"And the Lord warned Omer in a dream that he should depart out of the land; wherefore Omer departed out of the land with his family"
We know nothing about this dream except its function. Here at the end of our study is a good time to turn back and consider dreams from another angle. How the Lord uses them. What are the purposes of divinely inspired dreams?
1. Some, like Omer's dream Contain a Warning. Among those who were 'warned in a dream' were Lehi (1 Nephi 2:1-2), Pilate's wife (Matt. 27:19), The wise men at Jesus's birth (Matt. 2:12-13), Joseph the husband of Mary (Matt. 2:19-20), Abimelech, king of Gerar (Genesis 20:3-8), and Laban, Jacob's Father in Law (Genesis 31:24-29).
2. Similar to the Dream of Warning is the Dream of Instruction. Again the recipient is told what to do, but with a little less urgency and less danger. Lehi's instruction to send his sons to get the Brass Plates came in a dream (I Nephi 3:2). Joseph was instructed to marry the mother of the Messiah rather than divorcing her in a dream (Matt. 1:23). He was also told by dream when he should return with the mother and young child from Egypt to the land of Israel (Matt. 2:19-21).
3. A dream can bring a revelatory answer to a question we make to the Lord. King Saul's choices had brought him to a point of alienation with God. And when he desired an answer (out of fear and not out of a change of heart) he found that he could not get an answer "neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets" (1 Samuel 28:6).
4. A dream of instruction can be for an individual or it can provide guidance for an entire people. Numbers 12 and Deuteronomy 13 both indicate that dreams were a part of the means by which prophetic utterances might be reach Israel.
5. A certain number of dreams give us a knowledge of future events. Joseph of Egypt was given early knowledge of his future role of viceroy (Genesis 37) which helped guide him away from vengeance and to blessing when his brothers who had sold him into slavery ended up kneeling before him. Joseph was also given prophetic insight into the future of two of Pharaoh's servants in prison with him (Gen. 40). Pharaoh was given a dream that foretold the coming of famine to the entire Middle East (Gen. 41). A Midianite was given a dream foretelling Gideon's victory in the next day's battle (Judges 7). Nebuchadnezzar had a dream that foretold the imperial history of the Western World (Daniel 2). Daniel dreamed of end times (Daniel 7). Lehi was given insight into future trajectories of his children (1 Nephi 8). Dreams that foretell the future are usually highly symbolic and require a gift of interpretation.
6. Some dreams impart general knowledge of eternal truths. Lehi's Dream (1 Nephi 8) is an example of such a dream.
7. Some dreams can contain experiences of divine communication so strong and direct that they form the basis of the creation of the relationship between that person and divinity from then on. Jacob (Genesis 28) and Solomon (I Kings 3) both had such dreams.
