The Dream Setting/Backstory 

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Satan tried to mess up God’s plans and purpose big time through Laban’s self interest.  Laban’s daughter Rachel was God’s divinely intended first wife for Jacob and Joseph was God’s intended heir.  Weak eyed Leah on the other hand was the result of Laban’s greedy scheming.  

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.   

At the time of these dreams Jacob was 108 years old, Joseph was 17 and his brothers were all under 30. This was not exactly a very mature age for men at that time, considering Jacob was well over seventy before he married.  In one sense the brothers’ response to Joseph’s dreams was just the annoyance of immature teenagers. On the other hand their jealous hatred seemed demonically inspired.  

The Dream Scripture 

Genesis 37:1-17 

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Jacob lived in the land where his father had stayed, the land of Canaan. This is the account of Jacob’s family line.  Joseph, a young man of seventeen, was tending the flocks with his brothers, the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives, and he brought their father a bad report about them. Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons, because he had been born to him in his old age; and he made an ornate robe for him.  When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him. 

Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him all the more.   He said to them, “Listen to this dream I had: We were binding sheaves of grain out in the field when suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright, while your sheaves gathered around mine and bowed down to it.” His brothers said to him, “Do you intend to reign over us? Will you actually rule us?” And they hated him all the more because of his dream and what he had said. 

 

The Problem 

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God had sovereignly chosen Joseph to play a major part in implementing His plans for Abraham’s descendants. This was resisted at every turn by Satan. Now God is revealing and advancing His plans through a dream and Satan and the brothers are not happy.  The brothers hated Joseph because he was favoured by their father, Jacob. Problem was, Joseph was also favoured by God.  

 The Dreamer’s Metron 

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Joseph was a prophet with a powerful metron concerning dreams and visions.  His brothers mockingly called him a master of dreamers and that is what he actually was.  When the magicians and wise men of Egypt couldn’t interpret Pharaoh’s dreams, Joseph with God’s help was able to do so. 

Afterwards God used Joseph to prepare a place of safety and provision for the children of Israel in Egypt so that the Messiah’s royal seed line would be preserved.   

God chose Joseph to be the heir of His covenant promises with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. 1 Chronicles 5:1-2 says, The rights of the firstborn belonged to Joseph.   

Laban’s deceit in marrying Leah off to Jacob meant God’s plans for Joseph to be the firstborn were threatened. This caused bad blood between Joseph and his older brothers but God used Joseph’s dreams to put things back on track.   

Joseph correctly understood his dreams meant his family would one day be dependant on him and humbled before him.  This knowledge must have sustained him during the next thirteen years when he was bought and sold five times.   

Through Joseph God was working His purpose out concerning the Messiah and keeping his covenant promises to Abraham.   

 

The Message 

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The simple overall message of this dream is that God would restore Joseph to his proper place as inheritor and leader in the family. The symbolism of the grain foreshadows the time when the brothers will bow down before Joseph begging for grain.  God would then place Joseph in a position where he would rule over the lives of his entire family and the entire people of Israel.   

 

God’s Purpose 

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In this dream God was encouraging and guiding His covenant people with specific direction for their well-being and the safety of their seed line but they didn’t understand this.  God’s purpose was also to set the record straight and restore Joseph back to God’s intended place for him as inheritor of the Covenant.  

Joseph’s dreams were never intended by God to be kept private. God had his own reason in compelling Joseph to speak.  God was working out the next phase of His plans and purpose for the Messiah, His chosen people and the Promised Land.  God was moving Joseph forward to his place of destiny and greatest ministry.  

God was also exposing the hearts of Joseph’s brothers.  

 

Satan’s Purpose 

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Satan was still trying to stop the Messiah’s arrival.  He did his damnedest to kill Joseph. He incensed Joseph’s brothers to murder him so Joseph’s dreams would never come to pass.  

Here comes that dreamer! they said to each
other. Come now, let’s kill him and
throw him into one of these cisterns
and say that a ferocious animal devoured
him. Then we’ll see what comes of his
dreams. [1] 

Satan’s effort to remove Joseph was really an attempt to thwart God’s plans and change the future.  The brothers’ reaction to Joseph’s dreams is like the response of many Christians and non-Christians when they hear about God’s sovereignty.   

Many of us don’t like it when we realise God is sovereign over our lives. He is sovereign to create us, sovereign to choose us, sovereign to save us and sovereign to condemn us.   

The natural man hates that God has such power.  Rebellious man wants to plan his own future. Nowadays he even wants to choose whether he should actually be a man or a woman.  He scorns God’s authority and challenges God’s fairness and purpose.   

Like Satan, he screams, I will have my own free will.   

