Genesis 37:5-11 - Joseph had a dream

37:5-8

Many divine revelations came through dreams. Now this does not mean every or most dreams are divine revelation, most are nothing of the sort, but God can and does sometimes use dreams to communicate. Joseph had a dream which was a divine revelation, and he told it to his brothers. Unsurprisingly the dream increased his brothers’ resentment all the more, for in the dream all the brothers bowed down to Joseph. Now as the eleventh born, not the first born, Joseph had no natural right to expect to rule over his brothers.

37:9-11

Just to make matters worse, Joseph had another dream, and this dream was even more antagonistic! For in this dream it was not just his brothers that bowed down to him, but his mother and father bowed down to him as well! So Jacob rebuked him as well. His actual mother, Rachel, was dead by this point, so “mother” probably refers to Leah. His brothers were even more jealous, but while Jacob was a little angry, he also kept these things in mind, not dismissing it completely. 

Now we know that the dream did come true, but we also knew that there was much hard work to be done in Joseph’s life and character. Just receiving the word from God is only the start of the process, it almost always means that God will be doing much work on our character as well.