Commentaria in Genesim
Chapter Forty-one
Joseph explains to Pharaoh the dream of the seven kine and the seven ears of corn, as signifying seven years of plenty and seven years of barrenness to come. Hence, verse 40, he is set by the king over Egypt; and, verse 46, by his foresight he drives away from Egypt the seven years’ famine.
1. After two years Pharao had a dream. He thought he stood by the river, 2. out of which came up seven kine, very beautiful and fat; and they fed in marshy places. 3. Other seven also came up out of the river, ill-favoured and lean-fleshed; and they fed on the very bank of the river, in green places: 4. and they devoured those whose appearance and condition of body were so wonderful. Pharao awoke, 5. and slept again, and saw another dream: Seven ears of corn grew upon one stalk, full and fair. 6. Then seven other ears, thin and blasted with mildew, sprang up, 7. and devoured all the beauty of the former. Pharao awaking after his rest, 8. and morning being come, was struck with fear, and sent to all the interpreters of Egypt, and to all the wise men; and they being called for, he told them his dream, and there was none that could interpret it. 9. Then at length the chief butler, remembering, said: I confess my sin. 10. The king being angry with his servants, commanded me and the chief baker to be cast into the prison of the captain of the soldiers; 11. where in one night both of us dreamed a dream foreboding things to come. 12. There was there a young man, a Hebrew, servant to the same captain of the soldiers: to whom we told our dreams, 13. and we heard whatever afterwards the event proved to be so. For I was restored to my office, and he was hanged upon a gibbet. 14. Forthwith at the king’s command Joseph was brought out of the prison, and they shaved him, and changing his apparel brought him in to him. 15. And the king said to him: I have dreamed dreams, and there is no one that can expound them; I have heard that thou art very wise at interpreting them. 16. Joseph answered: Without me, God shall give Pharao a prosperous answer. 17. So Pharao told what he had seen: I thought I stood upon the bank of the river, 18. and seven kine came up out of the river, exceeding beautiful and full of flesh; they grazed on the green places of the marsh, 19. and behold, there followed these other seven kine, so deformed and lean that I never saw the like in the land of Egypt: 20. and they devoured and consumed the former, 21. and yet gave no mark of being full; but were as lean and ill-favoured as before. Awaking, and being again oppressed with sleep, 22. I saw a dream: Seven ears of corn grew up upon one stalk, full and very fair. 23. Other seven also, thin and blasted with mildew, sprang out of the stalk, 24. and devoured the beauty of the former. I told this dream to the conjecturers, and there is no man that can expound it. 25. Joseph answered: The king’s dream is one: what God is about to do, he hath shown to Pharao. 26. The seven beautiful kine, and the seven full ears, are seven years of plenty, and both contain the same meaning of the dream. 27. And the seven lean and thin kine that came up after them, and the seven thin ears that were blasted with the burning wind, are seven years of famine to come. 28. Which shall be fulfilled in this order: 29. Behold, there shall come seven years of great plenty in the whole land of Egypt; 30. after which shall follow other seven years of so great scarcity that all the former abundance shall be forgotten: for the famine shall consume all the land, 31. and the greatness of the scarcity shall destroy the greatness of the plenty. 32. And for that thou didst see the second time a dream pertaining to the same thing, it is a token of the certainty, and that the word of God cometh to pass, and is fulfilled the more speedily. 33. Now therefore let the king provide a wise and industrious man, and make him ruler over the land of Egypt; 34. that he may appoint overseers over all the countries, and gather into barns the fifth part of the fruits during the seven fruitful years, 35. that shall now presently ensue: and let all the corn be laid up under Pharao’s hand, and be kept in the cities. 36. And let it be in readiness against the famine of seven years to come, which shall oppress Egypt, and the land shall not be consumed with scarcity. 37. The counsel pleased Pharao and all his servants. 