedline. Consequently, God gave an unforgettable experience to the cupbearer. His testimony was told to Pharaoh when God’s timing was right.

Had Jacob not been tricked into marrying Leah he’d have married Rachel first and Joseph would’ve been his eldest son and rightful heir. Then no one would have objected to Joseph wearing his special long sleeved coat of many colours that identified him as Jacob’s inheritor.

Had Jacob not been tricked into marrying Leah he’d have married Rachel first and Joseph would’ve been his eldest son and rightful heir. Then no one would have objected to Joseph wearing his special long sleeved coat of many colours that identified him as Jacob’s inheritor. Joseph’s ‘Sheaves Of Grain’ Dream began to restore God’s original purpose.

With the arrival of Jesus as dream interpreter for Jacob’s dream there was an immediate shift from open literal dreams to hidden symbolic dreams. It’s as if Proverbs 25:2 kicked in,

It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings.

Now God’s plans and purposes began to be concealed in parables, allegories, metaphors, similitudes, symbolism, typology, analogy and so on. This mainly continued throughout the rest of Scripture in dreams, visions and prophecy and especially in the parables of Jesus.

Jacob always fought to be blessed. He persisted until he received his father’s blessing unlike Esau who threw it away lightly for a bowl of stew. Jacob was always hot. He wrestled with Jesus all night and wouldn’t let Him go until He blessed him. This tenacity in Jacob pleased God.

Satan wanted Laban to harm Jacob and his family and divert them from God’s purpose for them to be back in the Promised Land. Satan used greed, fear, anger, mistrust, offence, conflict, strife and deceit in an attempt to accomplish this. God merely sent a dream and destroyed Satan’s plan.

In Jacob’s ‘Goats and Go Back Home’ Dream Jesus appeared as the Angel of the Lord and interpreted the dream. His interpretation said He was going to bring economic redress to Jacob through the unlikely event of multiplying the rare streaked, speckled and spotted animals. Through this piece of prophetic insider information Jesus imparted faith and knowledge so that Jacob could negotiate his unusual new contract with Laban.

Jesus can be hidden in our dreams just like he was in Jacob’s dream. Perhaps like Jacob and Abraham our dreams can be similar to the dreams of our ancestors for God has plans and purposes for family lines.

Abraham’s fear and half-truths have endangered God’s plans and purpose and brought a whole nation under God’s judgement. On the other hand the pagan leader, Abimelek’s wise response brought God’s blessing upon the situation while a wrong response would have caused death.

God judged the earth by a flood and began a new generation through his friend Noah. Four hundred years later Noah’s descendants had again abandoned God and were worshipping the sun, the moon, the stars and the signs of the Zodiac in a tower built by giants in the land of Shinar. They all spoke the same language but none spoke with God. God wasn’t happy. He destroyed the Tower of Babel, dispersed the people, confused their language and scattered their one world religion into a million pieces. God then chose Abram, later renamed Abraham, for the purpose of launching His final plan for mankind’s salvation.

A knowledge of the relationship between God and Abraham is crucial to a proper comprehension of all Bible dreams. God’s promise to Abraham and his descendants is the foundation of the Gospel message and any real understanding of God’s plans and purpose through Jesus Christ depends upon an awareness of this.

This is a personal checklist I created based on Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians. It provides a consistency and an accountability to the interpretative process. It stops us from cutting corners.