What are some biblical examples of dream interpretation?

But one thing more is left to look at just now. The rest will be deferred. Again does the patient care of God provide for the absolute assurance of victory to Gideon before he goes into the fight. You will notice that Gideon does not ask for this sign, but avails himself of it when it is offered by God. It is something more than a sign, beginning in figurative language, the enemy himself gives the interpretation, with the assurance of complete victory.

One of the host of Midian had a dream, and Gideon is permitted to hear him relate it to his fellow. It is simple almost to rudeness. A cake of barley bread falls into the camp of Midian and overthrows a tent. His companion interprets it in plain language: "This is nothing else save the sword of Gideon, the son of Joash, a man of Israel: for into his hand hath God delivered Midian, and all the host." Thus from the lips of the enemy he gets God's assurance of the success of the entire movement.

But God had sent a dream to a Midianite soldier and God so ordered events that the man was telling his dream to another, which Gideon heard from the shadows. He had dreamed that only a loaf of barley bread had tumbled into the camp of Midian, overturning and collapsing a tent (v. 13). What a surprise it must have been to Gideon to hear the man's friend interpret the dream as he did! He made not the slightest question that this dream indicated that Gideon the son of Joash would lead Israel in defeating Midian, God delivering all the camp of Midian into his hand (v. 14).

But one thing more is left to look at just now. The rest will be deferred. Again does the patient care of God provide for the absolute assurance of victory to Gideon before he goes into the fight. You will notice that Gideon does not ask for this sign, but avails himself of it when it is offered by God. It is something more than a sign, beginning in figurative language, the enemy himself gives the interpretation, with the assurance of complete victory.

One of the host of Midian had a dream, and Gideon is permitted to hear him relate it to his fellow. It is simple almost to rudeness. A cake of barley bread falls into the camp of Midian and overthrows a tent. His companion interprets it in plain language: This is nothing else save the sword of Gideon, the son of Joash, a man of Israel: for into his hand hath God delivered Midian, and all the host. Thus from the lips of the enemy he gets God's assurance of the success of the entire movement.

There is no book in the world comparable to the Bible for transparency. The writer was inspired to tell as calmly of Gideon's fear as of his courage. "If thou art afraid, go down with Phurah." Who but God could speak out so simply? He was afraid, and takes with him the servant. Where is the honour of the successful warrior? It belongs to God alone. "And the Midianites and the Amalekites and all the children of the east lay along in the valley like grasshoppers for multitude; and their camels were without number, as the sand by the seaside for multitude. And when Gideon was come, behold, there was a man that told a dream to his fellow, and said, Behold, I dreamed a dream, and, lo, a cake of barley bread tumbled into the host of Midian, and came to a tent, and smote it that it fell, and overturned it, that the tent lay along. And his fellow answered and said, This is nothing else save the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, a man of Israel: for into his hand has God delivered Midian, and all the host. And it was so, when Gideon heard the telling of the dream, and the interpretation thereof, that he worshipped, and returned into the host of Israel, and said, Arise; for Jehovah has delivered into your hand the host of Midian. And he divided the three hundred men into three companies, and he put a trumpet into every man's hand, with empty pitchers, and lamps within the pitchers." The cake of barley bread was no great thing in itself or in men's eyes. But so it is that God delivers, not by wit, power, or wealth, but by His Spirit working through a despised instrument. And Gideon worships as he hears. His confidence is in the Lord. He was less then ever in his own eyes: God filled them, and His people too had therefore a great place: "Jehovah has delivered into your (not my) hand the host of Midian." Yet we know that their actual state was as low as their number within was small. All turns on Jehovah; but these were His ways. And Gideon's faith saw it all done.

Now in the second chapter of this book we have the first of the three Voices addressed by God to Nebuchadnezzar, the remarkable prophetic image of gold, silver, brass, iron, and clay, which was broken to pieces by a stone cut out without hand, and which eventually filled the earth. This revelation was made in the form of a dream. The king demanded of his wise men that they should make known both the dream and its meaning. This none of them could do, and the imperious order went forth that they should be slain. Meanwhile Daniel learns the edict, and goes, with his companions, in prayer to the God of heaven, that He should make known to them the dream. Beautiful faith! and assuredly God could as easily discover the dream to Daniel as He could give it at first to Nebuchadnezzar. So He did, and thus enlightened Daniel went in to the king, and notice his words—“The secret which the king has demanded, cannot the wise men, the astrologers, the magicians, the soothsayers show unto the king, but there is a GOD IN HEAVEN that revealeth secrets,” &c.; then follows the dream and its interpretation. The king is satisfied, and more; it dawned upon him for the first time that there was a “God of gods and a Lord of kings”—one greater than himself—and a “revealer of secrets,” to whom indeed everything is naked and opened, introduced now to him as a “God in heaven.”

