Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #15 in Genesis 37, and we will read Genesis 37:9-11:

And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and, behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me. And he told it to his father, and to his brethren: and his father rebuked him, and said unto him, What is this dream that thou hast dreamed? Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee to the earth? And his brethren envied him; but his father observed the saying.

I will stop reading there.  To begin with, we are told in this passage that the sun, moon, and stars made obeisance to Joseph.  When Jacob, Joseph’s father, rebuked him in response, he likens himself to the sun as he said, “Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee to the earth?”  We know the eleven brethren are in view with the eleven stars, so that leaves the “sun,” and “moon.”  So Jacob, as the man and head of the house, would identify with the sun, while Joseph’s mother would identify with the moon, which is a reflected light, and the lesser light, as far as household authority is concerned.

This raises some questions, but we are not going to try to get into an answer at this point.  The first question would be, “How can Joseph’s mother, as represented by the moon since his mother Rachel had died several years earlier?”  There are a couple of possibilities.  One is that Rachel is in view, and Jacob is thinking that this has something to do with her being typified by the moon, and perhaps some sort of resurrection scenario.  I do not know, but that is one way that Rachel could be in view with the moon.  Another possibility is that Rachel was a wife of Jacob, like Leah and the two concubines, and she was a mother.  There is a third possibility, and it is spiritual, and it is definitely in view.  The mother represents the Word of God, and the moon represents the Word of God, or the Law of God.  So when we talk more about “mother” and “moon,” we will discuss that further.

But in this study, I want to spend time looking at the “sun.”  When Joseph told this dream, it was his second dream.  His first dream was one in which the sheaves bowed down to his sheaf, and his brothers hated him for that dream.  Again, there were eleven brethren, pointing to the Lord Jesus Christ entering into the world through the tribe of Judah, and coming as King of the Jews, after 11,000 years of history.  That dream would identify with the first coming of Christ.  And the second dream involved the number “13,” which included the eleven brethren, plus the sun, and the moon.  And the number “13” identifies with the second coming of Christ, as the number “13” points to the end of the world, and it was at the end time stage of the world that Jesus came as the Judge to fulfill all things, including the destruction of the earth, ultimately.

So the two dreams identify with the two comings of the Lord Jesus, and that is why in both instances the sheaves bow down to his sheaf, and then the sun, moon, and stars made obeisance to Joseph in the second dream, as Joseph is a great type of Christ.  So, spiritually, it is the celestial bodies (the hosts of heaven) being in submission to Christ, and we definitely see that regarding the time of the end.  We read this kind of language in several places, like Matthew 24:29:

Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:

In the Old Testament, it says in Joel 2:10:

The earth shall quake before them; the heavens shall tremble: the sun and the moon shall be dark, and the stars shall withdraw their shining:

Also, it says in Joel 3:15:

The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining.

The context of these Scriptures in Joel is Judgment Day, the time “immediately after the tribulation of those days.”  In Joel 3 it speaks of the valley of Jehoshaphat where God is sitting to judge all the nations, spiritually speaking.  So as we read of the sun, moon, and stars in these Scriptures, it identifies with Judgment Day, so we have the correct idea as we are led to count the number of the “sun, moon, and stars” as the number “13.”  And remember that the number “13” points to the time of the end when judgment came upon the churches, followed by judgment on the entire world.  It directs us to this end stage of earth’s history (the time in which we currently live), and it refers to the sun, moon, and stars submitting to Joseph, a great type of Christ, because that is exactly what happened when God brought judgment on the churches, and then on the world.  Let us go to Revelation 8 where we read of judgment on the “third part,” which represents God’s judgment on the churches.  It says in Revelation 8:12:

And the fourth angel sounded, and the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars; so as the third part of them was darkened, and the day shone not for a third part of it, and the night likewise.

