Listening to God: The Discernment of Dreams
In many societies and traditions in the Ancient Near East, “dreams have been regarded as having fortune-telling relevance.” [1] In many ways, relevance is the result of the very nature of the dream. Because dreams are “uncontrollable and serendipitous, entering the mind when it is suspended in sleep,”[2] many societies have regarded them as the portal between the divine and the world of mortals. In Joel 2:28—a passage repeated in Acts 2:1—the pouring out of the spirit of prophecy includes dreams by members of the community (especially old men). In spite of their universal authority, however, dreams in the First Testament were considered the lowest level of prophecy, largely because of the difficulty in consistently interpreting them.
According to Rashi, “prophecy was only given to Moses for the sake of the community.” Prophecy is always communal; the idea of individual prophecy has little meaning unless it is received for the benefit of and translated by the greater community. Hendel states that “Joseph applied this [communal] approach to his dreams, understanding that they indicated something concerning the community.”[3] The Joseph cycle contains examples of dreams as prophecy and the gift of discernment or translation of dreams. As Joseph matures, so does his relationship to the community and his gift of discernment.
It is surprising when examining the Joseph cycle to find that the young Joseph never interprets his own dreams. Instead, Joseph’s brothers and father incorrectly interpret his early dreams; Joseph is not yet mature enough to understand how to discern them. Unlike Samuel, Joseph does not have an Eli to explain the sounds and visions of the night. Instead, he is surrounded by people whose explanations come not from God, but from the very human emotions of jealousy and anger. Only the structure of the story—the repetition of similar dreams and the later double dreams in Egypt—informs the reader of the prophetic nature of Joseph’s early dreams. “For the ancients, two dreams with the same message represented verification of a divine revelation, even though God did not figure in them specifically.”[4] It is the reader, not the characters, who translates Joseph’s early dreams to prophecy.
Although Joseph has the ability to dream dreams, neither he nor those around him have the ability to translate or discern those dreams. This structure is reversed in Egypt, when Joseph is able to interpret two pairs of similar dreams: first, those of the chief cup-bearer and the baker, who share space with Joseph in prison in Genesis 40, and then, the two dreams of Pharaoh in Genesis 41. The more mature Joseph expresses the source of the dreams with the question, “Do not interpretations belong to God?”[5] The fact that Joseph understands where the dreams come from is as important as the dreams themselves, for according to Deuteronomy 13:1-3:
If a prophet or dreamer of dreams arises among you and proclaims a sign or wonder to you, and if the sign or wonder he has spoken to you comes about, but he says, “Let us follow other gods (which you have not known) and let us worship them,” you must not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer.”
Here is a subtle distinction between the efficacious prophecy, which comes true, and its underlying source. It would be easy to discern a prophet based on whether or not the prophecy occurred, but the legitimacy of a prophecy does not depend upon its factual occurrence. What is sought is truth rather than fact, and truth depends on the source of the dream and the reason why the dream was sent.
