Biblical Meaning of a Goat in a Dream

The spiritual meaning or the biblical meaning of a goat in a dream can be quite tricky. If you are looking for a biblical interpretation of your dream, which involves a goat or several goats, it can either be a bad or a good sign. Depending on context, goat dream imagery can indicate some sort of advanced warning of an accident or disaster up ahead or something quite positive and welcome.

In a normal situation, the dream meaning of a goat involves abundance and mirth. Mirth means good humor, happiness, and good times. Goats represent these… even sex.

It turns out that the Bible actually has a lot to say about goats. In particular, It uses a goat as a symbol for spiritual states as well as looking at the animal as an important part of rituals in the Old Testament.

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Goat Symbolism in the Bible

In the Bible, the goat image is usually presented in contrast with or as an alternative to that of a sheep or lamb.

The sheep is a good sign. It is a “clean animal,” and it brings good news and good luck. It can also connote wealth: the more sheep a person has, the wealthier that individual is.

It is an animal that God created for us. It is one of the preferred “clean animals” that the book of Leviticus and other areas of the Old Testament recommends for human consumption.

Goats are equally clean, but they’re depicted to be very stubborn by nature. They can cause quite a bit of trouble and affect the rural economy, especially he goat or male goats.

Many Types of Goat Dream Symbols

It’s important to note the kind of goat in your dream.

Was it a wild goat or several wild goats? Was there a black goat or a white goat? Did you notice if it was a male goat or a female goat? Did your dream feature a dead goat? Or was there any kind of goat milk in the dream?

These symbols are important to remember when searching for the meaning of goat dreams—through either the Gospel, dream books, or even Google or YouTube.

Goats and Sheep in the Scriptures

Biblical goat symbolism is very different from the sheep or the lamb.

The latter is associated with the image of heavenly glory. Not only are they the preferred sacrificial animal during temple rituals, but they often point to righteousness and good luck—especially lambs.

But the Bible actually goes much deeper in terms of the relationship between lamb and goats with sin.

Goat Symbolism for Evil and Wicked Men

Humans, being highly conscious creatures, understand the meaning of living a physical and even spiritual life the right way. It’s in our nature to develop a sense of morality.

Whether you call it a “moral compass,” “living life in the image of God,” or some sort of “spiritual GPS,” the important thing is having the sense of right and wrong.

Still, our pursuit of success in the world often leads us astray. As we fight for our dreams, we end up abandoning the “moral compass” we’ve built.

An example of this is how a lot of us don’t give ourselves the self-love we need and deserve. This is where the problem lies—how can you love somebody else when you can’t even love yourself? After all, you can only give what you have. It is no surprise that we fall short of how we should treat others.

It’s this cycle that leads us to a life of sin.

The Creator and the Created: A Relationship

When you buy a new appliance or vehicle, you usually get an owner’s manual. This is not just a collection of fancy pictures or schematics—this document tells you how to operate the item the right way. Otherwise, it may not work the way it was intended, so you won’t get the value you paid for. In the worst case, it can shorten the life of the item.

If that is true with things that we use to clean our carpets, blend our food, or take us from place to place, how much more for our lives?

In this case, the Bible serves as the “operating manual” for our lives. It’s a source of inspiration during tough times, prophecies of the future, guidance toward spiritual growth and success, tales about the judgment day for unrepentant sinners, and testimonials of the life and death of Jesus.

The Ten Commandments are not there because God wants to give us a hard time. It simply serves as a manual or guide for the things we should and shouldn’t be doing. It tells us not to rest our faith on humans because humans are flawed. Humans sin.

In the Scriptures, sin is dealt with in two different ways.

The Old Testament tells of the Hebrews’ way: if one has sinned, that person would offer a lamb for a priest to slaughter and sprinkle the blood in a ritual.

But once a year, on the day of atonement, the priest would go into the innermost portion of the tabernacle and sprinkle blood there. The head priest would then place their hand on the head of a goat, transferring the sin of the congregation to that goat.

The goat would be set free far away from the camp and proclaimed to be the carrier of the demonic forces that caused the sins of the congregation. This is where the word “scapegoat” originated.

These represent the symbols for Christ and the Devil. Christ is the Lamb that was slaughtered: through His death, we are liberated from the penalty of our sin.

