‘And he told it to his father and to his brothers, and his father rebuked him and said, “What is this dream that you have dreamed. Shall I and your mother and your brothers indeed come to bow ourselves down to you to the earth?” '

This time he not only told it to his brothers with whom he worked but also to his father and his other brothers. Possibly he was even troubled by the dreams. But his father too took it amiss. How dare he suggest that they would all bow down to him?

“And your mother.” This does not mean that his natural mother was necessarily alive. In days when women regularly died in childbirth some other of the family would adopt a child and become its mother. Probably Leah was in mind here.

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