Gen 37:9-12 | Clarke | STEP | Verse 9 He dreamed yet another dream - This is as clear as the preceding. But how could Jacob say, Shall I and thy mother, etc., when Rachel his mother was dead some time before this? Perhaps Jacob might hint, by this explanation, the impossibility of such a dream being fulfilled, because one of the persons who should be a chief actor in it was already dead. But any one wife or concubine of Jacob was quite sufficient to fulfill this part of the dream. It is possible, some think, that Joseph may have had these dreams before his mother Rachel died; but were even this the case, she certainly did not live to fulfill the part which appears to refer to herself. The sun and the moon and the eleven stars - Why eleven stars? Was it merely to signify that his brothers might be represented by stars? Or does he not rather there allude to the Zodiac, his eleven brethren answering to eleven of the celestial signs, and himself to the twelfth? This is certainly not an unnatural thought, as it is very likely that the heavens were thus measured in the days of Joseph; for the zodiacal constellations have been distinguished among the eastern nations from time immemorial. See Clarke at (note).

‏ Genesis 37:9-12

Verse 9

He dreamed yet another dream - This is as clear as the preceding. But how could Jacob say, Shall I and thy mother, etc., when Rachel his mother was dead some time before this? Perhaps Jacob might hint, by this explanation, the impossibility of such a dream being fulfilled, because one of the persons who should be a chief actor in it was already dead. But any one wife or concubine of Jacob was quite sufficient to fulfill this part of the dream. It is possible, some think, that Joseph may have had these dreams before his mother Rachel died; but were even this the case, she certainly did not live to fulfill the part which appears to refer to herself.

The sun and the moon and the eleven stars - Why eleven stars? Was it merely to signify that his brothers might be represented by stars? Or does he not rather there allude to the Zodiac, his eleven brethren answering to eleven of the celestial signs, and himself to the twelfth? This is certainly not an unnatural thought, as it is very likely that the heavens were thus measured in the days of Joseph; for the zodiacal constellations have been distinguished among the eastern nations from time immemorial. See Clarke at Gen 49:33 (note).