other represents him as the man to whom his god revealed his pleasure, especially by means of dreams and the gift of interpreting them. For the whole story hinges upon dreams. Joseph dreams; the butler and the baker dream; and Pharaoh dreams. And it is clear that very great importance is attached to these visions, for they all come out true, and are evidently looked upon as communications from God. This seems strange to us, who use the word dream as the symbol of all that is vain and unreal, but it was not by any means so in ancient times. It was the common belief of all nations that dreams were sent by the gods, and of course, as a necessary consequence, that the art of interpreting them. was a science. It is easy to see how this belief came to be held. The dread of everything incomprehensible played an important part in the formation of the religious representations and ideas of the ancients, and it need not surprise us therefore if the mysterious phenomena of dreams, the clearness with which one sometimes sees all kinds of things in one's sleep, the misery or delight one experiences on these occasions, the recollection, sometimes so clear and sometimes so confused, that is left behind,—it need not surprise us, I say, if all this made a deep impression upon people's minds, and was ascribed to the action of a deity. There is a characteristic passage about dreams and their interpretation in the works of the celebrated Roman author Cicero, which helps us to understand the views of the ancients in the last century before Christ, in a time, that is, when people were beginning to give themselves some account of their beliefs. Cicero attaches great importance to dreams, and says that "what happens to a seer or soothsayer in his waking hours is experienced by ordinary people when asleep. For then, while the body is prostrate and almost dead, the soul is awake, and is free from the influence of the senses, and from all distracting care. Since the soul has existed from all eternity and has held intercourse with countless numbers of other souls, it sees everything that lies in the nature of things, if only it is not too much disturbed by excess of eating and drinking to be able to keep awake while the body is asleep. Thus it is that the dreamer has power to read the future. The power of interpreting what the dreamer sees is, then, no natural gift, but an artificially acquired power. And so, too, with oracles and predictions. In all these cases the interpreters explain these phenomena just as the grammarians and commentators explain the poets. What use could we make of the metals if we were not taught how to find them? Of what use would timber be to us, but for the carpenter's art? So to every good gift that the gods have given man there is attached an art by which he can make use of it. Inasmuch, then, as there is a great deal that is obscure and ambiguous in dreams, oracles and predictions, we have recourse to the explanations of the interpreters." Such was the argument of a philosopher from whose mind simple unreasoning faith had long vanished. In earlier times no such arguments as these were used, but people believed without ever for a moment doubting the truth of their belief in the first place that it was often God's will to reveal the future to man, and in the next place that dreams were amongst the means by which he did so. And thus in Israel, too, the dream, together with the vision of the prophet and the oracle of the priest, was looked upon as a very common means by which Yahweh revealed his will; and the “dreamers are mentioned by the side of the prophets and the priests.1 The proverb-writers or "sages" of Israel appear to have attached less importance to dreams, and at any rate to have called in question their value as means of prediction. Thus, in the 1 Numbers xii. 6; 1 Samuel xxviii. 6, 15; Joel ii. 28; Deuteronomy xiii. 1—5. latter portion of the book of Job, which was added to it at least a century after the Babylonian captivity,1 Elihu says:2 God makes himself heard in this wise And in that wise; but men mark it not. And they slumber tranquilly on their beds; And stamps the seal on his exhortations, And his life from the arrows of death. 8 Here then, as in another passage, a dream is said to be sent by God, but only as an exhortation to men. Later sages deny the predictive value of dreams still more emphatically. One treats them as parallel with "vanities," and another says straight out:5 Vain and deceitful hopes befit the senseless man, And dreams make fools rejoice. Like one who grasps at a shadow and chases the wind, Is he who puts trust in dreams. A dream is a reflection of something that is, The reflex of face against face. How then can the clean come out of the unclean? Or truth out of a lie? Oracles and soothsaying and dreams are deceit, Mere imaginings of the heart, as of one racked by pain. Set not thy heart upon them in trouble. Dreams have led many astray e'er now, And they that trusted to them have fallen. At the very time, however, when this Israelite was denying, with such quiet good sense, that dreams had any value, the old superstition still lived in undiminished strength in 1 See vol. iv., chapter xiv. 3 Job iv. 12 ff. 2 Job xxxiii. 14-18. "Jesus son of Sirac xxxiv. 1-7. the minds of the masses; and the art of interpreting dreams, together with its character as a gift of God, was glorified in the person of Daniel.1 At the time when the stories about Joseph were written, no doubts had yet risen as to the divine origin of dreams, and there was no difficulty, therefore, in sketching the ancestor of Ephraim and Manasseh as a man who enjoyed, by God's favour, the privilege of having prophetic dreams himself, and being able to interpret those of others. Joseph is described as the favoured of Yahweh; and in the next chapter we shall consider the connection between this fact and the moral excellence which is ascribed to him. We will close this chapter by citing an Israelite song, which shows how much importance was attached to the favour of Yahweh by his worshippers: 2 Preserve me, O God! for I trust in thee Yahweh is my heritage and my cup; I will praise Yahweh, for he gives me counsel, I set Yahweh ever before my mind, For if he stands beside me I shall not be shaken. Therefore my heart rejoices, Therefore my soul is glad, And my body shall dwell in safety. For thou wilt not surrender my soul to the shadow-land," Thou wilt teach me the way to abide in life. Joy is before thy face, Beauty in thy right hand, for ever. 1 See vol. iv., chapter xxii. 2 Psalm xvi. 3 After an amended version. S CHAPTER XXVII. JOSEPH, THE LORD OF HIS BROTHERS. GEN. XLII. XLV. ANAAN,-so the story goes on- CANA other country, felt the effects of the famine that Joseph had foretold; and Jacob and his family soon began to be in want. They were already reduced to great distress when the father said to his sons, "Why do you look at each other in that helpless way? See, they tell me that corn is to be had in Egypt. So go there and lay in provisions to keep us alive." Joseph's brothers attended to their father's sensible advice, and all the ten of them set out for Egypt. But Jacob would not let Benjamin accompany them, for fear some accident should befall him on the journey. So once on a time, when Joseph was busy selling corn, and people from all quarters of the world came before him, his own brothers appeared amid the crowd and bowed down in reverence before him as the governor of the land. Now, though they did not recognise him, he knew who they were at once, and all the past rushed into his mind. So now his dreams had come true, and his brothers were bowing down before him! What sufferings they had brought upon him because of these dreams! They deserved a heavy punishment; and though he had no intention of dealing with them after their deserts, yet they must not be allowed to escape entirely unchastised. They must be made to feel that sin never goes unpunished. So he met them with the words, You are spies! You have come to see at what point the country is open to attack." His brothers answered in dismay, "No! no! We are all sons of the same father; honourable men and no spies." "I don't believe you," he replied. "You are come to see where the frontier is ex 66 |