It refers to the “third part” of the sun, moon, and stars because it is indicating that the light of the Gospel has gone out in all the world’s churches.  It was the judgment of God upon them as the Holy Spirit departed out, and Satan was loosed to enter in.  So the sun, moon, and stars that had previously been shining in the churches over the course of the church age obeyed the command of Christ as He came to judge the churches.  The sun, moon, and stars submitted themselves to the will of the Judge who had come as a thief in the night as the Lord Jesus came and began judgment at the house of God.  That is the idea that is in view here with the judgment on the churches, and that is the idea that is in view in Matthew 24:29 with the judgment on the world: “Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven…” 

It was the Bible, the Word, that established these Gospel lights, first in the churches, and then in the world during the Latter Rain period that took place during the Great Tribulation when God sent the Gospel forth outside of the churches and congregations to the people of the world to save the great multitude.  Then on May 21, 2011, Judgment Day came for the whole world.  There is an interesting verses in Psalm 104:19:

He appointed the moon for seasons: the sun knoweth his going down.

We will see that the “sun” completely identifies with Christ Himself, and this would be a reference to the end of the “day of salvation.”  The day of salvation was the “work day,” and the work day is defined by the Bible as “twelve hours,” from 6:00 a. m. to 6:00 p. m.  And the “eleventh hour” is that “one hour” that ties in with the Great Tribulation, and then the twelfth hour comes, and the workday is completed.  That is what Christ said in John 11:9: “Are there not twelve hours in the day?”  And in Matthew 20, the twelve hours identifies with the workday in the vineyard.  Then after the twelfth hour, we are told in Matthew 20:8 that “even would come.”  The even (evening) is when the sun goes down, and we will look at some Scriptures that speak of the sun going down, and what happens once the sun goes down.  We will try to look at that later in our study.

But first, let us prove from the Bible that the “sun” in the sky is a picture of God Himself. This verse makes it easy to see this.  It says in Psalm 84:11:

For JEHOVAH God is a sun and shield: JEHOVAH will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.

We can also turn back to Psalm 19 where we read of the spiritual picture that the heavens have declared, as it says in Psalm 19:1-5:

The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun, Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race.

The heavens declare the glory of God, and day to day they are uttering their speech.  It is a witness and testimony to us creatures on the earth, as we look up at the sun during the day, or we look up at night and see the light of the moon and the stars.  It is testifying to the fact that there is a Creator.  It is speaking in that way.  God has also established them as timekeepers and as figures of His Gospel, and of God Himself.  The Lord God is a sun and a shield, and here we are told at the end of verse 4: “In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun, Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber…”  The sun is likened to a bridegroom, and of course God is likened to a bridegroom, as it says in Isaiah 62:4-5:

Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken; neither shall thy land any more be termed Desolate: but thou shalt be called Hephzibah, and thy land Beulah: for JEHOVAH delighteth in thee, and thy land shall be married. For as a young man marrieth a virgin, so shall thy sons marry thee: and as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee.

God is as the bridegroom, and the sun is like a bridegroom in Psalm 19, so it is in a round-about way telling us the same thing as Psalm 84:11, and that is that the sun represents God.  It is a type and figure of the God of the Bible.  Of course this figure of God as a bridegroom is picked up in the New Testament, as John the Baptist declared in John 3:29:

He that hath the bride is the bridegroom: but the friend of the bridegroom, which standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom's voice: this my joy therefore is fulfilled.

He was referring to Christ.  There is no question about it.  Jesus is the Bridegroom, and the bride are all those who become saved.  The bride are the saints as Revelation 19:7-8 points out.  The bride has made herself ready, and she is clothed with that fine white linen, which is the righteousness of the saints.

So in this picture, the sun and the bridegroom are linked together, and we can see that.  There is one more thing I would like to mention about the bridegroom in Revelation 18, a chapter that discusses the fall of Babylon, or the fall of the world, in Judgment Day, and God tells us in Revelation 18:23:

And the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee…

The voice of the bridegroom (Christ) will no longer be heard in Babylon (this world) in the sense that faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.  The Bible is still here, and it is still being declared, but it requires the Holy Spirit to open the ears of a sinner in order that he can hear Christ’s Word on the spiritual level and become saved.  But there is no longer any of that taking place in this world.

I just wanted to get started in looking at the “sun,” and we will continue to look at some additional Scriptures when we get together in our next Bible study, Lord willing.