DREAM
DREAM
' The Kingdom in its highest and most Christian sense is the working of "invisible laws" which penetrate below the surface, and are gradually progressive and expansive in their operation. But in this, as in other cases, spiritual forces take to themselves an outward form : they are enshrined in a vessel of clay, finer or coarser as the case may be, not only in men as individuals, but in men as a community or communities. The society then becomes at once a vehicle and an instrument of the force by which it is animated, not a perfect vehicle or a perfect instru- ment,— a field of wheat mingled with tares, a net containing bad fish as well as good, — but analogous to those other visible msti- tutions by which God accomplishes His gracious purposes amongst men' (Sanday, Hastings' DB, art. 'Jesus Christ,' II. B. b. (2), (vi.)). A. E. KOS.S.
DREAM.— The interest of the student of the Gospels in dreams turns upon the occurrence in the opening eliapters of Matthew of the record of no fewer than five supernatural dreams (1^ 2''-- "• '"• --). Later in the same Gospel mention is made of a remarkable dream which came to the wife of Pilate (27"). There is no reference to dreams else- where in the NT except in a citation from the OT in Ac 2" and in an obscure verse in Jude (v.*).
No allusion is made in the Gospels, or indeed in the whole NT, to dreams as phenomena form- ing part of the common experience of man. Any such allusions that may occur in Scripture are, of course, purely incidental ; they are therefore in the whole e.xtent of Scripture very infrequent. Barely enough exist to assure us that dreams were thought of by the Hebrews very much as they are by men of average good sense in our own day. Men then, too, were visited vrith pleasant dreams which they knew were too good to be true (Ps 126'), and afflicted with niglitmares which drove rest from their beds (Job 7"). To them, too, dreams were the type of the evanescent and shadowy, whatever suddenly flies away and cannot be found (Job 20«, Ps 73="). The vanity and decep- tiveness of dreams were proverbial (Ec 5', Is 29"). The hungi-y man may dream that he eats, but his soul continues empty ; the thirsty man may dream that he drinks, but he remains faint (Is 29*). Their roots were set in the multitude of cares, and their issue Avas emptiness (Ec 5^-'). When the Son of Sirach (34'- -) represents them as but re- flexions of our waking experiences, to regard which is to catch at a shadow and to follow after the wind, he has in no respect passed beyond tlie Biblical view. (Cf. Delitzsch, Biblical Psycho- loqu, p. 328 ; Orelli, art. 'Triiume' in PEE"-).
The interest of the Bible in dreams is absorbed by the rare instances in which they are made the vehicles of supernatural revelation. That they were occasionally so employed is everywhere recognized, and they therefore find a place in the .several enumerations of the modes of revelation (Nu 12*, Dt I3'-5, 1 S 28«- «, Jl 2=8, Ac 2", Jer 2??- =» 23=s- ^'- 27" 29', Zee 10=: Job 4" 33>' stand somewhat ajjart). In this matter, too, the Son of Sirach re- tains the TSibljpftl viow. explicitly recognizing that dreams miy 1..- ~,-n\ by the Most High in the very pas- il, in ^^ lurh lie reproves the folly of look- ingupuii .h.niii- HI l:. iieral as sources of knowledge (34^). The »iipcr>ULiuus attitude characteristic of the whole heathen world, which regards all dreams a.s omens, and seeks to utilize them for purposes of divination, receives no support whatever from the Biblical writers. Therefore in Israel there arose no ' houses of dreams,' there was no place for a guild of ' dream-examiners ' or ' dream- critics.' When on rare occasions God did vouch- safe symbolical dreams to men, the professed dream - interpreters of the most highly trained castes stood helpless before them (Gn 37. 40. 41, Dn 2. 4). The interpretation of really God-sent dreams belonged solely to God Him.self,'the sender, and only His messengers could read their purport. There could be no more striking indication of the gulf that divides the Biblical and the ethnic views
of dreams. If there is a hint of an overestimate of dreams among some Israelites (Jer 23="- 27'), this is mentioned only to be condemned, and is obviously a trait not native to Israel, but, like all the soothsaying in vogue among the ill-instructed of the land, borrowed from the surrounding heathen- ism (cf. Lehmann, Aberglaube und Zauberei, p. 56). If there are possible suggestions that there were methods by which prophetic dreams were sought (Jer 29**, 1 S 28"- '^), these suggestions are obscure, and involve no commendation of such usages as prevailed among the heathen. All the sujjer- natural dreams mentioned in the Bible were the unsought gift of Jehovah ; and there is not the slightest recommendation in the Scriptural narra- tive of any of the superstitious practices of either seeking or interpreting dreams which constitute the very nerve of ethnic dream-lore (cf. F. B. Jevons in Hastings' DB i. 622).
Very exaggerated language is often met with regarding the place which supernatural dreams occupy in Scripture. The writer of the article ' Songes ' in Lichtenberger's Encyc. des Sciences Relig. (xi. 641), for example, opens a treatment of the subject dominated by this idea with the state- ment that, ' as everyivhere in antiquity, dreams play a preponderant role in the religion of the Hebrews.' Even M. Bouche-Leclercq, who usually studies precision, remarks that ' the Scriptures are filled with apparitions and prophetic dreams ' (Histoire de la divination dcuis VantiquiK, i. 278). Nothing could be more contrary to the fact. The truth is the .supernatural dream is a very uncom- mon phenomenon in Scripture. Although, as we have seen, dreams are a recognized mode of Divine communication, and dream - revelations may be presumed therefore to have occurred througliout the whole history of revelation ; yet verj- few are actually recorded, and they oddly clustered at two or three critical points in the development of Israel. Of each of the two well-marked types of super- natural dreams (cf. Baur, Symbolik und Myth- ologie, II. i. 142)— those in which direct Divine revelations are communicated (Gn 15'= 20'- * 28''-' 31'"-", 1 K 3=, Mt r^" 2'2-'3-'s-" 27'») and sym- bolical dreams which receive Divine interpreta- tions (Gn 37'- "• '" 40=-'« 41'- ', Jg 7'^'=, Dn 2'- '• =« 4' 7') — only some half-score of clear instances are given. Ail the .symbolical dreams, it will be observed further, with the exception of the one recorded in Jg 7'^"'* (and this may have been only a ' providential ' dream), occur in the histories of Joseph and Daniel ; and all the dreams of direct Divine communication, with the exception of the one to Solomon (1 K 3'), in the histories of the nativity of Israel or of the nativity of Israel's Re- deemer. In effect, the patriarchal stories of the Book of Genesis, the story of Daniel at the palace of the kin", and the story of the birth of Jesus, are the sole depositions of supernatural dreams in Scripture ; the apparent exceptions (Jg 7's-">, 1 K 3', Mt 27") maj' be reduced to the single one of 1 K35.