Every year, this ritual played out with the goat and the lamb in the center: the lamb leading to salvation and freedom from sin, and the goat reminding everybody of the Devil and the original deception.

This doesn’t change in the New Testament. In the symbols used by the Book of Revelation, Apostle John said (paraphrasing) the sheep goes to heaven, and the goat goes to the other place.

Rather than the actual animals, he’s talking about the people they represent. People who remain in their sin or who choose to remain in a spiritual Babylon, which is a form of spiritual confusion, don’t enter God’s Kingdom.

Ultimately, goats—in the biblical sense—represent defiance, stubbornness against our faith, and unwillingness to humble ourselves.

The Spiritual Meaning of Goats in a Dream

When you see a goat as a centerpiece of your dream, it is a bad sign. It’s usually there to represent a certain pride or stubbornness in you or your family.

While this dream could also be a sign of strength of one person, it opens you up to spiritual attacks because God’s power is weaker in your life.

When we’re overconfident in our faith because of all the “good things” we believe we do, we walk a very dangerous path. What we’re feeling is nothing but our self-righteousness.

Instead of paying more attention to God’s will, we fight it because we feel like we’ve already earned our place in His Kingdom. This leads us to ask God, “haven’t I been good enough?”

But the Word of God tells us: “No.”

As Jesus said: “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father if not by Me.”

It’s only by placing our faith in Jesus that we’re able to cross over: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, so that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

The goat in your dream is a symbol of the feeling of presumptuousness and self-righteousness that stand in the way of being born again in submission to Jesus.

Not surprisingly, the goat—even outside of dreams—has traditionally been viewed as an ornery or troublesome creature.

Dreams of a Wild Goat: Animals That Devour

Goats, as domestic animals, are picky eaters. But once it chooses to eat something, nothing can stop it. In fact, a lot of range management companies use goats to clear weeds from vast tracts of land.

In the spiritual or psychological dimension, this voraciousness speaks volumes about the goat symbol in dream meaning.

Your dream may be reflecting addictions that are taking over your life. It grows so unavoidable that you identify with it over any other trait, and you end up failing to live the life you should be living because you don’t believe in that life anymore.

This can easily be reflected in our nightly dreams.

Different Dream Contexts

Dreams involving goats can have different contexts and slightly different meanings according to biblical symbology.

A goat crying in your dream means that something unexpected will happen to your household or family. It is not necessarily negative, but your dream warns you that your response to the suddenness can turn the situation into a disaster.

Similarly, a dream about goats taking food from your table or hand can be about somebody trying to take away your peace. Depending on other factors in the dream, it could be somebody demeaning your confidence or otherwise challenging you to the point where you see another perspective.

A goat in your dream can also pertain to financial difficulties or barriers to success. For example, in an office setup, your stubborn loyalties to a person can lead to you being pigeonholed or caught in office politics. Your dream could be cautioning you against missing out on promotions or professional advancement.

Dreams of goats drinking milk can involve a disturbance in sustenance for you and your family—like your job or sources of income. You may want to pay close attention to financial assumptions when you have this recurring dream.

On another point, when you dream of goats talking, this can involve people sharing your secrets. You have to pay attention to how people close to you “spin” the things that you tell them.

Finally, if you see a pregnant goat in your dream, it can mean an opportunity or a sudden and tragic loss in your life.

Biblical Verses Involving Goats

If you study the record that you wrote down about your dream about goats and none of the possibilities or outlines above make sense, consult with the following biblical verses on goats.

Genesis 27:9: “Go to the flock and bring me two good young goats, so that I may prepare from them delicious food for your father, such as he loves.”

Proverbs 27:27: “There will be enough goats’ milk for your food, for the food of your household and maintenance for your girls.”

Leviticus 7:6-7: “Every male among the priests may eat of it. It shall be eaten in a holy place. It is most holy. 7 The guilt offering is just like the sin offering; there is one law for them. The priest who makes atonement with it shall have it.”

Matthew 25:31-33: “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left.”

Meanings of Goat Colors in a Dream

Try to get as many details from your dream involving goats. Try to figure out the color of the animal and go from there. Usually, different-colored goats have different meanings.

If you cannot figure out the color or it’s rather murky, this means that you’re aware of many areas of your life, and you can map out the consequences of your choices.

