Because of Joseph being deemed the ‘dreamer’ and the repercussions of that title, it highlights the importance of dreams in the Biblical context to show the destined plans of God. When Joseph is first introduced in the Book of Genesis, he is a young boy who tells his brothers and father his dreams. When he is explaining his second dream, it reads: “And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and, behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me” (Genesis 37:9). When he is telling them his dream, his voice is not one of arrogance or self-righteousness, he is rather reciting. His brothers grow angry about his dream and perceive it as Joseph bragging about his superiority, and see the dream as a threat to them. They are correct to see the dream as a telling to the future, but think they can change the outcome by selling him as a slave. This highlights a running theme in the Bible where dreams are tellings to the future from God.
Later in Joseph’s story, he finds himself in the position to decipher the Pharaoh of Egypt’s dreams. The excerpt says, “And they said unto him, We have dreamed a dream, and there is no interpreter of it. And Joseph said unto them, Do not interpretations belong to God? tell me them, I pray you” (Genesis 41:8). Here the connections between dreams and them being of God’s interpretation is stated very clearly by Joseph. In a literal reading, God’s plan can be deciphered and heard through dreams. But if you look at it in an anagogic lens, Joseph is really a symbol of the reader of the Bible. His belief that God’s word can be heard through the dreams and messages sent to us has never wavered, and he has benefitted from this tremendously. Joseph also spreads the word of God and uses his gift of translation to benefit others. Even when he had his first two dreams, he shared them with his family. Translating this to the reader, Joseph’s story comments on our fate in an extraordinary. It essentially proves that God has a plan for humanity, since it is seen that Joseph’s second dream comes true. This plan is not always as easily seen as it was in Joseph’s dreams, yet Joseph’s hardships can also translate to humanity’s hardships in keeping the faith of fate. Joseph was ridiculed as sold as a slave due to being a ‘dreamer,’ yet his persistence to keep his faith in God is a message to all of mankind.