the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
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Bible Dictionaries
Dream
Vine's Expository Dictionary of OT Words
or A. Noun.
Chălôm (חֲלֹם, Strong's #2472), “dream.” This noun appears about 65 times and in all periods of biblical Hebrew.
The word means “dream.” It is used of the ordinary dreams of sleep: “Then thou scarest me with dreams, and terrifiest me through visions …” (Job 7:14). The most significant use of this word, however, is with reference to prophetic “dreams” and/or “visions.” Both true and false prophets claimed to communicate with God by these dreams and visions. Perhaps the classical passage using the word in this sense is Deut. 13:1ff.: “If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder come to pass.…” This sense, that a dream is a means of revelation, appears in the first biblical occurrence of chălôm (or chălôm): “But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night …” (Gen. 20:3).
B. Verb.
Chălam(חָלַם, Strong's #2492), “to become healthy or strong; to dream.” This verb, which appears 27 times in the Old Testament, has cognates in Ugaritic, Aramaic, Syriac, Coptic, Arabic, and Ethiopic. The meaning, “to become healthy,” applies only to animals though “to dream” is used of human dreams. Gen. 28:12, the first occurrence, tells how Jacob “dreamed” that he beheld a ladder to heaven.
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Vines, W. E., M. A. Entry for 'Dream'. Vine's Expository Dictionary of OT Words. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/vot/d/dream.html. 1940.