This leads to a certain comfort level in your future. You don’t have to wonder about important things in your life. You are less likely to be afraid of what the future can bring to your life.

Black Goat Dream Meaning

When you dream of a black goat instead of the more common white goat, it indicates a sophisticated level of spiritual understanding because you know what the goat means. The black goat, while connoting power and stability, ultimately points to strife and conflict.

It’s very tempting to view the goat as a purely bad sign. But, ultimately, we can choose the right hand or the left hand. If you can see where your bad habits lead, you can then backtrack and choose the right path by choosing to ask for God’s grace.

When we fully submit our will to God and let Him lead the way, the symbol of the goat starts to fade because our stubbornness starts to give way. When we look at the goat from this perspective, it can lead us to the right path by being a cautionary tale or an alternative.

Biblical Sacrifice of the Goat

Goats in the Bible are also sacrificed, but it has different connotations than that of a lamb.

A lamb, according to Leviticus, must be blemish-free. It must be blameless: completely innocent. Accordingly, we have to thank Jesus because it’s only through His sacrifice that we benefit from His blood. We are saved through His death and resurrection.

On the other hand, the offering of the goat enables us to understand that letting go of worldly pleasures amounts to letting go of evil. Ultimately, it’s about the Lamb and how He stands apart from the goat.

Dream Example #1

The dream happened one afternoon. I was just back from work after the night shift.

After taking lunch, I decided to sleep for an hour before reading for my exams. My exams were to start the next day.

That was when I dreamed about the goat.

When I first saw the goat, what caught my attention was the yam barks it was eating.

They were brown and dried. When it was through with the yam barks, it began to chew grass.

I had never seen a goat that chews grass like a cow.

The goat went from field to field, munching on any grass it saw.

Before long, the area was looking like it had visited the barber’s shop.

Finally, it went back to the yam barks. After it finished eating those, it lay on its side.

What struck me about the goat was its three horns and four eyes.

The arrangement of the horns at the head was triangular. Two of the horns were at the top of the head, while the third was at the back. There were diamonds at the tip of the horns.

The diamonds shone with brilliance against the reflection of the sun. Also, the eyes of the goat were blue.

It had two eyes at the front and two eyes at the sides, close to the ears. The goat had an all-encompassing vision that made it move with ease.

I turned in my dream as I contemplated the eyes. It struck fear in me.

Then suddenly, a cow came near the barn, close to where the goat was lying.

It began to chew on the remaining grass. When the goat saw the cow, it stood up and went to approach the cow.

The goat started sniffing at the cow from the rear. This action irritated the cow that it kicked the goat, and the goat retreated.

But it was a stubborn goat. The goat approached the cow from the side and started sniffing its udder.

I wondered why the goat was doing that because the goat didn’t give it any milk.

The goat must have done something terrible to the cow at the udder because the cow mooed with a horrible noise.

It kicked again, but this time it missed the goat, which ran away.

The cow mooed again and starting walking away. The goat did not follow it. As the cow got to the gate, it released excreta in the direction of the goat.

I guess the goat saw it coming. That was why it didn’t follow the cow. The excreta contained balls of hot iron.

When the cow had gone, a strange hand appeared from heaven.

There were lots of scales on the hand, and the tips of the fingers were sharp like sickle.

I could only see the hand but not the face behind the hand.

It grasped the horn of the goat and started lifting it to the heavens.

The goat did not struggle, neither did it complain, as it went upwards.

The hand must have been gentle. The goat ascended upwards until it disappeared in the cloud.

Dream Example #2

It was an extremely heavy day. My nine-to-five job left a little of my energy for simple daily chores.

When I reached home, I rushed to get soaked in my bathtub.

I put some candles with jasmine fragrance and poured some sea salt and liquid soap to add more scent.

Hoping this bath can help me remove the exhaustion from my skin.

While drying my hair, I was just thinking about lying on my bed.

The sandwich on my way back home was enough to keep my stomach full, I guess. I thought I would just go to sleep and skip my dinner.

After doing my hair, I laid down and took only a second to fall into a deep sleep.

Suddenly, I felt I was sitting on the porch of an old house that I never knew. Nobody was around since the house stood alone in a green field. I thought it was farming land.

