In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the bed;
Ver. 15. In a dream, in a vision of the night] At sundry times and in various manners. God delivered his mind to men of old by dreams in the night, by visions in the day time, imprinting upon their minds what by them he would have understood, or uttered to others. This he did, especially before the law written, whereof therefore here is made no mention. See Numbers 12:6. Indeed with Moses, by a specialty of his favour, he spake mouth to mouth; even apparently (as a man doth to his friend), and not in dark speeches; the similitude of the Lord did he bebold, sed non absque aliquo Maiestatis eius involucro, but not without some overshadowing of his Majesty, which none can see and live, Exodus 33:20, he must needs be oppressed and swallowed up of it, as the sight of the eye is dazzled with the sun, or a crystal glass broken with the fire.
When deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the bed] When men, plunged in sleep, are neither in the number of the living nor the dead. Then many times the reasonable soul cometh into the shop of phantasy, and there doth strange works, which are vented in our dreams. And sometimes God, by an angel, or otherwise, causeth men to dream, and thereby admonisheth them with weighty matters; as he did Abimelech, Genesis 20:3,7; Jacob, Genesis 28:12,15; Joseph, Genesis 40:5,11; the other Joseph, Matthew 1:20,24; the wise men, Matthew 2:12; Pilate's wife, Matthew 27:19, which, though some think it came from the devil, to hinder man's redemption, yet others think it came from God, for the clearing of Christ's innocence, and, as Theophylaet holdeth, for the salvation of this woman's soul. ' Eπεχω. Of the several sorts of dreams, natural, divine, and diabolical. See Trapp on " Gen 20:3 "