Hebrew Astronomy: Part 6 The Sun, Moon and Stars Bow Down

In Genesis 37, Joseph has a dream. He sees the Sun, Moon and 11 stars bow down to him.

He is the son of Jacob and Rachel and has 11 brothers. He tells them about the dream and they become upset. His father asks whether they will all bow down to him.

Genesis 37 v 9-10

Then Joseph had another dream and told it to his brothers. “Look,” he said, “I had another dream, and this time the sun and moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.” He told his father and brothers, but his father rebuked him and said, “What is this dream that you have had? Will your mother and brothers and I actually come and bow down to the ground before you?”

After this, his brothers sell him into slavery and trick their father into thinking he is dead.

Astronomical Dreams

In this dream, we see the first suggestion that Jacob’s children are stars. In fact, the total number of stars in this passage are 12. This might link to the twelve constellations of the Zodiac. I will discuss this in a later post.

I find it interesting how Jacob has a dream of the Heavenly realm and his son, Joseph has an astronomical dream too. My thesis is the Heavenlies and the stars are linked metaphorically in Genesis. Which would tie those to dreams together.

This link suggests that Jacob’s children will be like the angels; bringing God’s message to the people on Earth and taking on a priestly role in Creation.

In one breath, there is a physical outworking of Joseph’s dream, where his relatives bow down to him at the end of the story. But there is also an astronomical one. Where Joseph says that his brothers are stars, meaning they are like the angels, the sons of God.

This links into Genesis 5, where each patriarch has ‘sons and daughters’. I believe these are the angels, the metaphorical stars and the sons of God (in Genesis 6). You can read more about this here:

Pitfalls in this Thesis

I am aware that I am making assumptions, without direct evidence in the Genesis text. At no point do we see the author of Genesis explicitly say that the sons and daughters of God are angels, or that the stars are like spiritual beings. But we can draw these ideas out of the text.

I am also aware that I am adding in concepts which are different to how Church has traditionally interpreted these texts. This should also cause us to be cautious.

So we need to take this thesis as something to be considered and discussed. I am not part of a peer review process, so I have chosen to publish my ideas on the Internet, to test them out. So feel free to comment and share your thoughts.

In the next few posts, we are going to be driving off into some wild territory. Involving snakes, deceptions and the Zodiac.