Genesis 37:9 Commentary and Bible Study

Then he dreams yet another dream. Only two are recorded, but the plurals in the language suggest that there were actually other dreams, only two of which we are let into. He told it to his father this time – he couldn't tell it to his mother, Rachel, because she was now dead – ‘Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and, behold, the sun and the moon’ – this is a kind of authority dream – ‘and the eleven stars’ – that’s the brothers – ‘made obeisance to me. And he told it to his father and to his brethren, and his father rebuked him’ and the Hebrew word for ‘rebuked’ is related to the word ‘scream’, which means his father very strongly rebuked him. He didn’t scream literally, but he was pretty horrified and angry. His father didn't like the sound of this at all, but he thought about it, and he changed his view. ‘What is this dream that thou hast dreamed? Shall I and thy mother …’ Why does he mention the mother? Rachel was dead. ‘Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee to the earth?’ Well he mentions Rachel, Joseph's mother, because she is in the dream too. And although she is dead, Jacob obviously takes it as symbolising the whole family. There is no quarrel about whether Rachel is alive or dead; it represents the whole family, because she is featured. Shall we bow ourselves down?’ He would be a deliverer of others, even his parents – even Jacob would bow down. Joseph had to speak to them all of this dream. If he had not seen it as a message from God then after the last experience he would have kept it to himself – he would be once bitten, twice shy – but no, he relates it faithfully. While his brothers hated him for the dream, though they partly believed it. They all grasped there was something true here. Jacob didn’t like it, but he felt this is probably going to happen. Like Christ with his miracles; they were awed and amazed but still don’t believe he is that Prophet. Jacob rebukes him; yes, but he observed the saying. He was strongly inclined to see it as prophecy. Not surprisingly: it takes a prophet to know one. Jacob knew Joseph to be humble person, and not someone given to exaggeration or self-exaltation, so he was forced to look more deeply at the dream. The Hebrew word translated ‘observed’ means he hedged it about. Literally, he protected it; he preserved it. It was a special statement, and although his first reaction was to rebuke Joseph, on reflection he realised this was a communication from God; it was an oracle and he must watch to the future, because Joseph would be in some way the family deliverer. He thought about it, and he treasured it, and protected it, and even the brothers’ attitude seems a little different, because they envied him; they were jealous of him. So have they been affected perhaps by Jacob’s respect for the dream? They don't like it at all, and they don't want it, but they are jealous of him, perhaps jealous of him having his father's respects in the matter.See Joseph’s character. His wisdom should have made him proud. Proof? Not once but twice his endowment one in favour, position of authority. But does not go to his head. Love inordinate from Jacob but doesn’t ruin him. The coat and the oracles. Special privileges do lift up pride, hence Paul’s thorn in the flesh. Then there is the injury done to him. Plan changes – knife and then picked. Is he filled with vengeance? No, it doesn’t ruin him.