Dreaming the Right Dreams

God’s revelation in the Bible comes in multiple ways. In 1 Samuel 28, the first king of Israel, Saul, despairs of not hearing the word of YHWH any more, a word that has come to him in the past “by dreams, by Urim, by prophets” (1 Sam 28:6). Dreams were regularly seen as loci of revelations from YHWH. Surely the most famous dreamer and interpreter of dreams in the Hebrew Bible is Joseph, whose prowess as purveyor of dreams from YHWH is unmatched. Indeed his skill saves his life and the lives of his people several times (see Gen 37-50 and the near constant leitmotif of the dreams of Joseph). Saul apparently, however, no longer hears from YHWH through dreams. Neither does the Urim, the “sacred dice,” borne on the breastplate of the priests of Israel, speak their rattling truths for the king. And, most importantly of all, the prophets have gone silent, the most infamous of whom, Samuel, has died and gone to Sheol. In abject and pathetic desperation, Saul, having barred all mediums and wizards from plying their arts in Israel, disguises himself and consults such a medium, a woman of Endor, to call up the shade of Samuel from the dead to tell him one more time what he is to do in the face of the Philistine threat. Once the ghost of the dead prophet appears, he with angry shouts condemns Saul and his sons to death in the coming battle. And so it comes to pass.

Of course, dreams are notoriously slippery things to understand and thus may be easily manipulated to say what we want them to say. Jeremiah 23 excoriates so-called prophets who “forget my name for Baal” (Jer 23:27). He continues: “Let the prophet who has a dream tell the dream, but let the one who has my word speak my word faithfully. What has straw in common with wheat? Is not my word like a fire, says YHWH, like a hammer that smashes rocks into pieces? Look, says YHWH, I am opposed to prophets who steal my words from one another. I am opposed to prophets who use only their own tongues, those who prophesy lying dreams, who speak them, leading my people astray with their lies and recklessness, when I did not send them or appoint them” (Jer 23:28-32). As Jeremiah makes crystal clear, there are dreams, and then there are dreams. Just because someone claims a dream from YHWH is no guarantee that the dream is in fact from that source.

My wife is a vivid dreamer. Our mornings are regularly given over to her recounting of her previous night’s dream and our attempt to understand what it might mean for her and/or for us. Dream interpretation is a fun and challenging task that I enjoy. Like interpreting texts, biblical or otherwise, dreams lend themselves to multiple hearings. What makes the task fun also makes it difficult and far less than certain. There is obviously no one way to interpret my wife’s dreams, but there are ways that her dreams may become road maps for the decisions and actions her life presents to her. Still, her dreams are rarely as obvious as pharaoh’s dreams about sleek and fat cattle, rising from the Nile over periods of seven years, dreams that Joseph reads quickly and accurately, thus saving his adopted land, and securing for himself great power in Egypt. In the process, pharaoh’s wise courtiers and magicians are shown to be the dunderheads that any Israelite knows them to be!

So with all that in our biblical background, what are we to make of Joel’s promise that “After this (?), I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and daughters will prophesy, your aged ones will dream dreams, and your youth will see visions. Why, even on male and female slaves, in those days, I will pour out my spirit” (Joel 2:28-29 in English; 3:1-2 in Hebrew). Clearly, Joel has some sort of future state in mind, given his use of the locutions “after this” (“afterward” NRSV) and “in those days.” It is a common prophetic move to predict a better time to come, a halcyon day when people will at last experience the great and good promises of YHWH come to fruition. Exactly when all this is to be is never stated for the obvious reason that no one knows. In Peter’s inaugural sermon at Pentecost in Acts 2, he confidently quotes this passage, announcing that the babble of languages those gathered round on that day are hearing is in reality the final fulfillment of what Joel promised those centuries before. In what ways it may be such a fulfillment I leave to my New Testament colleagues to unravel in full, but I admit that I find Peter’s sermon quite hard-edged and negative, focusing as it does on the murder of the Messiah Jesus by the religious authorities, the Jews (see 2:23-24). Still, the church had its birth that day, as 3000 persons joined the early fellowship as a result of Peter’s preaching.

I think it fair to say that Joel did not have Peter’s Pentecost sermon in mind when he wrote those rich words, whenever they were written. But we must then ask: what did he have in mind? Unfortunately, we are not helped with Joel’s possible historical background, since the book appears to be an amalgam of two distinct, though related, oracles. The first, chapters 1-2, record an ecological catastrophe of an enormous plague of locusts. Locusts are grasshoppers gone berserk, for reasons scientists even today have no clear answer for. Whoever wrote of this grim experience knew intimately the language for locusts and the agricultural devastation they can cause. Chapter 3 appears to have been written several centuries later, and promises a glorious future for a post-exilic Israel. The theological connections of the two portions may be seen as a typically prophetic one: grim assault on the people, this time a natural one, yet clearly from YHWH, followed by a wonderful future for the people of Israel who have remained committed to their God despite the struggles they have continuously endured.

But our question still remains: what does the author of Joel 2:28-29 have in mind? One thing seems quite certain: in normal expected human behavior in Israel old folk do not dream significant dreams, youth do not see visions as if they were conduits of YHWH, and slaves are not given the outpouring of YHWH’s spirit in order that they, of all people, might become prophets, along with sons and daughters, in the land. Joel in his oracle announces that the expected activities of religious life will undergo a sea change. Life in the land will feature the wise old spouting dreams of power straight from YHWH, Israelite sons and daughters, and their slaves, both male and female, uttering words of divine prophecy, while youth will become seers and visionaries, giving to the world wisdom that the world normally expects to issue from other places. Little wonder that this oracle has been used as a way to suggest that what we have expected by way of the word from God may not come in those expected ways at all. When slaves and the young and the wizened old become the sources of God’s word to the cosmos, the world will be a very different place, and according to Joel, a qualitatively better one at least for the people of Judah.

Just what sort of dreams and visions does Joel have in mind? I fear this future world will not be one of sweetness and light, at least not for the implacable enemies of Israel. Rather like Peter’s accusations against the Jews for the murder of the Messiah, their Messiah as Peter proclaims, so Joel paints a portrait of destruction for the enemies of the chosen people of YHWH. There will be, he shouts “Judgment in the valley of Jehoshaphat.” In a terrible reversal of the grand vision of Isaiah and Micah, Joel commands that plowshares be beaten into swords and pruning hooks into spears, and even the weakest among the people will say, “I am a warrior” (Joel 3:10). On and on he goes, proclaiming the fury of YHWH against especially Egypt and Edom (Joel 3:19), ending with a repulsive announcement that YHWH “will avenge their blood, and will not clear the guilty, because YHWH dwells in Zion,” (Joel 3:21) and does not then dwell in either Egypt or Edom or Babylon or Philistia or in any other place that has opposed the chosen people of Israel. Are these the grand dreams that Joel would have us dream, dreams of victory for us and defeat for all others?

We cannot believe that these are finally the dreams and visions that God gives to God’s people. When our old folk dream, I want dreams of hope and peace for all the world. When our youth see visions, I want those visions to be of unity and wholeness for the entire cosmos. When sons and daughters prophecy, I want those prophecies to announce hope for all, not merely for some. When I enter the voting booth this November, I dream and envision not power and wealth for the few, but hope and possibility for all our people. By all means, dream and envision a different world, but in the power of God may those dreams and visions be rich and expansive, inclusive of every person and every creature, for all come from God and all are loved and treasured by that God. As Shakespeare has it, “We are such stuff as dreams are made of,” and if that is true, then may we have the right dreams, dreams of love and hope for all.