Feeling curious about my position, I tried to leave the porch and start to explore.

After walking for a while, I still met no one. So, I decided to go a little bit further. “I will walk till I reach that hill”, I said to myself. Who knows, I might see somebody I can talk to.

So, I walked a few more hundred meters till I reached the top of the hill.

Instead of seeing someone, I could talk to, I accidentally met a group of goats.

The most giant goat, which was higher than I am, approached me without any expression. He moved his lips as if he was speaking to me.

Nothing… I heard nothing but just the whisper of the wind. He kept moving his lips and spoke. I shook my head and said loudly, “I can’t hear you!”.

The scene was repeated multiple times. “I SAID I CAN’T HEAR YOU!” I shouted at him.

Then, he stopped, and his eyes changed their colors. I believed my reaction annoyed him.

Suddenly, the goat turned his head back to his flock and gave a sign with his head.

I didn’t know whether the sun over my head burned me or my fear looking at the flock’s response, which made my body covered with sweat.

They stared mercilessly at me and started to run toward me. The worst part was I just froze! I barely could move.

All I could do was scream as the flock got closer!

I nearly jumped out of my bed and checked the time; it was 2:26 am.

I went down to the kitchen and grabbed a glass of water.

While having my throat hydrated, I couldn’t stop thinking about my dream. I recalled a little about it, how scary their red eyes were, and the angry look they had.

I tried to figure out the meaning of that dream. But, my body felt like I was hit by a bus.

Everything is aching. So, my mind persuaded me to continue my sleep. “It was just a dream, and my body might ache due to this heavy day.” I declared an excuse. I was actually too lazy to think.

This time, I prayed before I went to bed and got some more rest.

Dream Example #3

A couple of weekends ago, I had decided to take a stroll down my street.

As I opened my gate, I saw it standing on all fours, looking pointedly at me, its mouth moving as it chewed on some imaginable substance.

Its dull brown fur matched its round brown eye balls. I made to wave at it but I wondered what my neighbor would think of me waving at a goat.

Instead, I did what I taught every human would do.

‘Go away! Shoo, shoo’, I said half heartedly to the goat.

It stood still, rudely ignoring me as it continued to move its jaw.

I decided that taking a stroll was definitely better than staring at a rude, mischievous looking goat.

I proceeded to walk down the lawn, passing the goat.

I hummed my favorite tune as I began my favorite day dream scene.

I pictured myself at the Buckingham palace having a nice talk with the legendary Queen of England; she invites me to dine with her and offers me a room for the night.

Just then, I noticed a strange four legged shadow by my left.

I could feel my heart stop as I immediately turned around. There it was, staring so mischievously at me and still chewing whatever it had been chewing.

The stray goat! We stared at each other for some seconds, each creature taking a mental assessment of the other.

I gingerly took a step back. I blinked when I saw this dull furred creature take a step forward.

I took another step back and watched in shock as it took a step towards me. I took a deep breath and decided to be diplomatic.

‘Do you know me?’ I whispered to it even as I silently hoped nobody was watching me talk to an animal.

The mischievous creature took another step forward. This time, it sat at my feet.

Okay, I knew this was typical of dogs but I was certain that no goat on planet earth would sit at a stranger’s feet.

I took to my heels, running as fast as I could.

I was done being Dr Doolittle’s apprentice.

In no time, I found myself in my sitting room. I opened the blinds and I saw the stray goat at my gate sitting patiently.

Well, as I lay on my bed on this windy evening, I think Dr Doolittle would be proud of me.

My little friend has found peace at my gate. It bleats to announce its presence.

My neighbors think I’m weird, smiling and talking to a goat. I think its cute, having a little goatee friend who follows me about religiously amiss the stares and mockery from passersby.

The wind has grown stronger, causing my curtains to dance and twirl.

I think of my new little friend. I think it would be cold. I wonder how it would keep itself warm outside.

I jump off the bed, off to find my new friend.

There it is, standing at my gate in the cold wind, looking sad and lonely. My heart tugs as I open my gate widely for it to enter.

It jumps happily, turning round in circles before taking a big dash into the compound.

I hear voices chattering, they get louder and louder. I open my eyes. I realized it was a dream, yet I ran to my gate. Of course there was no goat.