The Pulpit Commentary — Genesis — Section 483

same thing is still <lone among the Hindoos, (Lange)-my ahear aroae, and also atood crimson, purple, and other colours being upright (literally, stood, i. e. placed itsell often tastefully sewed to~ther for beautiful upright, and remained so); and, behold, your or favoured children (vide 'Oriental Illus- sheaves stood round about, and made obei- trations,' p. 43). sance-i. e. bowed themselves down (cf. eh. Yer. 4.-And when (literally, arui'J hie xxiii. 7, Abraham bowing to the Hethites)- brethren saw that their father loved him to my sheaf. The fulfilment of this dream more than all his brethren, they (literally, occurred iu Egypt (vide eh. xlii. 6 ; xliii. 26 ; and they) hated him,-as Esau hated Jacob xliv. 14). (eh. xrni. 41 ; cf. eh. xlix. 23)-and could Ver. 8.-And hie brethren (who had no not speak peacably unto him-literally, they difficulty in interpreting the symbol's signi- ~cere not abk to speak o.f him for peace, i. e. fi_cance) said to him (with mingled indigna- they could not address him in such a way e.s t10n and contempt), Shalt thou indeed reign to wish him well ; they could not offer him over us!-liternlly,reigning, wiltthou1·eign! the customary salutation of Shawm, or Peace. i. e. wilt thou actually reign over us 1 the Ver. 5.-And loseph dreamed a dream emp_hasis resting on the action of the verb (in which, though, e.s the sequel shows, in- (vide Ewald, 'Heb. Synt. ,' § 312a)-or shalt tended as a Divine communication, there thou indeed have dominion over us ! The was nothing to distinguish it from an ordin- form ot' expression is the same as that of the ary product of the mind), and he told it to preceding clause. And they hated him yet his brethren :-not in pride, since there is the more (literally and they added again no reason to suppose that Joseph e.s yet to hate him) for (i. e. on account of) his understood the celestial origin of his dream, dreams, and for (or, on ac-:ount of) his but in the simplicity of his heart (Kalisch, words. Murphy), thongh in doing so he was also Ver. 9.-And he dreamed yet another guided, unconsciously it may be, but still dream, - the donbling of the dream was really, by an overruling providence, who designed to indicate its certainty (cf. eh. xli. made use of this very telling of the dream as 32) - and told it his brethren, and said, a step towards its fulfilment (Lawson)-and Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and, they hated him yet the more-literally, and behold, the sun (~~iJ, the minister, from they added aqain to hate him. Chaldee root l:il;I~, the pael of which occurs Ver. 6.-And he said unto them, Hear, I pray you, this dream which I have dreamed.. in Dan. vii. 10) and the moon - IJ'J'P, pro- Though Joseph did not certainly know that bably, if the word be not o. primitive, the cir- his dream was snpernatural, he may have thought that it was, the more so as dreams cuit-maker, from the unused root n~! = nJ~, to go about (Fiirst) ; or the yellow one, were in those times commonly regarded as mediums of Divine communication ; and in = from nJ! i'J!, to be yellow, n and j.) being this case it was clearly his duty to impart it interchanged (Gesenius)-and the eleven to the household, and all the more that the stars-rather, ele\"en stars, t:1 1:;!~1!1, globes, subject of it seemed to be for them a matter or balls, from :i;q,, to roll up in a ball (vide of peculiar importance. In the absence of eh. i. 16)-made obeisance to me-lit~r~lly, information to the contrary, we are warranted bowing themselves to me, the parti~1ples in believin" that there was nothing either bein" employed ut supi-a, ver. 7. It 1s o.p- sinful or off;nsive inJoseph's spirit or manner pare~t that Joseph understood this second in making known his dreams. That which dream, even more plo.inly tho.n th~ first, ~o appears to have excited the hostility of his foreshadow in some way unexplo.med, lns hrethren was not the mode of their commu- future sup~macy over his brethren, who i:.ication, but the character of their contents. were unm1stako.bly pointed out by the eleven Ver. 7.-For (literally, and), behold, we stars of the vision ; nnd this remarknblo were binding sheaves-literally, . binding coincidence between the number of the stars things bound, i e. sheaves, alumim, from and the number of his brethren woukl facili- alam, to bind ; the order of the ~or~s ~nd tate the inference tho.t his parents were re- the participial form of the verb mdicatmg ferred to under the other symbols of the sun that the speaker describes the vision as it and moon. In the most o.ncient eymbology, appeared to his mind (vide ~wal<l, '_Heb. Oriental and Grecian as well o.s Biblical Synt. '§ 342)-in the fleld,-hterally, in the (Numb. xxiv. 17), it was customo.ry to speak middle qf the field; from which it would of noble personages, princes, &c., under such appear that Jacob was not a m~re n_oma~, figures ; and the employment of s~ch ter- but carried on agricultural operations hke his minology by a nomadic people l!ke the father Isaac (eh. x.xvi. 12)-and, lo,-" the Hebrew pntriarchs, who constantly lived be- m_;:,, o.s repeated in his narration, bhows that neath the open sky, may o.hn1Jst_ be ~egardc~ he hacl a presentiment of something great" 118 a water-mark attesting tho h1stonc crelll• OJI. XXXVII. 2-11.] THE BOOK OF GENESIS. 429