DREAMS
Job 33:12-26 | Behold, you are not right in this matter. I will answer you, for God is greater than man. Why do you complain to Him that He answers nothing a man asks? For God speaks in one way & in another, yet no one notices. In a dream, in a vision in the night, when deep sleep falls upon men as they slumber on their beds, He opens their ears at that time & terrifies them w/ warnings, in order to turn a mankind from wrongdoing & keep us from pride, to preserve our soul from the Pit, & our lives from perishing by the sword. A person is also chastened on their bed w/ pain & constant distress in our bones, so that we detests our bread, & our soul loathes our favorite food. Our flesh wastes away from sight, & our hidden bones protrude. We draws near to the Pit, & our lives to the messengers of death. Yet if there is a messenger on our side, one mediator in a thousand, to tell us what is right for us, to be gracious to us & say,
‘Spare them from going down to the Pit; I have found their ransom,’ then your flesh will be renewed like a child’s, & you will return to the days of your youth. You will pray to God & find favor; you will see His face & shout for joy, & God will restore the righteousness of that person. ________________________________________________________
RE: This passage freaks me out—especially in light of the dream I had a few days ago.
Matthew 27:19 | While Pilate was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent him this message: "Have nothing to do with that innocent man, for I have suffered terribly in a dream today because of Him."
Genesis 15:12 | As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and suddenly great terror and darkness overwhelmed him.
Genesis 46:2 | And that night God spoke to Israel in a vision: "Jacob, Jacob!" He said. "Here I am," replied Jacob.
Job 4:13 | In disquieting visions in the night, when deep sleep falls on men,
Daniel 2:1 | In the second year of his reign, Nebuchadnezzar had dreams that troubled his spirit, and sleep deserted him. ________________________________________________________
Matthew Henry Commentaries, nonconformist minister [1662-1714]
Job 33:14-18 God speaks to us by conscience, by providences, & by ministers; of all these Elihu discourses. There was not then, that we know of, any Divine revelation in writing, though now it is our principal guide.
When God designs men's good, by the convictions & dictates of their own consciences, He opens the heart, as Lydia's, & opens the ears, so conviction finds its way in.
The end & design of these admonitions are to keep men from sin, particularly the sin of pride. While sinners pursue evil purposes, & indulging their pride, their souls are hastening to destruction.
That which turns men from sin, saves them from hell. What a mercy it is to be under the restraints of an awakened conscience!
Pulpit Commentary by Donald Spence Jones (1836-1917)
In a dream, in a vision of the sight. So God spoke to Abimelech (Genesis 20:3-7), to Jacob (Genesis 31:11), to Laban (Genesis 31:24), to Joseph (Genesis 38:5, 9), to the Pharaoh whom Joseph served (Genesis 41:1-7), to Solomon (1 Kings 3:5), to Daniel (Daniel 2:19), to Nebuchadnezzar (Daniel 2:28; Daniel 4:5-18), and to many others.
Sometimes men recognized such visions as Divine communications; but sometimes, probably quite as often, they regarded them as mere dreams, fancies, phantasies, unworthy of any attention.
Elihu seems to hold that Divine visions came only when deep sleep falleth upon men; and similarly Eliphaz, in Job 4:13.
This method of revelation seems to belong especially to the more primitive times, and the earlier stages of God's dealings with men.
In the NT dreams scarcely form any part of the economy of grace. “In slumberings upon the bed”—A pleonastic addition, which must not be regarded as diminishing from the force of the precedent clause.
Joseph Benson, English Methodist (1749–1821)
“when deep sleep falleth upon men” — When men’s outward senses are bound up, & their minds are free from all distracting cares & business of the world, and wholly at leisure to receive divine impressions;
“in slumberings upon the bed” — This is added because, in this case, man is like one that slumbers, or is between sleeping & waking, or uncertain in which state he is, as Paul, when he was in his ecstasy, could not tell whether he was in the body or out of the body.
Albert Barnes, American theologian (1798-1870)
“When deep sleep falleth upon men” - This may be designed to intimate more distinctly that it was from God. It was not the effect of disturbed &broken rest; not such fancies as come into the mind between sleeping & waking, but the visitations of the divine Spirit in the profoundest repose of the night.
The word rendered "deep sleep" (תרדמה tardêmâh) is one that denotes the most profound repose. It is not merely sleep, but it is sleep of the soundest kind - that kind when we do not usually dream; see the notes at Job 4:13.
WHEREAS...
“In slumberings upon the bed” - The word rendered "slumberings" (בתנומה bitenûmâh) means a light sleep, as contradistinguished from very profound repose. Our word slumber conveys the exact idea. The meaning of the whole is, that God speaks to people when their senses are locked in repose - alike in the profound sleep when they do not ordinarily dream, and in the gentle & light slumbers when the sleep is easily broken.
In what way, however, they were to distinguish such communications from ordinary dreams, we have no information.
It is scarcely necessary to remark that what is here & elsewhere said in the Scriptures about dreams, is no warrant for putting any confidence in them now as if they were revelations from heaven. ________________________________________________________
Matthew Poole, English Nonconformist theologian (1624 - 1679)
In a dream: this he mentions, as the usual way of God’s revealing his mind and will to men in those days, before God’s word was committed to writing, as Genesis 20:6 41:1,28.
In a vision of the night: this is added by way of explication and limitation, to show that he speaks not of every dream, but of those Divine dreams in which God was pleased to vouchsafe some vision or representation of his will to the mind of a man.
When deep sleep falleth upon men; when men’s senses are bound up, and their minds free from all distracting cares and business of the world, and wholly at leisure to receive Divine impressions.
In slumberings: this is added, because in this case the man is like one that slumbereth, or between sleeping and waking, or uncertain in which state he is, as Paul could not tell whether he was in the body, or out of the body, when he was in his ecstasy, 2 Corinthians 12:1,2. [Zechariah 3-4]
