The Most Important Events in Human History Initiated During Sleep

by: John Bigelow, LL.D.

The most considerable and imposing repository of facts from which we are authorized to infer anything of what may be going on in us while we sleep may be found where, ordinarily, one would be least likely to look for it, and if sleep be, as most people suppose, simply an interruption of activities for the purpose of repose and refreshment, where it would be most out of place–that is, in the sacred Scriptures. If these writing are what they purport to be–an inspired guide to assist man in leading a holy life–it is impossible to reconcile the prominence they give to the phenomena of sleep with the idea of its being merely a mode of rest from fatigue.

Even a hasty reference to its pages will satisfy the reader that sleep is rarely referred to in the Bible except with reference to some of the most vital processes of spiritual growth or degeneration. In reading the illustrations of this statement, to some of which I will now refer, the reader is requested to note the incalculably important consequences of which, in each case, sleep is the prelude.

In the Bible the very first allusion to sleep associates it with an event second in importance, perhaps, to no other in the history of our race:

“And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the Man, and he slept; and he took on of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof: and the rib, which the Lord God had taken from the man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And the man said, This is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.”1

Thus it was during his sleep that man was first qualified to love something outside of himself, that our race received its first lesson in altruism; experienced its first triumph over the tyranny of its selfhood, and that the institution of matrimony was established. His Eve is man’s first unselfish love–his first genuine charity.

Whether regarded as literal or symbolical, the passage quoted is no less impressive and significant.

It was when the sun was going down and a deep sleep fell upon Abram, that the Lord made him the founder of nations; commissioned him to teach to a pagan world the unity of the Godhead and the errors of polytheism.2

One of the most pathetic and dramatic stories in all literature is that of Jacob’s son, Joseph, and his brethren, the machinery of which consists mainly of dreams. It was the recital of one of his dreams that provoked his brethren to sell him into Egypt. While in prison, in consequence of a malicious accusation of his master’s wife, he interprets correctly the dreams of the king’s chief butler and chief baker, who were his fellow-prisoners. The fame of this achievement spread through the land, and when Pharaoh, the king, was himself perplexed by a dream, he sent for Joseph, and was so impressed with his skill in interpreting it that he at once gave him power second only to his own in the kingdom; made him lord of all his house, and ruler over all the land of Egypt.

It was thus through dreams that he was enabled to save his brethren “alive by a great deliverance,” to prepare the way for the escape of the children of Israel from the bondage of spiritual darkness in Egypt, to wander forty years in the wilderness, that they might be fitted for a home in a land flowing with milk and honey, and symbolize for all future time the several stages of man’s spiritual regeneration.

1 Genesis ii. 21.

2 Genesis xv. 12.

When Miriam and Aaron railed against Moses for marrying a Cushite woman and said, “Hath the Lord spoken only with Moses; hath he not spoken also with us?” the Lord came down in a pillar of cloud, called Miriam and Aaron before Him, and said: “If there be a prophet among you, I, the Lord, will make myself known unto him in a vision; I will speak with him in a dream. My servant Moses is not such; he is faithful in all mine house; with him will I speak, mouth to mouth, even manifestly and not in dark speeches; and the form of the Lord shall he behold; wherefore then were ye not afraid to speak against my servant, against Moses?”1

Samuel was laid down to sleep in the temple of the Lord where the ark of God was when the Lord called him by name. “Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, neither was the word of the Lord yet revealed to him. “ The Lord called him three times before he knew who it was that called, and then only at the suggestion of the high-priest he answered, “Speak, for thy servant heareth. The Lord then said to Samuel, Behold I will do a thing in Israel at which both the ears of every one that heareth it shall tingle.” At the close of the Lord’s statement of what He proposed to do, it is recorded that “Samuel grew, and the Lord was with him, and did let none of his words fall to the ground.”2 And all Israel from Dan even to Beersheba knew that Samuel was established to be a prophet of the Lord.”3

Saul was asleep in his camp when Abishai said to David, whom Saul was pursuing: “God hath delivered up thine enemy into thine hand this day: now therefore let me smite him, I pray thee, with the spear to the earth at one stroke, and I will not smite him the second time.” David replied, “The Lord forbid that I should put forth mine hand against the Lord’s anointed.”