38. And he said to them: Can we find such another man, that is full of the spirit of God? 39. He said therefore to Joseph: Seeing God hath shown thee all that thou hast said, can I find one wiser and one like unto thee? 40. Thou shalt be over my house, and at the commandment of thy mouth all the people shall obey: only in the kingly throne will I be above thee. 41. And again Pharao said to Joseph: Behold, I have appointed thee over the whole land of Egypt. 42. And he took his ring from his own hand, and gave it into his hand; and he put upon him a robe of silk, and put a chain of gold about his neck. 43. And he made him go up into his second chariot, the crier proclaiming that all should bow their knee before him, and that they should know he was made governor over the whole land of Egypt. 44. And the king said to Joseph: I am Pharao: without thy commandment no man shall move hand or foot in all the land of Egypt. 45. And he turned his name, and called him in the Egyptian tongue, The saviour of the world. And he gave him to wife Aseneth, the daughter of Putiphare, priest of Heliopolis. Then Joseph went out to the land of Egypt. 46. (Now he was thirty years old when he stood before king Pharao,) and he went round all the countries of Egypt. 47. And the fruitfulness of the seven years came: and the corn, being bound up into sheaves, was gathered together into the barns of Egypt. 48. And all the abundance of grain was laid up in every city. 49. And there was so great abundance of wheat that it was equal to the sand of the sea, and the plenty exceeded measure. 50. And before the famine came, Joseph had two sons born, whom Aseneth, the daughter of Putiphare, priest of Heliopolis, bore unto him. 51. And he called the name of the firstborn Manasses, saying: God hath made me to forget all my labours, and my father’s house. 52. And he named the second Ephraim, saying: God hath made me to grow in the land of my poverty. 53. Now when the seven years of plenty that had been in Egypt were passed, 54. the seven years of scarcity, which Joseph had foretold, began to come: and the famine prevailed in the whole world, but in all the land of Egypt there was bread. 55. And when there also they began to be famished, the people cried to Pharao for food. And he said to them: Go to Joseph, and do all that he shall say to you. 56. And the famine increased daily in all the land: and Joseph opened all the barns, and sold to the Egyptians; for the famine had oppressed them also. 57. And all provinces came into Egypt to buy food, and to seek some relief of their want.
1. AFTER TWO YEARS,—from the deliverance of the chief cupbearer, since he had been in prison with Joseph for a year before, as I showed in chap. 40, verse 4. Hence it is plain that Joseph was in prison for three years, and this by the will of God: both to expiate certain light faults of his, of which even holy men are not free (so St. Augustine, Sermon 82 On the Season); and to exercise and sharpen his patience and virtue; and that he might be a type of Christ, who was three days in his passion and death. St. Augustine adds in the same place a marvellous thing, but one worth noting, namely that Joseph was punished with two years’ imprisonment because he had trusted more in man than in God, since he placed the hope of his deliverance in the chief butler; and therefore God caused him to be forgotten for two years, as if to say: “I show thee that thou oughtest to seek help rather from me than from man.” Subtle is the eye of St. Augustine, but subtler still is that of God.
PHARAO HAD A DREAM: HE THOUGHT HE STOOD UPON THE RIVER,—upon the bank of the Nile. Note: In Egypt fertility arises from the inundation of the Nile (for it scarcely rains in Egypt), which, turbid and rich, by silting over the fields, and so as it were manuring them, enriches and fertilises them. Hence the higher and the farther the Nile overflows, the greater is the fertility in Egypt. Hence from the height of the Nile’s inundation the Egyptians know beforehand for certain how great the fertility will be that year. Hear Pliny, book 5, chap. 9: “Egypt, he says, feels famine at twelve cubits (of the Nile’s overflow in height); at thirteen it is still hungry; fourteen cubits bring cheerfulness, fifteen security, sixteen delights.” For this reason Pharao here saw the lean kine feeding on the bank of the Nile: for these portended a scanty inundation of the Nile, and consequently scanty pastures, and those almost only in the neighbourhood of the Nile; on the contrary, Pharao saw the fat kine feeding in marshes far from the Nile, because these portended fertility throughout all Egypt.