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and most learned, the most experienced in "magic," and the most venerable in the
priesthood, that Pharaoh vainly related his dreams. Most wise truly in this world, yet
most foolish; most learned, yet most ignorant! What a contrast between the hoary lore
of Egypt and the poor Hebrew slave fetched from prison: they professedly claiming,
besides their real knowledge, supernatural powers; he avowedly, and at the outset,
disclaiming all power on his part, and appealing to God! A grander scene than this
Scripture itself does not sketch; and what an illustration of what was true then, true in
the days of our Lord, true in those of St. Paul, and to the end of this dispensation:
"Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? Hath not
God made foolish the wisdom of this world?"
And yet when we hear the interpretation through the lips of Joseph, how simple, nay,
how obvious does it appear, quite commanding Pharaoh's implicit conviction.
Clearly, the two dreams are one -the first bearing on the pastoral, the other on the
agricultural life of Egypt. The dreams are about the flocks and the crops. In both
cases there is first sevenfold fatness, and then sevenfold leanness, such as to swallow
up the previous fatness, and yet to leave no trace of it. The second dream illustrates
the first; and yet the first bears already its own interpretation. For the kine were in
Egypt reverenced as symbol of Isis, the goddess of earth as the nourisher; and in the
hieroglyphics the cow is taken to mean earth, agriculture, and nourishment. And then
these kine were feeding by the banks of that Nile, on whose inundations it solely
depended whether the year was to be one of fruitfulness or of famine. Equally
Egyptian is the description of the stalk with many ears, which is just one of the kinds
of wheat still grown in Egypt. But, we repeat it, obvious as all this now seems to us,
the wise men of Egypt stood speechless before their monarch! And what a testimony,
we again say, for God, when Joseph is "brought hastily out of the dungeon!" To the
challenge of Pharaoh: "I have heard of thee, to wit: Thou hearest a dream to interpret
it" - that is, thou only requirest to hear, in order to interpret a dream, - he answers,
simply, emphatically, but believingly: "Ah, not I" ("not to me," "it does not belong to
me"), "God will answer the peace of Pharaoh;"^63 i.e., what is for the peace of the
king. Nor can we omit to notice one more illustration of the accuracy of the whole
narrative, when we read that, in preparation for his appearance before Pharaoh,
Joseph "shaved himself." This we know from the monuments was peculiarly
Egyptian under such circumstances; whereas among the Hebrews, for example,
shaving was regarded as a mark of disgrace.
The interpretation, so modestly yet so decidedly given by Joseph, that the dreams
pointed to seven years of unprecedented fruitfulness followed by an equal number of
famine, so grievous that the previous plenty should not be known, approved itself
immediately to the mind of Pharaoh and "of all his servants." With this interpretation
Joseph had coupled most sagacious advice, for the source of which, in so trying a
moment, we must look far higher than the ingenuity of man.(See Matthew 10:18, 19)
(^)