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A youth of rare promise was Joseph. From his aptitude in creating and divining dreams, we may infer his fondness for quiet contemplation. His mind was active; he lived much in the future; he loved to roam amid unseen realities. Yet Joseph was not a perfect man. As every rose has its attendant thorn, so blemishes appear on his young soul. A sense of superiority and self-importance was fast springing up, under the unwise partiality of his father It was a tiny rift which would soon spoil the music of his life; a little cloud that would soon cover the whole horizon.

I. OBSERVE THE RAW MATERIAL OF THESE DREAMS. Every part of the history proceeds in a manner the most natural. It was the season of summer, and Joseph had been sharing with his brethren the labours of the harvest-field; for in Syria corn comes to maturity much earlier than in England. Overwearied with the excitements of the harvest, what more natural than that a busy imagination would weave into his dreams the stirring scenes in which he had just played a part? Touching the second dream, we must remember that, in the East the vocation of shepherds require their presence, in turn, during the hours of night, when wild beasts seek their prey. In that translucent atmosphere, and amid those cloudless skies, the lamps of heaven gleam with a brilliance unknown in Western climes. Again, by the natural processes of human thought, such a scene would furnish fit elements for the young man's dreams. Even nature moulds a man.

II. OBSERVE THE ARTIFICER OF THESE DREAMS. Not only does mystery appertain to heavenly things, there is mystery unfathomed within ourselves. Who can expound to us the philosophy of our dreams, yet these are full of significance. Aspirations, ambitions, projects, which during the day were kept in reserve, locked in secret by the monarch Will, now freely disport themselves, and the man's real self is seen in the mirror of his dreams. The prospect of eminence and rule rose before his eye, awake or asleep, like a glittering imperial crown, until that which at first was a vague possibility grew into a mental certainty. The conviction was rooting itself that he was to be a king.

III. OBSERVE THE OVER-RULING PURPOSE OF GOD. Although Joseph was conscious that he was free to choose his own course in life, free to frame ambitions, yet he was free only within certain limits, within a fitting circle: choice and will could act. Nevertheless the will of God encompassed and controlled the whole. There is no such thing as fatalism. We are moulding our own destiny, both temporal and eternal. We can catch at times a whispering of God's voice even in our dreams.

(J. D. Davies, M. A.)

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

WEB: Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it to his brothers, and they hated him all the more.