 

Dreamer’s Eyes Enlightened 

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Joseph correctly understood the dream meant his family would one day be dependant on him and humbled before him in the future.  This knowledge would have stayed with him during the next thirteen years when he was being bought and sold as a slave five times.  These dreams prepared and encouraged Joseph for the difficult days ahead.  

 

Dreamer’s Response and Application 

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Unlike Mary who kept all things in her heart, Joseph shared his dreams with his father and brothers.  Perhaps this family regularly shared their dreams with one another.   

After all Joseph’s father Jacob was a big dreamer who most likely would have shared the importance of his and Abraham’s dreams with his family.   

It’s always been a common thing for my own large family to share and interpret our dreams around our meal table. 

Joseph’s response was to believe and share his dreams.  This had a huge effect on his father and brothers. His father pondered them as future prophetic events that might impact his family.   

The brothers were incensed. They mocked him. They said, Here comes the dreamer. The word used here is chalown which means master of dreams. They knew Joseph was a dreamer with a gift of dream interpretation.  

 

Know God Better 

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God is again seen as a promise keeper and a God of justice who can restore people and things to their proper place in His greater plans and purpose.  Here once again God is working things out for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. [2]

Sovereign God sees what’s coming and often prepares us for it through dreams. Joseph is being shown no matter what happens in the future God is with him working His purposes out.  

 

The Dream Process 

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On one level this is a simple symbolic dream, not particularly difficult to interpret. On another level it is an incredible prophetic dream that requires a good knowledge of Scripture in order to understand it better.  

The brothers and Jacob both get the general gist of the dream.  The brothers understand the dream but because hatred had darkened their minds they questioned Joseph’s motives. They said, Do you intend to reign over us?  Will you actually rule us?   

The deeper spiritual truth was that God intended Joseph to rule over them in order to save their lives and the lives of their families and to bring His greater plans and purpose to come to pass for their nation and all nations. Their interpretation was clouded by jealousy and too narrow in scope. 

This dream also foreshadowed Jesus who will be loved by His Father and  rejected by His brothers whom He will finally save. 

 

The Usual Suspects 

* * * 

God through this dream is working His Covenant plans and purpose out and is working all things together for good.  Satan is enflaming the jealous brothers to kill Joseph and thereby change the future and prevent the Messiah from coming to crush his head.   

Jesus, the bread of life, is prophetically in this dream. He is the sheaf of grain that will be bowed down before and worshipped by his brothers the Jewish people when they finally recognise and accept Him.   

 

Takeaways   

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This dream kickstarts a series of incidents in which Joseph will be bought and sold five times. This process will bring Joseph to his preplanned place in God’s plans and purpose prophesied to Abraham in his dream.  

Through Joseph’s two dreams God redressed Laban’s manipulative actions that thwarted His plans for Joseph.  The Bible records this setting of the record straight. It says,  

The sons of Reuben the firstborn of Israel
(he was the firstborn, but when he
defiled his father’s marriage bed, his
rights as firstborn were given to the sons
of Joseph son of Israel; so he could not
be listed in the genealogical record
in accordance with his birthright, and
though Judah was the strongest of his
brothers and a ruler came from him,
the rights of the firstborn belonged to
Joseph). [3] 

Joseph was the voice of God to his family and Israel through his dreams.  His two simple dreams tested their hearts and motives.  The brothers who already hated Joseph because their father treated him as his heir became even more jealous.    

Jacob tried to keep the peace by rebuking Joseph but knew there was something of deeper significance in Joseph’s dreams for his family’s future.   

God is not mentioned in either of these dreams but God is clearly working out His sovereign purpose through Joseph in the midst of great hostility and bitterness. When things were at their worse God was still in control.  Even though Joseph would suffer thirteen years of exile and hardship there was nothing Satan or man could do to stop God’s plans and purpose coming to pass.  Psalm 105 says,  

He sent a man before them, even Joseph,
who was sold for a servant: Whose feet
they hurt with fetters: he was laid in irons:
Until the time that his word came
to pass, the word of the Lord tested him. [4] 

In this verse the dreams from God are called the word of the Lord. It was the dreams, as the word of God, that tested Joseph.   

The word of God is vitally important to a believer.  Jesus told Satan, Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. [5]

Paul said, So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. [6]

A dream from God is a word from God.  

It can sustain us, like Joseph, through many years.   

A dream as the word of God also produces faith and faith leads to action.  God often conveys His plans and purposes to us through dreams as His word.  

When we receive and understand the message of God’s word we receive faith to be God's representatives in bringing to pass His specific communicated plans and purpose. 

1 Genesis 37:20 

2 Romans 8:28 

3 1 Chronicles 5:1-2 

4 Psalm 105:17-19 

5 Matthew 4:4 

6 Romans 10:17