When Saul awoke on hearing the voice of David from a neighboring hill, whither he had taken refuge, reproaching Abner for not having kept better watch over the Lord’s anointed, he said: “I have sinned: return, my soon David: for I will no more do thee harm, because my life was precious in thine eyes this day: behold I have played the fool, and have erred exceedingly… Blessed be thou, my son David: thou shalt both do mightily, and shalt surely prevail.”4

“Except the Lord build the house,
They labor in vain that build it:
Except the Lord keep the city,
The watchman waketh but in vain.
It is vain for you that ye rise up early, and so late take rest,
And eat the bread of toil:
For so he giveth unto his beloved in their sleep.”

1 Numbers xii. 2-8.

2 Samuel iii. 19.

3 Ib. iii. 20.

4 Ib. xxvi. 21, 25.

Among the proverbs of the same king, the most famous of all earthly kings for his wisdom, “sweet sleep” is held forth as one of the privileges of him who despiseth not “the chastenings of the Lord” nor is “weary of his reproof.”1

While Daniel and his three comrades were living at the court of Nebuchadnezzar, “God gave them knowledge and skill in all learning and wisdom: and Daniel had understanding in all visions and dreams.”

When two years later Nebuchadnezer had a dream which he had forgotten, he issued a decree for the slaughter of all his wise men and magicians, because they could not make known to him the dream and its interpretation. Daniel saved their lives and his own by revealing to the king “the visions of his head upon his bed,” and their interpretation. One of the memorable results of this dream was that Nebuchadnezzar at last confessed to Daniel that his God was the God of gods and the Lord of kings, and he made Daniel himself to rule over the whole province of Babylon and to be chief governor over all the wise men of Babylon.2

Nebuchadnezzar in due time had another dream, which Daniel was called upon to interpret. It was of painful import. The king was to be driven from men; his dwelling was to be with the beasts of the field; he was to be made to eat grass as oxen and to be wet with the dew of heaven, and seven times were to pass over him until he should know “the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men and giveth it to whomsoever he will.” “At the end of the days,” said Nebuchadnezzar in his official proclamation of this experience, “I lifted up mine eyes unto heaven, and… at the same time mine understanding returned unto me; and for the glory of my kingdom, my majesty and brightness returned unto me; … and I was established in my kingdom, and excellent greatness was added unto me. No I Nebuchadnezzar praise and extol and honor the King of heaven; for all his works are truth, and his ways judgment: and those that walk in pride he is able to abase.”3

The prophet Joel, speaking in the name of the Lord God, gives us very distinctly to understand that it is in the visions of the night that God pours out his spirit upon us: “It shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions: and also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit.”4

The angel of God spake unto Jacob in a dream, saying: “Lift up now thine eyes, and see that all the rams which leap upon the cattle are speckled, ringstreaked, and grizzled: for I have seen all the Laban doeth unto thee.” “Now arise, get thee out from this land, and return unto the land of thy kindred.”

Thereupon Jacob, with Rachel his wife, and Leah, stole away with their children, their cattle, and their goods, unawares to Laban the Syrian. The third day after Jacob’s flight Laban first heard of it, and after a seven days’ journey overtook him in the Mount Gilead.

1 Proverbs iii. II.

2 Daniel ii. 47

3 Ib. iv. 5.

4 Joel ii. 28.

Meantime, God came to Laban the Syrian in a dream by night, and said unto him “Take heed that thou speak not to Jacob either good or bad.” When Laban met Jacob he chided him for going away secretly, and said: “It is in the power of my hand to do you hurt: but the God of your father spake unto me yesternight, saying, Take thou heed that thou speak not to Jacob, either good or bad.”

It was then and after these three communications from on high that the covenant between Laban and Jacob was entered into at Mispah and they separated in peace.

When Gideon’s faith in the Lord’s promise to aid him in a war against the Midianites had been miraculously confirmed, we are told that “it came to pass the same night that the Lord said unto him, Take thy father’s bullock, even the second bullock of seven years old, and throw down the altar of Baal that they father hath, and cut down the Asherah goddess that is by it, and build an altar unto the Lord thy God upon the top of this stronghold, in the orderly manner, and take the second bullock and offer a burnt offering with the wood of the Asherah which thou shalt cut down.”

