Vision

In the Bible, a vision is a supernatural visual experience which people (mostly prophets) are given by God: God shows people something, and passes on a message to them by this means. Often it is the revelation of something that is going to take place in the future.

Hebrew has various words for “vision”. The most important of these are hazon and mareh. Both words are related to a verb meaning “to see”, and with two Hebrew words for “seer”. “Seer” is another way of referring to a prophet.

In the classical prophets, such as Amos and Obadiah, the vision is a common way in which God communicates with prophets. In these texts the vision is roughly the same as the revelation of God’s word (see for instance Obadiah 1:1). In a vision, God makes it known what will happen to Israel in the near future.

In later prophetic books visions are increasingly extensive and more complex. This is evident, for instance, in the books of Ezekiel and Daniel. Thus, in Ezekiel the prophet receives a long and dramatic vision of the fall of Jerusalem. Apart from revelations about the future, Ezekiel also receives a vision of the radiant appearance of the presence of the LORD (Ezekiel 1:28).
In the book of Daniel the word “vision” occurs approximately 30 times. The visions reveal knowledge about the future in an enigmatic and miraculous way (for instance in Daniel 7).

In the Old Testament, visions are generally made up of two parts. The first part describes what the prophet sees. In the second part God or the prophet speaks, and this is followed by an explanation of the vision (see for instance Amos 7:1-3).

In the Bible, visions are sometimes mentioned in the same breath as dreams, as is the case in Joel 3:1. God uses both things to communicate a message to people. But a distinction is made in the Bible between a vision and a dream. A dream is a conceptualisation which always takes place during sleep, while this is not necessarily the case with a vision (see however the “night vision” in Daniel 2:19 and elsewhere): a vision can also occur as an ecstatic experience (the prophet is then “in rapture”).
In the Old Testament dreams occur as divine revelations mainly in narratives (for instance in Genesis 28:12 and Genesis 37:5), and barely ever in prophetic texts. Prophets sometimes even speak negatively about dreams (Jeremiah 23:25).