Commentaria in Genesim
4. AND DEVOURED THEM.—The lean kine ate up the fat and well-fed kine.
WHOSE APPEARANCE AND CONDITION OF BODY WERE WONDERFUL,—which were of elegant form, bulk and fatness; so the Hebrew. This portent signified that the seven years of barrenness would consume all the provision of the preceding seven years of fertility, as is plain from verse 30. St. Ambrose shrewdly conjectures, from the seven fat kine followed by seven lean ones, that famine will be born of abundance and wantonness, in the book On Joseph, chap. 8:
“Although I am not Joseph, he says, I would nevertheless have cried out that those fat kine signify not only wantonness but also neglect of divine reverence. For of the faithless it is said: Fat bulls have besieged me. And of the people of the Jews it is written: He grew fat, and thick, and gross, and forsook God his maker. And therefore that dream of worldly abundance could not be perpetual; but there would be a time when hard famine would succeed to them.”
5. SEVEN EARS.—Note that fertility and barrenness are here portended and signified by two dreams: one of the ears, the other of the kine; and this fittingly, because fertility consists chiefly in these two, namely grain and animals. For good husbandry and tillage of the earth (which the fat kine denote, says Josephus), and the sowing of good seed (which the beautiful and full ears denote), are the two full and adequate causes of fertility. So Abulensis.
6. MILDEW,—a burning wind, the drying east wind.
9. I CONFESS MY SIN,—of ingratitude and forgetfulness, in that I left in prison and consigned to oblivion my prophet Joseph, who foretold these fortunate things to me.
Others take it of his former sin, committed against the king two years before, for which he had been thrown by him into prison, so that by this confession of his sin the cupbearer as it were flatters the king, and commends and proclaims his clemency toward one who ill deserved it.
12. A YOUTH,—a young man of 28 years: for Joseph was then of that age.
14. THEY SHAVED JOSEPH, BROUGHT OUT OF THE PRISON, AND CHANGING HIS APPAREL BROUGHT HIM IN TO HIM.—Note that Joseph was shaved and changed his garments because the ancients, when under accusation, let their hair and beard grow in prison, as if mourning and squalid, as Plutarch says of Milo. But when acquitted and set free they laid aside hair and beard and changed their garments, as a sign of joy and of a happy lot and fortune.
16. WITHOUT ME GOD SHALL GIVE PHARAO A PROSPEROUS ANSWER.—Pharao thought (as did also the historian Justin, book 36) that Joseph interpreted dreams by natural sagacity, of which kind of man Cicero says:
“Whoever conjectures well, him hold thou the best prophet.” Joseph puts this opinion away from himself, and ascribes all his divination and foreknowledge not to himself nor to his own skill but to God and to God’s revelation, that Pharao may acknowledge and worship him. Whence the Chaldee renders: Not from my wisdom, but from before the Lord shall a prosperous answer be given to Pharao; and Symmachus: Not I, but God shall give a prosperous answer to Pharao; and Vatablus: There is another besides me who will interpret the dream, namely God, who will interpret prosperous things to Pharao.
25. THE DREAM IS ONE—in signification, because both dream and symbol, that of the ears as well as that of the kine, signify one and the same thing: for, as I said at verse 5, the cause of fertility is twofold, namely tillage, which is done by cows and oxen, and sowing, which is done by the seed of the ears. On the contrary, the failure of tillage and of seed is the twofold and adequate cause of barrenness: the lean kine signify the former, the thin and slender ears the latter.
26. AND BOTH CONTAIN THE SAME MEANING OF THE DREAM.—The seven fat kine and the seven full ears signify the same thing.
29. SEVEN YEARS OF PLENTY SHALL COME.—This continuous, successive septennial fertility and barrenness was brought about not by the force of the stars or of nature, but by the work of God, who loosed the Nile in the former seven years and held it back in the latter. Hence it could be foreknown and foretold not by astrologers but by God alone, as is plain from verse 16.
30. FOR THE FAMINE SHALL CONSUME ALL THE LAND—of Egypt and of the neighbouring regions.
confirms the former, which was about the same thing. At the same time this repetition of the dream signifies that the thing signified by the dream would soon be fulfilled in fact, as follows.
34 and 39. THE FIFTH PART OF THE FRUITS, etc. LET HIM GATHER INTO BARNS,—namely the public barns of the king, divided and distributed through the several cities. For other private rich men could each lay up their own corn; whence not all, at least in the first years of barrenness, felt the famine; and in famine men live more sparingly. The fifth part of the fruits of the seven fertile years, laid up in the king’s barns, sufficed therefore to relieve the public hunger of the poor and common people which followed. For with so great fertility the store of corn was very great and as it were innumerable, as is plain from verse 49. Finally, in the famine some crops also grew, especially near the Nile, but few, and these were therefore reckoned almost as nothing; so that it is said in chap. 45, verse 6: “there could be neither plowing nor reaping.” So all the Egyptians in this septennium of plenty were compelled by the king’s command to sell the fifth part of their fruits to the king, to be kept for the septennium of barrenness; or at least, as Tostatus holds, during this septennium of fertility the king forbade corn to be carried out of Egypt and sold to foreigners; and since there was a huge store of corn, some sold a fourth, others a fifth part of their fruits, and Joseph bought it up for the king.
35. 39. AND LET ALL THE CORN BE LAID UP UNDER PHARAO’S POWER.—Understand the corn to be not threshed nor beaten out, but still clinging to its ears, as is plain from verse 47. And this first, so that in this way the fodder of the beasts of burden, namely straw and chaff, may be laid up at the same time. Secondly, so that the corn itself may in this way be better preserved in its covering and stalks: for it must be kept for seven years; namely, so that what was laid up in the first year of plenty is to be dispensed and eaten after the septennium, in the first year of barrenness; what was laid up in the second year of plenty is to be eaten in the second year of barrenness; what in the third, in the third, and so on. For thus the corn could easily be kept uncorrupted through seven years. So Philo.
ALL THE CORN—of that fifth part already mentioned, which alone was to be kept.
40. AT THE COMMANDMENT OF THY MOUTH ALL THE PEOPLE SHALL OBEY (1).—In the Hebrew it is, all the people shall kiss at thy mouth, that is, the command of thy mouth shall be kissed and reverenced, and they will at once submit to it and gladly obey. So in Ps. 2:12, for “embrace discipline,” the Hebrew has “kiss the Son,” that is, reverence the Messiah, the Son of God, and receive him reverently, lovingly and obediently, as if you were kissing him.
Secondly, Vatablus renders: at thy command all the people shall take food, or shall be armed, as if to say: I appoint thee next after myself prince of Egypt in time of peace and war, that thou mayest be leader of the army. But the Hebrew word properly signifies to kiss; the former sense is therefore the genuine one (2). Whence the Chaldee renders: at thy word shall all my people be governed. The Septuagint has, like our version, “shall obey.” The Psalmist adds in Ps. 104:22 that Pharao “made him (Joseph) lord of his house, etc., that he might instruct his princes as himself, and teach his ancients wisdom.” From which place it is plain that the Egyptians, such as Trismegistus was, drew their wisdom and prudence from Joseph and the Hebrews. This will be plainer at Exodus 1:1, at the end.
See here how wisdom and virtue exalt and ennoble Joseph. Truly did Pope Urban say to one who reproached him with lowliness of birth: “Great nobles are not born, but made by virtue”; and the Emperor Maximilian to a rich man who offered him many thousands of gold pieces to be made noble: “I can enrich thee, but only thine own virtue can ennoble thee.”