The same night the Lord directed Gideon to go with h is servants and visit the camp of the Midianites, “and when Gideon was come behold there was a man that told a dream unto his fellow and said, Behold I dreamed a dream, and, lo, a cake of barley bread tumbled into the camp of Midian and came unto the tent and smote it that it fell, and turned it upside down that the tent lay along. And his fellow answered and said, This is nothing else save the sword of

Gideon, the son of Joash, a man of Israel; into his hand God hath delivered Midian and all the host.”

And the same night Gideon and his hundred men attacked the Midianites and put them to flight.

It will be observed that each of the three miraculous processes by which the enemies of the true Church were overcome and dispersed were all performed in the night; and one of them–apparently the most important–was the result of a dream.

When Elijah was a refugee from the persecutions of Jezebel, and, faint with hunger, had fallen asleep under a juniper-tree, an angel touched him and told him to “arise and eat.”1 “He arose, and did eat and drink, and went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb, the mount of God.”

We read in Job that:

“By reason of the multitude of oppressions they cry out;
They cry for help by reasons of the arm of the mighty.
But none saith, Where is God my Maker,
Who giveth songs in the night;
Who teacheth us more than the beasts of the earth,
And maketh us wiser than the fowls of the air?”

1 I Kings xix. 5.

“I will bless the Lord, who hath given me counsel,” says the Royal Psalmist; “my reins also instruct me in the night seasons.”1

“Thou hast proved my heart; thous hast visited me in the night; thou hast tried me and findest nothing; I am purposed that my mouth shall not transgress.”2

“Where there is no vision,” said Solomon, “the people cast off restraint.”3

“For the Lord will command his loving kindness in the daytime, and in the night his song shall be with me.”4

The exclusive use of the hours usually consecrated to sleep to herald the birth of our Saviour is so remarkable that it is impossible for an enlightened Christian to read the story as reported by Mathew without feeling that as He was heralded to his parents and the wise men of the East who were sent to search for Him, He is heralded to all of us in the visions of the night “when God pours out his spirit upon all flesh.”

His birth was foretold by an angel of the Lord who appeared unto Joseph in a dream, saying, “Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a Son; and thou shalt call his name Jesus; for it is he that shall save his people from their sins.”5

The same event was announced by an angel directly to Mary, though not in her sleep, and that she was to be the mother of our Saviour. The Magnificat which she pronounced when she visited Elizabeth, immediately after the conception, shows how conscious she was of the “day star” that had risen in her heart.

Joseph, on the other hand, was minded to put her away privily because he had no comprehension of the significance and import of this new birth. An angel, therefore, was sent to him in his sleep “to tell him not to fear to take Mary for his wife,” and so Joseph arose from his sleep and did as the angel of the Lord commanded him.

Mary was spiritually prepared for this new birth. Joseph was not. He judged as the world judged; as the Apostles were judged by their hearers, and as Paul was judged by Festus. He had to be taught in h is sleep what he might never have received while awake and under worldly influences. The world may be presumed to have had no such hold, then, upon Mary.

The wise men who were sent by Herod to Bethlehem to search out carefully the young child Jesus, and, when found, report the place to him, were warned in a dream that they should not return to Herod, so they departed into their own country another way.

When they were departed, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph again in a dream, saying: “Arise and take the young child and his mother and flee into Egypt.”

1 Psalm xvi. 7.

2 Psalm xvii. 3.

3 Proverbs xxix. 18.

4 Psalm xlii. 8.

5 Matthew i. 20.

After the death of Herod an angel of the Lord appeared once more in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying: “Arise and take the young child and his mother, and go into the land of Israel: for they are dead that sought the young child’s life.” Hearing, however, that Herod’s son was reigning over Judea, he feared to go thither, and in consequence of being warned of God in a dream, he withdrew into the parts of Galilee, to a city called Nazareth.

It is to be observed here that everything done to bring about the birth and protection of the infant Jesus was done in obedience to angelic promptings received in visions of the night; but no such promptings were received by Herod or by the magi, whose interests in the birth of Jesus, great as they were, were of a worldly character.

When Jesus took with Him Peter and James and John and went up into the mountain to pray, there talked with him two men, Moses and Elias, who appeared in glory.

Peter, and they that were with him, were heavy with sleep, but when they were fully awake they saw his glory. Peter then said:

“Master, it is good for us to be here: and let us make three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah: not knowing what he said.

