A Dreamer of Dreams

Reading:   Genesis 36-37

The youngest son of Israel (formerly known as Jacob) was Joseph.  Joseph was a dreamer - loved by his father, who gave him a coat of many colors, and despised by his eleven older brothers.  Being the youngest, only seventeen at this particular time, Joseph was not given much heed by his brothers and was often met with ridicule whenever he wanted to speak.  In chapter thirty-seven, Joseph is blessed with dreams that he shares with his father and brothers and he is chastised because the dreams seem to prophesy that Joseph would one day rule over all his family.

It strikes me as odd that even Jacob gets frustrated with Joseph, especially considering the many dreams that he had been blessed with (let us not forget the ladder).  Anyway, the chapter is heavy on reference to dreams and the dreamer of the dreams...

GENESIS 37:5-6, 9-10, 19-20

5    And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it his brethren: and they hated him yet the more. 

6    And he said unto them, Hear, I pray you, this dream which I have dreamed: 

9    And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and, behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me. 

10    And he told it to his father, and to his brethren: and his father rebuked him, and said unto him, What is this dream that thou hast dreamed? Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee to the earth? 

19    And they [his brothers] said one to another, Behold, this dreamer cometh. 

20    Come now therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into some pit, and we will say, Some evil beast hath devoured him: and we shall see what will become of his dreams. 

Thus begins the saga of Joseph, trapped in a pit and sold to the Ishmeelites for twenty pieces of silver.  A boy of dreams, forsaken and sold into servitude, who becomes a man, a Pharaoh, a ruler of all.  I absolutely love that the brothers sarcastically say,  "...we shall see what will become of his dreams."  Yes, brethren you most certainly shall!

"The greatest achievement was at first and for a time a dream. The oak sleeps in the acorn, the bird waits in the egg, and in the highest vision of the soul a waking angel stirs. Dreams are the seedlings of realities."

-James Allen (As a Man Thinketh)

I love that quote!  I should memorize it again...

~Kipling

Next:   Genesis 38-45