Joseph dreamed—and they hated him yet the more— Every thing conspired to inflame the envy and malice of his brethren. Artabanus and Justin* ascribe, and very justly, this envy to Joseph's superiority over his brethren in wisdom, piety, and virtue. It will appear very plain from the sequel how these dreams were fulfilled, all of which imported the same thing, the submission of the whole family to Joseph: but it deserves observation, how readily the father and the brethren interpreted these dreams, as if the science was perfectly familiar to them. Bishop Warburton's fourth book of the Divine Legation should be read on this subject. He observes, that the method of conveying ideas is either by figures or sounds. In conveying ideas by figures, the picture or image of a thing to be conveyed, was represented: thus the idea of a horse was represented by the picture of that animal; but this method being attended with inconveniences, 1st, the principal circumstance in the subject was made to stand for the whole; thus a scaling ladder was painted to represent a siege. 2nd, The instrument of a thing, whether real or metaphorical, was put for the thing itself: thus an eye eminently placed, denoted omniscience, and an eye and a sceptre a monarch. 3rdly, One thing stood for another, when any quaint resemblance or analogy in the representative could be collected from nature or tradition: thus, the sun-rise was denoted by the two eyes of the crocodile, because they seem to emerge from its head: and he who had borne misfortunes with courage, and surmounted them, was signified by the hyaena; because the skin of that animal was supposed to be invulnerable. In sleep, where the information is rather by figures than by sound, ideas are commonly conveyed by pictures, which are termed dreams; and the whole art of the interpretation of dreams, is founded on this hypothesis. Dreams may be divided into speculative and allegorical: the first kind is that which represents a plain and direct picture of the thing predicted; the second is an oblique intimation of it, by a typical or symbolic image. The dream of Joseph was of this latter species.
* See Eusebii Praepar. Evangel. lib. ix. c. 23. and Justin. lib. xxxvi. c. 2.