LETTER: The Interpretation of Dreams and Grain

In her enlightening and crisply written TRADITION debut, Nava Finkelman considers whether, by their actions to interpret dreams (verbal or otherwise), biblical characters seek to influence future events at which those dreams may hint – and explores several such attempts in the Joseph narrative (“Genesis Dream Pairs Revisited,” Fall 2022). She describes how, while his brothers explicitly denied Joseph’s dreams meant he would rule over them (Genesis 37:8), Joseph himself, especially as he rose to power in Egypt, clung to that maximalist interpretation as a possibility, and arguably took steps to achieve it. Ultimately, Joseph conceded the point, settling for his brothers bowing to him only as a provider of their sustenance as Pharaoh’s vizier in charge of rationing food during a regional famine.  

Raphael, “Joseph Interprets Pharaoh’s Dreams” (1519, Vatican Museum)

As Finkelman persuasively posits, the narrative hints at this interpretation, as it repeatedly stresses the catalyst for this family reunification story is the lack of food, and Joseph’s ability to provide it – employing the term shever (food or grain) and its cognates no less than 21 times. 

Just as this repetition is significant, however, so may be the word choice itself. To convey food and related words, Scripture typically uses the root aleph-khaf-lamed (800-plus times according to the Even-Shoshan Concordance, including multiple occasions in this story. By contrast, the root shin-bet-resh (usually related to “break”) carries this meaning outside the Joseph narrative in just seven other biblical verses. Why does Jacob – who told his sons “there is a shever in Egypt. Go down and procure (shivru) rations” (42:1) – specifically choose this unusual term to express himself? (The remaining usages in the narrative seem to follow Jacob’s lead.)

Perhaps to invoke yet a third, even rarer connotation of the root: the meaning of a dream. Its single appearance in the Bible: “And it was so, when Gideon heard the telling of the dream, and the interpretation thereof (shivro), that he worshipped; and he returned into the camp of Israel, and said: Arise; for the Lord hath delivered into your hand the host of Midian” (Judges 7:15).

In relation to Joseph’s dreams, Jacob had originally taken a middle approach, in between that of his children, rejecting the dreamer’s maximalist view, but reserving judgment on other possible meanings for the future (37:10-11). In Finkelman’s words, Jacob “kept the matter in mind” either “until the truth [could] be determined,” or “wonder[ing] whether Joseph’s dream had any implications toward the future” (nn. 7-8). It seems Jacob thought they did: when he heard of Joseph’s apparent death, Jacob was inconsolable, perhaps unable to accept the ill tiding in part since his son’s demise would have rendered the dreams meaningless (see 37:35, and Rashi ad loc).

Deeply grieving, but possibly not completely despairing of hope, Jacob is absent from the following five biblical chapters, spanning 22 years, until a famine involving Egypt strikes – a watermark event for both Jacob’s father and grandfather. Might it be one for him too? Possibly – if he takes action regarding his son’s dreams. “There is a shever in Egypt,” he tells his sons. Shever, in the sense of food, to break our hunger and, hopefully, shever, in the sense of an interpretation, the type which may restore meaning to Joseph’s still unforgotten dreams.

Ami Hordes is an attorney living in Jerusalem and writes on Tanakh-related topics, most recently in our pages with “The Post-Akeda Genealogical Report” (Summer 2020).

Nava Finkelman responds:

I am grateful to Ami Hordes for pointing out the connection between the word shever, as it appears in the Joseph narrative, and the singular use of the root shin-bet-resh in Judges 7:15. This is, in fact, the only place in Tanakh where this root is used in the sense of “meaning” or “interpretation [of a dream],” making the connection to our narrative compelling.

In Judges, the word shivro comes within the context of God trying to convince Gideon of his victory in the upcoming war. Gideon is instructed to go to the enemy camp and listen to an enemy soldier relate his dream, and to his comrade’s subsequent interpretation. In his dream, the soldier saw a loaf of barley bread tumbling into the camp, where it overturned a tent. The interpretation? “This can be nothing other than the sword of Gideon son of Joash, the Israelite. God has given the Midianites and the whole camp into his hands” (7:14).

The dream is obscure; it could have meant anything. For some reason the soldier’s friend interpreted it as a victory for Gideon. Why? Perhaps because that is the interpretation that God put into his mouth; or perhaps because the friend was preoccupied with fear of the upcoming war, and would have interpreted anything as implying a victory for the Israelites.

This interpretation was enough to convince the fearful Gideon. We are told that “When Gideon heard the dream and its interpretation (shivro)” he went back to the Israelite camp and confidently announced their upcoming victory. The dream itself was meaningless; it could have meant anything, or nothing. It seems that Gideon was convinced only after hearing both “the dream” and “its interpretation.” If the interpretation came from God, then he now has proof that even the enemy realizes that God will help Gideon win the war. If the interpretation was the result of the enemy’s own fears, then it is precisely those fears that would cause their defeat even before the battle commences. The Midianite’s defeatist interpretation convinced Gideon, whereas even God’s own assurances and multiple miracles did not.

As I suggested in my article, it is not the dream that determines reality, but the dreamer’s interpretation – his shever – and what he chooses to do in light of that interpretation.