Dream - Vine's Expository Dictionary of Old Testament Words

Usage Number: 1
Part Of Speech: Noun
Strong's Number: H2472
Original Word: halôm
Usage Notes: "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 vision …" (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 halôm (or halôm): "But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night…" (Gen. 20:3).

Usage Number: 2
Part Of Speech: Verb
Strong's Number: H2492
Original Word: halam

Usage Notes: "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.

Vine's Expository Dictionary of Old Testament Words