Genesis
41:17 ¶ And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, In
my dream, behold, I stood upon the bank of the river: 18 And, behold, there came up out of the river
seven kine, fatfleshed and well favoured; and they fed in a meadow: 19 And, behold, seven other kine came up after
them, poor and very ill favoured and leanfleshed, such as I never saw in all
the land of Egypt for badness: 20 And
the lean and the ill favoured kine did eat up the first seven fat kine: 21 And when they had eaten them up, it could not
be known that they had eaten them; but they were still ill favoured, as at the
beginning. So I awoke. 22 And I saw in
my dream, and, behold, seven ears came up in one stalk, full and good: 23 And, behold, seven ears, withered, thin, and
blasted with the east wind, sprung up after them: 24 And the thin ears devoured the seven good
ears: and I told this unto the magicians; but there was none that could declare
it to me. 25 And Joseph said unto
Pharaoh, The dream of Pharaoh is one: God hath shewed Pharaoh what he is about
to do. 26 The seven good kine are seven
years; and the seven good ears are seven years: the dream is one. 27 And the seven thin and ill favoured kine that
came up after them are seven years; and the seven empty ears blasted with the
east wind shall be seven years of famine. 28
This is the thing which I have spoken unto Pharaoh: What God is about to
do he sheweth unto Pharaoh. 29 Behold,
there come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt:
30 And there shall arise after them
seven years of famine; and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of
Egypt; and the famine shall consume the land; 31 And the plenty shall not be known in the land
by reason of that famine following; for it shall be very grievous. 32 And for that the dream was doubled unto
Pharaoh twice; it is because the thing is established by God, and God will
shortly bring it to pass.
Pharaoh recounts
his memory of the dream to Joseph. With a little embellishment and adding some
emphasis, which is very human, he tells Joseph what was troubling him. There
are very few people who do not read back their thoughts into previous
experiences. Many Christians embellish upon the day they announced their belief
on Christ by reading back into that experience things they think should have
happened or wish had happened. We do the same thing with other events and
moments in our lives but we are often not honest enough with ourselves to admit
it.
These two dreams
are actually one dream explaining how God intends to provide Egypt with seven
years of plenty and then seven years of famine. The fact that God repeated this
theme to Pharaoh twice establishes it as a definite prophecy of the soon-to-be future.
This reminds you of how things are emphasized by God and in the Bible generally
and established as definite and not merely, ‘if you or they do this then I
(God) will do this,’ propositions. An example would be when Jesus says verily, verily from the word we also get
amen from when He is telling Peter of
Peter’s future martyrdom.
John
21:18 Verily, verily, I say unto thee,
When thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou
wouldest: but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and
another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not.
It is questionable
to make a doctrine out of one verse and can lead to error but when many verses
comment on a thing you can be sure that God has established it as an eternal
decree such as everlasting life, for instance, which is reflected clearly in many
verses.
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