Genesis 41:31

Pharaoh had dreamed of seven fat cows eaten up by seven lean ones, and then of seven full ears of grain swallowed by seven thin ones scorched by the east wind (Genesis 41:1–7). His magicians and wise men were all at a loss. Then the chief butler, who had forgotten Joseph (Genesis 40:23), remembered the young Hebrew who had interpreted his dream in prison (Genesis 40:8, Genesis 41:9–13). Joseph was brought straight from the dungeon, and before he explained anything he gave the credit away: “It is not in me: God shall give Pharaoh an answer of peace” (Genesis 41:16). So when he begins in verse 25, he speaks as a messenger, and the first thing he says is about God.

“The dream of Pharaoh is one.” The word for one, ʼechâd, means united or one, and Joseph uses it of two dreams. The cows and the ears of grain are two pictures of a single message, and he says so again at the end of verse 26: “the dream is one.” Since the two agree, Pharaoh has one future to prepare for, and the message holds together with nothing in it to doubt. Joseph calls it chălôwm, the ordinary Hebrew word for a dream, used both for the dreams of sleep and for dreams that carry a meaning from God.

Then he names its source: “God hath shewed Pharaoh what he is about to do.” The verb nâgad properly means to stand out in front, and so to make plain or declare. God has told the king plainly what is coming. In verse 28 Joseph says it again, “What God is about to do he sheweth unto Pharaoh,” and there the verb behind “sheweth” is râʼâh, to see, used in the sense of making someone see. The two verses share the English word “shew” while using two different Hebrew verbs, and together they say that God has declared his purpose and opened the king’s eyes to it.

The name for God in both verses is ʼĕlôhîym. It is plural in form, and when it names the true God it is read as a plural of majesty, usually with a singular verb. Joseph speaks of the one God to a king whose land worshipped many gods, and this God knows the future because he is the one who will bring it. “About to do” is the broad verb ʻâsâh, to do or make, and it is the same verb behind “God will shortly bring it to pass” in verse 32. Whatever comes to Egypt in the next fourteen years will be God’s own doing, and he has chosen to say so ahead of time.

This is the point Joseph makes first and repeats in verse 28, and Scripture says it of God again and again. Through Isaiah God says that he declares “the end from the beginning” and that “My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure” (Isaiah 46:10). Amos says, “Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets” (Amos 3:7). Daniel, standing before another troubled king, gave God the credit just as Joseph did: “But there is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets, and maketh known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days” (Daniel 2:28). God had spoken of the future to Joseph’s fathers as well, telling Abraham that his descendants would go down into a foreign land (Genesis 15:13) and meeting Jacob in a dream at Bethel (Genesis 28:12–15).

The scene itself teaches something. The wisest men of the most powerful court on earth could make nothing of the dreams, and a Hebrew slave fresh from prison explained them, because God chose to speak through him. God lifts up the humble and works through whom he pleases, even inside a pagan empire.

Joseph explains the doubling himself in verse 32: “it is because the thing is established by God, and God will shortly bring it to pass.” The repetition settles the matter. Under the law a matter was confirmed by two or three witnesses (Deuteronomy 19:15), and here God gives his own double witness. Pharaoh has every reason to believe the message and to act on it at once.

“The thing” is dâbâr, the common word for a word or saying, which also has the separate sense of a matter or affair. Here it means the matter Joseph has explained, the years of plenty and famine. The same word opens his summary in verse 28, “This is the thing which I have spoken unto Pharaoh.”

“Established” is kûwn, to stand upright, and so to be set up, fixed and made ready. God has already set this in place, and what he has fixed will stand. Numbers says, “God is not a man, that he should lie” (Numbers 23:19). A psalm says that the counsel of the LORD stands for ever (Psalm 33:10–11), and Jesus said that heaven and earth would pass away before his words did (Matthew 24:35).

Joseph reads the pictures one by one. “The seven good kine are seven years; and the seven good ears are seven years.” Kine are cows. The word for good, ṭôwb, is broad, and here it means healthy, well fed and full, the opposite of the “ill favoured” cows and “blasted” ears that follow. In verse 26 “seven” stands four times, and each set of seven matches a span of seven years.

The thin and ill favoured cows “that came up after them” are seven more years, and so are “the seven empty ears blasted with the east wind,” which Joseph names outright as “seven years of famine.” “Ill favoured” is raʻ, the common word for what is bad or evil, used here of cows wretched and ugly to look at. The ears are rêyq, empty and so worthless, with their grain gone. “Blasted” is shâdaph, to scorch. The east wind, qâdîym, was known in Egypt and Canaan as a hot, dry wind that withered crops, so the dream pictures the harvest burnt up where it stands. The cows “came up after them,” and the famine follows the plenty directly.

