Jacob loved his son Joseph, the older son of his favorite wife Rachel. He was grooming Joseph to one day be a leader in the family, as evidenced by the special coat that he had made for him. Still, he was taken aback by the dreams that the 17-year-old was having. Joseph summarized one of the dreams this way: "Behold, the sun, the moon, and eleven stars were bowing down to me" (Gen 37:9).
Since Joseph had 11 brothers, Jacob could see what the dream symbolized. This was a bit too much, even coming from his talented son. "What is this dream that you have dreamed?" he asked Joseph. "Shall I and your mother and your brothers indeed come to bow ourselves to the ground before you?" (v 10)
Still, Jacob had experience with messages from God that came in dreams (Gen 28:12-15; 31:11-13), so he "kept the saying in mind" (v 11). Its meaning probably would become clear later.
Genesis 37:11 is one example of a motif that runs through ancient Jewish literature, and through the Scriptures in particular. A person hears a remarkable saying, a prophecy or something said by and/or about a precocious child. In that situation, the person will "keep the saying in mind" or "hide it in their heart" to see what might happen later.
There is another example in Daniel 7, after Daniel had a dream vision about four beasts, representing four kingdoms. Those kingdoms would be followed by an eternal divine kingdom ruled by "one like a son of man" (vv 13-14). After this dream, Daniel says, "My thoughts greatly alarmed me, and my color changed, but I kept the matter in my heart" (v 28).
There are further examples in Jewish literature of the Second Temple period. Two of them involve Levi, another one of Jacob's sons. One comes from the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, a fictional work from the first or second century BC that pictures the deathbed advice of the sons of Jacob to their descendants. In his testimony, Levi describes a heavenly vision in which he is told by the Most High, "I have given thee the blessings of the priesthood until I come and sojourn in the midst of Israel (T Levi 5:2-3). After the vision Levi says, "And I kept these words in my heart" (T Levi 6:2-3).
A similar statement appears in the Aramaic Levi Document, a text that may have been used by the author of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs. Fragments of this document have been found in the Cairo Genizah and in Caves 1 and 4 at Qumran.
An additional example comes from another Dead Sea Scrolls text, the Genesis Apocryphon (1Q20). In column 6 of this document, Noah receives a vision and afterward says, "And I hid this mystery in my heart, and did not make it known to anyone."
This motif appears in the New Testament twice in Luke 2. Shepherds near Bethlehem are told by an angel, "For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord" (Luke 2:11). When the shepherds told Mary, the mother of the baby, what the angel had said, "Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart" (v 18).
Later, when Jesus was 12, he stayed in Jerusalem for a few days after the Days of Unleavened Bread and became separated from his parents. When they finally found him at the Temple, engaging in discussions with the sages, he asked his parents, "Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?" (v 49)
Mary, like Jacob, did not understand then what he was saying, but again, she "treasured up all these things in her heart" (v 51).
This is one of a number of ways in which we will see events in the life of Joseph pointing forward to Jesus.
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