Genesis 37:9 - Exposition

And he dreamed yet another dream ,—the doubling of the dream was designed to indicate its certainty (cf. Genesis 41:32 )— and told it his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream more ; and, behold, the sun ( הַשֶּׁמֶשׁ , the minister, from Chaldee root שְׁמַשׁ , the pael of which occurs in Daniel 7:10 ) and the moon — הַיּרֵחַ , probably, if the word be not a primitive, the circuit-maker, from the unused root יָרַח , = אָרַח , to go about (Furst); or the yellow one, from יָרַח = יָרַק , to be yellow, ח and ק being interchanged (Gesenius)—and the eleven stars—rather, eleven stars, כּוֹכָבִים , globes, or bails, from כָּבַב , to roll up in a ball ( vide Genesis 1:10 )— made obeisance to me —literally, bowing themselves to me, the participles being employed ut supra, Genesis 37:7 . It is apparent that Joseph understood this second dream, even more plainly than the first, to foreshadow, in some way unexplained, his future supremacy over his brethren, who were unmistakably pointed out by the eleven stars of the vision; and this remarkable coincidence between the number of the stars and the number of his brethren would facilitate the inference that his parents were referred to under the other symbols of the sun and moon. In the most ancient symbology, Oriental and Grecian as well as Biblical ( Numbers 24:17 ), it was customary to speak of noble personages, princes, &c; under such figures; and the employment of such terminology by a nomadic people like the Hebrew patriarchs, who constantly lived beneath the open sky, may almost be regarded as a water-mark attesting the historic credibility of this page at least of the sacred record (vide Havernick, 'Introd.,' § 21), in opposition to Bohlen, who finds in the symbolical character of Joseph's dreams an evidence of their unreality, and De Wette, who explains them as the offspring of his aspiring mind.