Dreams play an important part in Joseph's history previous to his exaltation. God frequently took this way to communicate His mind, or to reveal beforehand coming events, in the ages before Moses, when there was no written revelation of His will. So in the book of Job, where we have history antedating Moses (as we believe), we read of God speaking "in a dream, in a vision of the night," to men. Now we have His written revelation, the completed Bible, and it is only in extremely rare and exceptional cases that we can recognize a dream as having come from God. "A dream cometh through the multitude of business," that is, from purely natural causes, Scripture says (Ecc. 5:3). This may be said of the mass of dreams. but there are dreams on record which are undoubtedly of divine origin, and can be accounted for in no other way. For instance, I know a lady well, who said one morning to one of the members of her family, "I fear something is going to happen, for I saw in my dream last night a pool of blood." And before that day closed her husband was carried into the house with his face covered with blood, which was flowing from a gash in his forehead. "There is my pool of blood," she exclaimed, as she opened the door and saw it. He had been thrown from his wagon, and struck his forehead against a sharp stone. Now this may appear trifling to some, but how many individuals (and even nations) have been saved from the grossest materialism by such and similar means, none of us can tell. Anyway, history records what an important place dreams held in the cults of ancient Egypt and Assyria, and the divinely inspired story of Joseph confirms it.

Pharaoh is the dreamer in the chapter before us to-night. He dreams two dreams of exactly the same import. He stands in his dream by the river Nile, and sees seven well-favored and fat-fleshed kine feeding in a meadow. Then he sees seven ill-favored and lean-fleshed kine come up out of the river and eat up the well-favored and fat-fleshed. He dreams again, and sees seven ears of corn, rank and good, come up on one stalk. Then he sees seven thin ears, blasted with the east wind, spring up after them, and they devour the rank and full ears. Pharaoh then awakes, and is troubled. He tells the magicians and wise men his dreams. "But," we read, "there was none that could interpret them unto Pharaoh." Then the chief butler speaks up, and tells of his and the chief baker's experience in prison years before, and how Joseph had correctly interpreted their dreams. "And it came to pass." he says, "as he interpreted to us, so it was; me he restored unto mine office, and him he hanged." "Then," we read, "Pharaoh sent and called Joseph, and they brought him hastily out of the dungeon: and he shaved himself, and changed his raiment, and came in unto Pharaoh." Pharaoh tells Joseph his dreams, and Joseph at once explains to Pharaoh what they mean. He interprets the seven well-favored and fat-fleshed kine and the seven rank and good ears of corn to signify "seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt." And the seven lean kine and thin ears he interprets as seven years of famine. "And there shall arise after them" (the seven years of plenty), he says, "seven years of famine; and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt; and the famine shall consume the land; and the plenty shall not be known in the land by reason of that famine following; for it shall be very grievous. And," he adds, "for that the dream was doubled unto Pharaoh twice, it is because the thing is established by God, and God will shortly bring it to pass." Then, unasked, and with the dignity becoming a messenger of God, the Hebrew slave advises the king just what to do in view of what was about to come to pass — reminding us of his great Antitype, whose name is "Counsellor."

Without hesitation Joseph interpreted the dream for Pharaoh, saying, "The dream of Pharaoh is one," that is, the second dream was simply a confirmation of the first. God was showing Pharaoh beforehand what He was going to do in Egypt. The seven cows signified seven years, and the seven good ears of grain signified seven years. Similarly, the seven ugly cows and the seven parched ears of grain each signified seven years (vs.26-27). God had chosen to reveal to an Egyptian king what He purposed to do. The well fed cows and the good ears of grain indicated that there would be seven years of abundant produce through all the land of Egypt, while the lean cows and the thin ears of grain were prophetic of seven years of famine to follow. Then because of the severity of the famine the good years would be forgotten as though eaten up by the bad years with no helpful result (vs.29-31). God does such things as this with the object of awakening people to realize that their blessing does not depend on circumstances, but on the God who brings about every circumstance.

The baker, when he heard Joseph's interpretation, expected a favorable interpretation of his dream also. He tells Joseph that in his dream he had three baskets on his head and in the top basket were all kinds of a bakery goods for Pharaoh, and the birds were eating out of the basket. Joseph's interpretation is however totally in contrast to that of the cupbearer's dream. "The three baskets are three days; within three days Pharaoh will lift up your head from you and will hang you on a tree, and the birds will eat your flesh from you" (v.19).

Joseph, in communion and the mind of God, had no difficulty in interpreting this dream. "The three branches are three days," he says (v.12), and within three days Pharaoh would "lift up his head," that is, bring him into public view, and restore him to his office of cupbearer.

The third was that both men in one night should have dreams of a peculiar nature and yet marked by certain resemblances, and the effect on their minds should be such as to make them look sad and attract the notice of Joseph. They felt that there must be a hidden meaning in their dreams and they desired an interpreter. Joseph's reply was virtually an offer to interpret, while he acknowledged that all power to do so came from God.