“And while he said these things, there came a cloud, and overshadowed them: …and a voice came out of the cloud, saying, This is my Son, my chosen: hear ye him. And when the voice came, Jesus was found alone.”1

Till then Jesus, Moses, and Elijah, in Peter’s mind, were of equal dignity and equally entitled to tabernacles. After receiving the message from the clouds his spiritual eyes were opened to see the difference between Jesus and his companions, and then he saw no one but Jesus.

The last hours of our Saviour on earth were signalized by an incident no less pertinent to this inquiry and no less remarkable than any of those which heralded his birth.

While Pilate was sitting on the judgment-seat at the trial of Jesus he received the following message from his wife:

“Have thou nothing to do with that righteous man: for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him.”2

How interesting beyond expression it would be to know the tenor of this noble lady’s dream about “that righteous man,” an outcast from his own people, whom she had probably never seen, of whom she could have known nothing except from the priests and Pharisees who were clamoring for his life; who belonged to a race held in abhorrence by the Roman aristocracy, and about whom she had been warned of things of so grave a nature as to impel her to interrupt the deliberations of the tribunal over which her husband presided, to warn him to assume no responsibility for whatever the Jews under their laws might do with their prisoner. Of that woman–the last of her sex from whom any expression of sympathy for Jesus in his lifetime emanated that has survived Him–we know not even the name; nothing but the memorable message which she sent to her husband.

1 Luke ix. 33.

2 Matthew xxvii. 19.

History for more than twenty centuries has treated Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi, as the ideal Roman matron, but a greater than Cornelia sent that message to Pilate.

Nor does the significance of that extraordinary dream end here. As we pursue the story of this most famous and important of all judicial proceedings, and when the Jews clamored that Barabbas rather than Jesus should be pardoned, Pilate asks: “What then shall I do with Jesus which is called Christ?” they all said, “Let him be crucified.” Finding that a tumult would be the consequence of resisting any longer the passions of the crowd, Pilate “took water and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, ‘I am innocent of the blood of this righteous man: see ye to it.”

The character of Jesus which Pilate’s wife had learned in her dream and communicated in her message, her husband not only accepts but proclaims from his judgment-seat. This is the first time the righteousness of Jesus was ever proclaimed by any officer of any government of Rome.

While Peter was waiting for his dinner in Joppa he fell into a trance, when he dreamed the heaven opened and a vessel descended wherein where all manner of four-footed beasts and creeping things of the earth and fowls of the heaven. “And there came a voice to him, Rise, Peter, kill and eat. But Peter said,

Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common and unclean. And a voice came unto him again a second time, What God hath cleansed, make thou not unclean.”1

While Peter, much perplexed, thought on the vision, the messengers sent by the Lord to bring him to Cornelius, a devout man and one who feared God, arrived. Peter accompanied them to Cornelius, who had called his friends together in the sight of God to hear from Peter all things that the Lord had commanded him.

Why was Peter put in a trance except the better to qualify him to receive the instructions which he afterwards executed, and which he could not have executed without such instructions?

Cornelius was of the Italian band, not a Jew; hence the lesson Peter taught him in the trance, which was–First, to teach, what the Jews did not believe as a rule, or even suspect, that God is no respecter of persons, but that “in every nation he that feareth him and worketh righteousness is acceptable to him.”

Secondly, to teach that Jesus was ordained of God to be the Judge of the quick and the dead, and that “through his namevery one that believeth on him shall receive remission of sins.”

As a result of these teaching we are told that the Holy Ghost fell upon all them that heard Peter, and they were amazed because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost, and when Peter returned to Jerusalem, and was called to account for what he had done by them of the circumcision, he explained what he had done and how he came to do it. Thereupon they “held their peace and glorified God, saying, Then to the Gentiles also hath God granted repentance unto life.”

1 Acts x. 9-16

No one can fail to see that the character and scope of these lessons were worthy of their divine origin and could have had no other. It is equally apparent that, to impress these lessons upon the children of men, it was necessary that Peter’s consciousness and this-worldliness should first be suspended by sleep.

The Apostle Peter was sleeping between two soldiers and bound with two chains, when “an angel of the Lord stood by him, and a light shined in the cell: and he smote Peter on the side, and woke him, saying, Rise up quickly. And his chains fell off from his hands.”

The most definite and explicit statement of what doubtless deserves to be regarded as the ultimate–the vital–purposes of sleep that is given in the Bible will be found in the rebuke administered to Job by Elihu, the youngest of h is comforters, for presuming to question the justice of the trials he was enduring.