Verse 29 announces the good years: “Behold, there come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt.” “Behold” calls attention to the announcement. The verb bôwʼ is the everyday word for coming, and God’s word guarantees the arrival. “Great” is gâdôwl, great in size or intensity, and “plenty” is sâbâʻ, abundance or copiousness, the full measure that satisfies. Together they describe harvests so large that there would be a great deal to spare. “Plenty” in verses 29 to 31 and “plenteous” in verse 34 are all this same word. The plenty covers “all the land” (ʼerets) of Egypt. The name Mitsrayim is a dual in form and names Upper and Lower Egypt, so the whole country would share in the good years and then in the famine.

Egypt’s harvests depended on the yearly flood of the Nile, which watered the fields and left rich soil behind, and when the flood failed the people went hungry. Famine had already struck the lands of the patriarchs in the days of Abraham and Isaac. Scripture puts rain and harvest in God’s hand. In the law he promises rain in its season and the blessing of all the work of his people’s hands (Deuteronomy 28:12), and he warns that he can withhold the rain (Deuteronomy 28:23–24). A psalm praises him for causing plants to grow for man (Psalm 104:14), through Amos he reminds Israel of the famines he sent to warn them (Amos 4:6–9), and Jesus names famines among the signs of the end (Matthew 24:7).

Verse 30 describes the famine at its worst. The years “shall arise” (qûwm, to rise) after the plenty, and “famine” stands twice in the verse. The word râʻâb means hunger, from a passing want to a dearth across a whole land. “The famine shall consume the land” uses kâlâh, to end, finish or consume, as though the famine would eat the land away.

With “Now therefore” Joseph moves from what God will do to what Pharaoh should do, and his first counsel is about a person: “let Pharaoh look out a man discreet and wise, and set him over the land of Egypt.” “Look out” is râʼâh, the same verb that stands behind “sheweth” in verse 28. God has made Pharaoh see what is coming, and now Pharaoh must look carefully for the right man.

“A man,” ʼîysh, is one person, a single man to carry the whole charge. “Discreet” is bîyn, to understand or discern, to tell one thing from another, and “wise” is châkâm, wise in the sense of intelligent and skilful. Together they describe someone with sound judgment who can also get things done, which fourteen years of gathering and giving out a nation’s grain would demand. “Set” is shîyth, to place, and “over the land of Egypt” makes the charge as wide as the country.

Wisdom of this kind comes from God. Proverbs says that the LORD gives wisdom (Proverbs 2:6), Daniel praised the God who gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who understand (Daniel 2:20–21), and James tells anyone who lacks wisdom to ask God for it (James 1:5). Wisdom is a defence as money is (Ecclesiastes 7:12). When the early church chose men for a practical charge, it looked for men full of the Spirit and wisdom (Acts 6:3). The same need holds wherever people are given responsibility, in a family, a church or a nation.

Joseph describes the man without naming himself, and the man he describes turns out to be Joseph. Pharaoh heard the counsel and set Joseph himself over all the land (Genesis 41:37–44).

“Let Pharaoh do this” uses ʻâsâh once more, the verb of God’s own doing in verses 25, 28 and 32. God will do what he has shown, and Pharaoh is to do his part. Parʻôh, Pharaoh, is the general title of Egypt’s kings, and the plan needs his authority behind it. “Appoint” is pâqad, to attend to, inspect or appoint, and the “officers” are pâqîyd, overseers or superintendents, a related noun. The chief man would need many such men across the country.

“Take up the fifth part” is a single Hebrew verb, châmash, to take a fifth. Joseph proposes that a fifth of the produce be collected in each of the seven plenteous years.

Joseph’s story points ahead to Christ. Joseph was rejected and unjustly imprisoned, then raised to Pharaoh’s side to feed the hungry. Christ humbled himself to death on a cross, and God has highly exalted him (Philippians 2:8–11).

Joseph declared to Pharaoh what God was about to do. Jesus, the Word made flesh (John 1:14), declares the Father himself: “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him” (John 1:18). In him God has made known his purpose to gather all things together in Christ (Ephesians 1:9–10). He is the wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:24), the one “In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3).

Joseph stored grain against a famine of bread. Jesus says, “I am the bread of life” (John 6:35), and he offers living water to the thirsty (John 4:10–14). “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” (John 10:10). Joseph saved Egypt and his own family from starving, and Jesus saves his people from their sins (Matthew 1:21), so that whoever believes in him “should not perish” (John 3:16). In him we have redemption through his blood, according to the riches of his grace (Ephesians 1:7–8), and in him God was reconciling the world to himself (2 Corinthians 5:19). The famine in Egypt was “established by God” and came quickly, and Christ’s own promise is that he is coming quickly (Revelation 22:7). Of those he gathers it is said, “They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more” (Revelation 7:16–17).

God told a pagan king what he was about to do, and he did it to save life. The good years and the lean ones were both in his hand, and his warning came with wisdom for what to do about it. Joseph’s part was to tell the truth about God and then give sound counsel, and through that faithfulness Egypt was fed and Jacob’s family kept alive.

God has given us his word as plainly as he gave Pharaoh the dream, and its warnings and promises are as firmly established as the thing Joseph spoke of. Seasons of plenty come from him, and Joseph shows how wisely they can be used. Above all, the Christ to whom Joseph points is the bread of life, and he feeds all who come to him.