from telling it to his brethren. He spoke, and said: "Hear,
I pray you, this dream which I have dreamed. Behold, you
gathered fruit, and so did I. Your fruit rotted, but mine
remained sound. Your seed will set up dumb images of
idols, but they will vanish at the appearance of my descendant,
the Messiah of Joseph. You will keep the truth as to
my fate from the knowledge of my father, but I will stand
fast as a reward for the self-denial of my mother, and you
will prostrate yourselves five times before me."[11]

The brethren refused at first to listen to the dream, but
when Joseph urged them again and again, they gave heed
to him, and they said, "Shalt thou indeed reign over us? or
shalt thou indeed have dominion over us?"[12] God put an
interpretation into their mouths that was to be verified in
the posterity of Joseph. Jeroboam and Jehu, two kings,
and Joshua and Gideon, two judges, have been among his
descendants, corresponding to the double and emphatic expressions
used by his brethren in interpreting the dream.[13]

Then Joseph dreamed another dream, how the sun, the
moon, and eleven stars bowed down before him, and Jacob,
to whom he told it first, was rejoiced over it, for he understood
its meaning properly.[14] He knew that he himself was
designated by the sun, the name by which God had called
him when he lodged overnight on the holy site of the
Temple. He had heard God say to the angels at that time,
"The sun has come."[15] The moon stood for Joseph's
mother, and the stars for his brethren, for the righteous are
as the stars.[16] Jacob was so convinced of the truth of