“Surely,” said Elihu, “thou hast spoken in my hearing, and I have heard the voice of thy words, saying, I am clean, without transgression; I am innocent, neither is there iniquity in me: behold, he findeth occasions against me, he counteth me for his enemy; he putteth my feet in the stocks, he marketh all my paths. Behold, I will answer thee; in this thou art not just; for God is greater than man. Why dost thou strive against him? For he giveth not account of any of his matters. For God speaketh once, yea twice, though man regardeth it not. In a dream, in a vision of night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the bed, THEN HE OPENETH THE EARS OF MEN, AND SEALETH THEIR INSTRUCTION, THAT HE MAY WITHDRAW MAN FROM HIS PURPOSE AND HIDE PRIDE FROM MAN; HE KEEPETH BACK H IS SOUL FROM THE PIT, AND HIS LIFE FROM PERISHING BY THE SWORD.”1

Have we not here a plain and unequivocal statement–

First. That the processes of spiritual growth and development are not only not interrupted, but are more than ordinarily active during sleep.

Secondly. That while in that state man is withdrawn from his own purposes for much higher purposes than animate him during his waking hours.

Thirdly. That it is while sleeping God openeth the ears of men and sealeth their instruction, and that, like the children of Israel in their journey through the wilderness, we are guided in the daytime by God’s cloud, in the night by his light. Doth not his cloud limit our horizon even while revealing the path we are able to take, to hid us from our enemies, while his light by night enlarges our horizon: so that we can see why, as well as where, we are to prosecute our journey?

How could the purposes of sleep be more explicitly stated, assuming the competence of the authority stating them? How could their importance be made more impressive?

1 Job xxxiii. 8-18

What events are recorded in the whole range of secular history, I will not say of graver, but of equal import to any one of these I have cited, to which sleep is treated as a necessary incident?

There are some who affect to make light of the Bible story. Conceding for a moment that it is a work of the imagination, a tradition, a myth, a literature merely why is the machinery of sleep so constantly introduced on occasions of such incomparable importance? Why were not these several communications, or revelations, made directly to the parties interested in their waking hours? Why were the hours of sleep chosen when only the Divinity could know whether the communications were received and whether the effect intended was to be realized?

Are we not compelled to suppose it was because a divine truth was more sure of receiving attention; was less liable to encounter worldly obstructions and distractions during the sleeping that during the waking hours?

When the Master wishes to address us we may be sure that He will select the moment most favorable to secure our attention. It is not conceivable that He should select any other than the most favorable. And if, not only in these two or three cases, but, I may say, so uniformly throughout the whole history of the Church, He selected the hours when our consciousness was suspended, to influence our will, are we not logically bound to presume that the suspension of our consciousness for certain hours of every day is mainly, if not exclusively, a part of his plan to secure access to our souls without interfering with the freedom of our wills?

Is it not in those hours of suspended consciousness that, in his unfailing love and mercy, He adjusts the balance between the forces of good and evil which are always struggling with each other in our souls, during our waking hours at least, like the “two manner of people” in Rebekah’s womb; and that, in that way, He defends and protects our power to choose between good and evil, between right and wrong, between righteousness and sin, without which protection no spiritual growth would be possible? For it is only by his providential maintenance of the equilibrium between the forces of good and evil operating upon us in this life that we are enabled, through every stage of spiritual and moral degeneration, to retain the power to pursue the right and eschew the wrong.

Every enlightened Christian understands that we are created and placed in the world for a purpose which contemplates an eternity of existence, during which we are expected to be constantly growing more into the image of our Creator. Is it reasonable or even credible to suppose that one-third, or indeed any minutest portion, or our terrestrial lives would necessarily have to be spent in a state or under conditions in which no progress whatever can be made in spiritual growth–in regenerate live? To entertain such a belief is to question the essential attributes of Divinity. He who grows not in his sleep, says an old Gaelic proverb, will not grow when awake.

Men of science are notoriously agnostics and materialists, and yet they pass their lives trying to learn the laws of the universe, which are the perfect expression of divine order. The more of those laws we know, the more we ought to believe in the Maker of those laws, while the effect upon the scientist seems to be exactly the reverse. “I recognize no distinction between matter and spirit; I know nothing but force,” once wrote the late President Walker to me.

About the Author

John Bigelow, LL.D.