How to Interpret Dreams and Visions Perry Stone

Egypt from starving. When the famine struck, Joseph’s brothers traveled to purchase grain in Egypt. We read where Joseph’s “ten brothers went down to buy grain in Egypt” (Gen. 42:3). Benjamin was not with them; thus there were not eleven brothers as Joseph saw in his dream. When Joseph saw this, he realized this was not the complete meaning of what he had dreamed twentytwo years earlier when he saw eleven stalks of grain bowing before his sheave. He began manipulating his brothers (without their knowledge), and months later when the eleventh brother, Benjamin, arrived and all eleven bowed before Joseph, he knew this was the complete fulfillment of what he had seen in his dream. That is when he reveled himself to them! This should teach us not to try to force a dream to come to pass or to become impatient, but to exercise care and discretion when following any dream. DREAMS–SIGNS OF A PROPHET Prior to the completion of the Torah (first five books of the Old Testament), dreams and visions were two common methods God used to bring revelation, such as establishing covenants, warnings, and divine guidance to individuals and to the nation of Israel. The nations of antiquity, as far back as the Chaldeans in the lands of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Babylon, all had men in staff positions in their palaces who were considered to be dream interpreters. Among the early Hebrews, when a man was gifted to receive dreams and visions, it was a sign that he was a prophet, or one whom God was visiting with divine insight and revelation.