This idea is consistent with the Quaker belief that God speaks to all, but that only those who know God recognize the source of dreams. Quakers held that “God might well speak to the individual through dreams, visions, or other indirect means.”[6] From the beginning, Friends were intrigued with dreams and many Quakers recorded “dream journals,” as dreams were considered part of the gift of prophecy. Early leaders believed that they were “called to be the prophets to their age, and that … prophecy and apocalypse was actually fulfilled in their experiences.”[7] Therefore, the ability to discern dreams was not just a passing amusement, for if God could speak through sleep, the translation of dreams was essential for a prophetic community. And if God could speak directly to those on the margins—such as women, slaves and old men—a new method of interpretation was needed. In his Journal, George Fox comments upon coming upon a group of people for whom dreams were important. He advises them of the importance of translating dreams to “distinguish between dream and dream.” Fox defines three types of dreams: multitude of business, whisperings of Satan, and “speakings” of God.[8]
Although most dreams are a continued working out of the business of the day, two types of dreams come from outside of daily “business.” Fox refers to these dreams as “whisperings” or “speakings.” Sly whispers come from Satan, but open speech comes from God. For Fox, the ability to discern came from the fact that Christ was within every individual, and that Christ continues to teach directly as he taught his disciples. He advised Friends to “wait in the light which comes from Christ, that with it ye may receive the life.”[9] He might have added, so that we can discern the difference between whispered and spoken words. For early Friends, the idea that God could speak directly through dreams was consistent with “the distinctive—and in many quarters, heretical—belief that god might well speak to the individual through dreams, visions, or other indirect means.”[10]
Dreams as potential vehicles for prophecy (that included old [senile] men) must be maintained by and for the community, for false dreams can negatively affect the community. If we cannot discern dreams of God from dreams of the ego, what good are dreams to the community? How can we ever be sure that we are being offered true comfort and hope? The reputation of the dreamer is not sufficient authority, as First Testament heroes (especially Elijah) who “see visions and … dream dreams” are as likely as any of us to “succumb to delusions of grandeur resident in both experiences.”[11]
In the case of Joseph, neither he nor his family was able to correctly interpret his dreams. The result of this inability to interpret was violence against the dreamer. Joseph, who did not understand the dreams, was sold into slavery, and a bloodied robe was presented in his place. His brothers, who did not understand the prophetic nature of the dreams, sold their brother and lived a life of lies. In a sense, the true dream that is not correctly interpreted is as dangerous to the community as false dreams and their false interpretations.
In his seminal work, The Lambs War, James Nayler suggests that an individual cannot discern when “filled with the world.” Nayler describes the state where “one can neither see nor serve God therein, being filled with the world and cumbrances,”[12] and suggests here and in other places that an individual “filled with the world” is totally unaware of that state. Like Joseph’s brothers, the inability to properly discern can lead to violence against members of the community, as our ability to discern depends on our awareness of our spiritual state. As Joseph’s brothers were in a state of envy, the result was violence. Early Friends would have seen this explained in James 4:2: “You desire but do not have, so you kill.” For Friends, God could speak at any time, even during sleep, and like all forms of discernment, the end of improperly discerned dreams was violence.
It is not only incorrectly discerned prophetic dreams that leads to violence, but also the most common thoughts and desires. For this reason, Fox admonished Friends to “bring all thoughts, imaginations, and affections to the test of it, to see if they are wrought in God, or of the enemy, or your own selves,” as the inability to do so resulted in violence against individuals and the community. God does not speak to us only through dreams and visions but also through any events in our day and any people that we encounter. Only as prophets can we see the source of violence and understand how our own words and actions lead to it. Our waking dreams are as open to suggestion as our sleeping dreams. Violence does not come from a faraway place but from within our hearts and desires. To be a Friend is to be a prophet of peace, a prophet who can hear the voice of God in any place, in any state. We need not wait upon dreams or visions, for God may speak at any time and the Christ within is always teaching us, always prophesying to us, helping us discern true dreams and true awakenings.
[1] Susan Niditch. Judges: A Commentary (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press. 2011), 97.
[2] Niditch.
[3] Russell Jay Hendel, “Joseph: A Biblical Approach to Dream Interpretation,” Jewish Bible Quarterly 39, no. 4 (October 2011): 233.
[4] Andrea M. Likovich, “The Function of Dreams in the Story of Joseph,” Journal of Theta Alpha Kappa 26, no. 2 (Fall 2002): 58.
[5] Gen 40:7, NIV.
[6] Ann Marie Plane, Dreams and the Invisible World in Colonial New England: Indians, Colonists, and the Seventeenth Century (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014), 89.
[7] Rufus Jones, introduction to The Beginnings of Quakerism, by William C Braithwaite (London: McMillan and Co., 1923), xxxviii.
[8] George Fox, George Fox’ Journal (London: Isbister and Company, 1903), 10.
[9] Fox, 13.
[10] Ann Marie Plane, Dreams and the Invisible World in Colonial New England: Indians, Colonists, and the Seventeenth Century (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014), 89.
[11] Gina Hens-Piazza, “Dreams Can Delude, Visions Can Deceive: Elijah’s Sojourn in the Wilderness of Horeb (I Kings19:1–21),” Biblical Theology Bulletin 48, no. 1 (2018): 16.
[12] James Nayler, The Lambs War (London: T. Simmons, 1658), 14.
